When Samira started out her International Business degree at\nUWE Bristol, she resolved to take on all the opportunities she could \u2013 both in\nand outside of the classroom. It has taken her to places and experiences she\u2019d\nnever have imagined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From tennis to TEDx<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFrom the outset my degree programme had great connections\nwith the outside world,\u201d says Samira. \u201cSo many organisations would come in to\ndeliver skills-based sessions, talk about the qualities they look for in\nemployees and answer our questions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it was a year-long sandwich placement in London that\nreally took her work experience to the next step. As IBM\u2019s Wimbledon game\nsupporter and devices manager, and subsequently part of the Match Analysis\nteam, Samira led presentations and talked tech with players, coaches and\ndelegates, including Lord Coe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A subsequent trip to Dubai provided a valuable insight into\noverseas operations, while an interest in languages saw Samira and a fellow\nintern co-found their own Learn a Language Scheme for IBM staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On returning to uni, Samira soon took on a new challenge in\nthe form of organising UWE Bristol\u2019s second-ever TEDx event. \u201cIt was a lot to\ndo in my final year!\u201d she says. \u201cBut I learned a lot about leadership and\nproject management, and it opened some amazing doors.\u201d The event attracted\nnoteworthy speakers and sold out on the night, receiving a 96% \u2018delighted\u2019\nscore from TED as a result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An international\nperspective on business<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Wanting to hone her leadership skills further, Samira\ndecided to stay on at UWE Bristol after graduation and study for an MBA. \u201cIt\nwas one of the best decisions I ever made,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was 12 months of very\nintense work, but it was eye-opening in the sense that it elevated everything\nI\u2019d learnt in my degree.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The course attracts students from all over the world, making\nit an ideal setting for sharing new ideas and practices, which Samira found\nparticularly valuable. Her hard work and commitment were recognised when she was\npresented with The Bristol Business School Award for Best Performance in the\nMBA on graduation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n New directions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n At the beginning of 2018, part-way through her MBA, Samira received\na message on LinkedIn. A recruiter for Just Eat, a leading global marketplace\nfor takeaway food delivery, liked the look of her profile, and wanted to see if\nshe was interested in a graduate role based at the company\u2019s tech hub in\nBristol. Samira jumped at the opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now several months into her new job, she\u2019s learning fast.\n\u201cAs a graduate associate product manager, I\u2019m the person who has to understand\nthe product inside out,\u201d she explains. \u201cIt\u2019s a really varied role – I have an\noverview of what the whole team\u2019s doing, ensuring we\u2019re all working together\nand making the right decisions to ensure we\u2019re delivering the service that\ncustomers expect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since arriving at Just Eat, Samira has been given the\nopportunity to learn how to code with CodeFirst:Girls, and has also joined Just\nEat\u2019s Women in Tech group – an internal employee network which aims to promote\nand encourage diversity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Outside of her day-to-day job, Samira also is also helping\nto inspire the next generation of tech talent as a Just Eat STEM Ambassador. As\npart of the programme, Samira is one of 80 Just Eat Ambassadors, working with\nyoung people across the country to encourage them to consider a career in STEM.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRight now my focus is discovering what kind of product\nmanager I want to be,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a world I didn\u2019t know existed till\nrecently, but I\u2019m very happy to start my career here and see where it takes me.\nHelping inspire others to do the same is really important to me. This industry\nis really exciting, and so long as you work hard, the opportunities are\nendless.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, she\u2019s accepted an invitation to join the Bristol\nBusiness School Advisory Board, so UWE Bristol looks set to continue to be an\nimportant part of Samira\u2019s life for a long while yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Samira started out her International Business degree at UWE Bristol, she resolved to take on all the opportunities she could \u2013 both in and outside of the classroom. It has taken her to places and experiences she\u2019d never have imagined. From tennis to TEDx \u201cFrom the outset my degree programme had great connections with … Continue reading “Alumni Case Study: Samira Abokor”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9,25,322,351,350,352,209,210],"class_list":["post-1578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-alumni","tag-bristol","tag-case-study","tag-international-business","tag-samira-abokor","tag-student-experience","tag-uwe","tag-uwe-bristol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/bristol-business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/bristol-business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/bristol-business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/bristol-business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/bristol-business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/bristol-business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1580,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/bristol-business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1578\/revisions\/1580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/bristol-business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/bristol-business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/bristol-business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/bristol-business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}