Designed with the needs of busy professionals in mind, the globally-ranked UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School Executive MBA (EMBA) is delivered flexibly over two years and allows students to juggle demanding careers and busy family lives with their studies. It is particularly suited to ambitious mid- to senior level professionals seeking to round out their skill sets in order to progress or even change careers.
After a stellar career with the Defence Forces and having reached the rank of lieutenant colonel, Sharon McManus wasn’t really thinking of a career change when she started her Smurfit EMBA course in 2023. But then it happened.
“Almost immediately after I started the programme, I started to see the bigger world and other opportunities,” she recalls. “I started asking myself if I was really having the impact I wanted to have.
“The MBA Leap [Leadership and Employability Advancement Programme] module included a session with a careers coach early on in the course,” she continues. “I wasn’t necessarily intending to leave the Defence Forces, but I had spotted the head of sustainability role in ESB, not thinking I would get it if I applied. The Leap approach helped me prepare for it. I might not have even applied for the role and certainly wouldn’t have been prepared for the application process – especially my CV – without the MBA course.
“That is one key thing that I have got from the course: the confidence to apply for a senior leadership role in a new organisation and the necessary support to prepare for that. It’s an amazing opportunity to have an impact on an area that is so fundamentally important for the country and the economy.”
McManus began her Defence Forces career in the late 1990s as an 18-year-old cadet. On completing her cadetship, she was attached to the 1st Field Artillery Regiment for two years before taking a civil engineering degree at the University of Galway.
That led her to the Corps of Engineers and further training. “You need to upskill very quickly in different disciplines and become much more multifaceted in areas like mechanical and electrical and environmental engineering. That prepares you for crisis management in an overseas deployment context. You have to be prepared for things like clearing unexploded bombs and ordnance and inspecting and assessing bridges and other infrastructure in places where you’re stationed overseas.”
A master’s degree in sustainable energy engineering from UCC in 2008 was followed by a new role as the Irish Defence Forces’ first ever national energy manager, covering all aspects of energy use and efficiency in the organisation. That was followed by promotion to commander of the 2nd Field Engineer Company before she moved to Brussels in 2014 for a stint with the European Defence Agency (EDA) as environmental project officer.
“I was involved in some very interesting projects with the EDA,” she says. “I came back to Ireland in 2017, and I was asked to lead a feasibility study to set up an R&D capability for the Defence Forces. Later on, I did the senior staff course, and my thesis was on defence force capability development. I was then asked to do a similar project for the Department of Defence.”
A long-standing interest led her to the Smurfit EMBA. “I’m a big fan of education and had been thinking about doing an MBA throughout my career. I was very interested to know more about financial and management accounting, for example. Also, I had been in leadership roles since I was 20 and I was very interested to see how thinking had evolved in that area. I knew a few people who had studied at Smurfit and the school has such a great reputation. I applied for the programme in 2023 and was awarded the Image Media Scholarship.”
The programme lived up to all her expectations. “I’m starting to get a bit nostalgic now that it’s nearly over. I will no longer see the classmates and teams I’ve been working with. I’ve really enjoyed sitting in class absorbing information and learning from classmates from different sectors and backgrounds. The peer learning is great.
“Coming from a Defence Forces background I had a lot of experience in leadership and HR and so on, so there wasn’t a huge leap there. But there was in finance. I need that knowledge in my new role. ESB is heavily dependent on finance to fulfil its mission. Understanding the intricacies of corporate finance, the trade-offs that have to be made, ESG [environmental, social, and governance] reporting requirements and so on. I could have struggled in the new role without the knowledge of finance I gained during the MBA. The networking opportunities are really valuable as well. Even now, I find I am able to reach out to Smurfit MBA alumni and they have been really supportive. I would absolutely highly recommend it to others.”
Applications for UCD Smurfit School Executive MBA Programme are now open
The UCD Smurfit School Open Evening is on Wednesday February 5th
