Don Scott, MBA Full Time, 1975-1976

My MBA totally changed my life. Prior to my studies at the Business School, I had been a technical manager for a chemical company. After Business School, I worked as a Corporate Planner for the Wiggins Teape Group, as Marketing Director for Wiggins Teape Converters and as Managing Director for Harveytile, an Abercom company from which position I retired to take up a lecturing position at Wits University while completing my PhD.

Thereafter I worked as an academic in New Zealand and Australia and as a non-executive director of a Credit Union before retiring as a Professor of Management and becoming, for Southern Cross University, Emeritus Professor.

Teaching staff at WBS whose names I remember were McGregor in Accounting, John Buss, Prof Biesheuvel, Mark Lampert, Prof Sichel, Charles Diamond and David Limerick. We also had some very impressive guest lecturers – Abe Schuchman, from the USA, who I remember sitting on the table at the front of the class, chain smoking and asking questions only to destroy anyone who was brave enough to respond and who was a fabulous marketing teacher.

Although the philosophy in those days seemed to be to load students as much as possible, presumably to make them able to deal with stress in a business situation, there were a few occasions where the class was able to get together on a social outing such as one that I remember as a visit to a golf driving range.

However, in general there was little time to relax and assignments often required students to work late into the night in order to be able to hand in the following day. This experience did actually serve me well in later years in business when I was able to handle urgent issues with some aplomb.