Dedicated to realising his dreams
GRADUATE Rishi Singh aims to use his recent academic achievement to inspire his sons to reach for stars.
“The bar has been set high and they understand there is no gain without any pain,” explained Singh, who graduated with his Masters in business administration via the Management College Of Southern Africa (MANCOSA) earlier this month.
“I was emotional when my baby told me after the graduation that he had been screaming for me from the crowd and wanted to know if I could hear him. This made all the hard work worthwhile.”
His parents, Ray and Kousilla, wife Arthi Singh and boys Mihir, 10, and Rihir, 3, attended.
The 37-year-old Newcastle resident chartered accountant of 17 years said he wanted to broaden his horizons in the accountancy and business fields.
“Education has an important place in my heart. After I matriculated, I did not have the finances to further my studies and was unable to secure a bursary. I took on two jobs, that each required I work seven days a week, to pay towards my CA degree.
“I recently realised that although I have solid experience and exposure in the fields of accounting, auditing, tax, economics and commercial law, to fully understand and equip myself with the full spectrum of business acumen I needed to embark on a generalist business strategy and management programme such as the MBA programme offered through MANCOSA.”
Singh, a financial accountant at a mining company, attained five (overall) distinctions and received a special award for the best research dissertation.
“My dissertation was an investigation into employee perceptions of talent management in the ferroalloys sector in South Africa. Although talent management has been in the spotlight for years, it is not supported at the highest levels within organisations and therefore not integrated in the organisational strategy and in the workforce.
“Via my study, it was also established that talent management is essential in propelling organisations to greater heights, ensuring personal satisfaction of employees, hence preventing the loss of talent.”
He said the MBA had honed his business acumen “allowing me insight into the operational, strategic and tactical spheres of business, thus affording me all rounded business knowledge”.
The difficult part of studying over four years, he added, was finding a balance between his work, family and studies.