Amanda Abraham

Find out how studying at the University of Birmingham helped Amanda achieve her career goals.
  • Amanda Abraham smiling to camera

    My Graduate Story

    My name is Amanda Abraham and I completed a Masters of Business Administration (Online) at the University of Birmingham.

    I work as a Product Development Officer at Chartered Professional Accountants (CPA) Ontario. I am responsible for the development of continuing professional education content across categories like AI, Emerging Technologies, Canadian Tax, Audit and Assurance, Accounting and ESG and Sustainability. Being a CPA member and a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, my role is to whet technical content, create learning strategies and curate appropriate, relevant and timely content.

A Day in my Life

I don't have a typical day and that is what I love most about my role. My daily tasks vary from storyboarding for e-learning production, developing content strategy materials for the executive team, leveraging my instructional design skills to build new hybrid programs and supporting with reviewing technical content.

 

My Journey to CPA Ontario

I was already working when I joined the University of Birmingham and I did a part-time distance learning MBA. I managed to get a job at Boston Consulting Group during my last year of the program and one of the criteria for getting that job was an MBA and after that my career really took off. I was headhunted for all consecutive roles from becoming the head of learning at Grant Thornton to U.S. Learning Manager in Scotiabank and now finally to a Senior Learning Manager at CPA Ontario.

 

My Birmingham Experience

I think it gave me the confidence to speak up even in areas that aren't my forte. The MBA gave me a broad enough collection of skills to speak intelligently about strategy, organizational behaviour and much more. I enjoyed the group presentations. They were so much fun and while there was no dearth of coordination problems, I can guarantee we loved every minute of it. There were also some great CV writing services and interview preparation courses. I would say that an MBA with UoB will only ever push you forward in your career.

 

 

My Achievements 

My thesis was my biggest achievement. I gave birth to my child just before my thesis and it was pretty crazy wrangling a new-born and trying to complete the course but my mentor was fantastic and I consider the grade I received an incredible achievement.