Department of Management FB2300 Management

Individual Assignment Hand-in Cover Sheet and Declaration

ALL STUDENTS MUST ATTACH THIS PAGE AS A FRONT COVER OF THEIR ASSIGNMENT. NO PLASTIC COVER JUST STAPLE IT IS FINE.

Student ID Name Year Major Lecturer Tutor Name: Name: Session No. Session No.

Acknowledgement of the Rules concerning Academic Honesty & Plagiarism: I undertake that the assignment presented here is my own work and is, with the exception of attributed quotations, written in my own words. All quotations have been placed within quotation marks and referenced. I have not copied or paraphrased the words of any author, published or unpublished, without attribution. I understand if I commit such wrong doings may result in zero coursework grade and further disciplinary action.

Date:

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Signature:

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I) MY INITIAL CAREER ASPIRATION

Hong Kong is one of the worlds leading international financial centres in the world, with her capitalist system and highest concentration of banking institutions. Her competitiveness makes the region develops the financial system successfully. After my university studies, I would like to work at Hong Kong Standard Chartered Bank as my career. This large multinational company is one of the best universal banks worldwide, with long history of banking experience. She continuously develops huge customer bases over regions such as Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Company Background This bank has operated and provided her banking and financial services for over 150 years. She was named Standard Chartered Bank after the integration in 1969 by two banks: The Standard Bank of British South Africa and The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China. She then became an integrated bank and headquartered in London, United Kingdom. With her horizontal integration strategy, which is to expand by acquisitions and alliances in the same industry (e.g. Union Bank, American Express, Vietnam's Asia Commercial Bank), she captures large amount of market shares from her competitors and spreads the business around the globe geographically in a rapid rate.

In the early 1990s, Standard Chartered Bank started to emphasize on developing operations in regions with high population such as Asia, Africa and the Middle East. She operates in more than seventy countries with 1700 branches and offer different kinds of consumer, corporate & institutional banking and treasury services.

On 1 July 2004, Standard Chartered Bank completed the local incorporation of its Hong Kong businesses. The wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Chartered PLC operates as a licensed bank and named Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited in Hong Kong. The bank has high reputation in Hong Kong and became one of the three commercial banks licensed by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to issue Hong Kong banknotes.

Organization Structure Because of numerous branches and outlets around the globe, Standard Chartered Bank use geographic departmentalization to group the areas up on the basis of territory (Asia Pacific, Africa, the Middle East, United Kingdom & Europe, the Americas). The company can then manage and control the worldwide business easier by decentralizing the business to different regions. Besides, the regions divide the market up by customer departmentalization, according to different needs of customers served by the bank (Personal Banking, Preferred Banking, Priority Banking, Private Banking, SME Banking, Wholesale Banking). In this way the company can specialize to provide specific products and services according to their common needs directly and effectively.

Mission, Values and Goals Her mission is to build a long-term business with high sustainability and be trusted globally by maintaining high standards of corporate governance, social responsibility, environmental protection and employee diversity. Her values are Courageous, Responsive, International, Creative and Trustworthy. Her goals are to be the best universal bank of the world and lead the way in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Desired Functional Role My career goal is to become a credit risk manager in Hong Kong Standard Chartered Bank. For a graduate of College of Business with a BBA (Hons) in Quantitative Finance and Risk Management, it will be a competitive advantage for me to engage in the banking and finance market, especially for positions that manage risks. I can apply those analytical skills learnt from school, and also the experience gained from my part time job and internship program offered by banking and financial institutions into the job. I am interested in this position as managing credit risk is a profession that offer me challenging tasks and steady salaries. The main duty of this position is to deliver analytic solutions to address regulatory or senior management requests, support risk management and credit operation functions, monitor and forecast the loss impairment figures, formulate local credit policies, and make preventive measures to minimize credit risk and compliance risk by coordinating with other departments.

Human Resources Practices Standard Chartered Bank emphasizes to provide great workplace and engaging environment to employees. People engagement, which helps to drive employees performance and productivity, is one of the main focuses of the human resources department, and also become the culture of the company. The bank has put much effort on designing the remuneration policies to satisfy the variety needs of employees, including performance-based rewards, profit sharing plans and other non-financial rewards. She was named as an "Employer of Choice" at the prestigious Hong Kong HR Awards in 2008, and also won the Gallup Great Workplace Award by The Gallup Organization in 2008 and 2009.

II) SKILLS AND ABILITIES REQUIRED

Technical Skills The requirements of being a credit risk manager in Standard Chartered Bank are quite demanding. The bank will prefer a university graduate with a degree in Business or Risk Management, and with strong quantitative, analytical and creativity skills. Certain banking experience knowledge in managing credit risks is needed, such as working knowledge of Basel II, SAS and other statistical tools, credit modelling development and portfolio management, in order to manage the lending business well by calculating risks with sufficient technical skills.

Human Skills A credit risk manager should develop strong relationships with senior management level, colleagues and other analytic teams in the bank. Good interpersonal skill is a must, as the manager has to present, communicate and interact with various businesses. Standard Chartered Bank is a large multinational company, which employs staff of various kinds of nationalities. The manager should be able to have strong language skills on English, Putonghua and Cantonese, in order to communicate with others accurately and precisely. Besides, as paper work is essential in banking institutions for worldwide communication and record use, good writing skill in English is also needed.

Personal Skills The position also requires the applicant to work with high independence, high pressure and tight schedule, in a challenging and fast-changing environment. Therefore, it is very important for the person with emotional intelligence, selfmotivation, drive to learn,alertness, honest and sincerity.

III) GAP ANALYSIS

As I am an undergraduate studying BBA degree program in Quantitative Finance and Risk Management, it is not so difficult for me to meet the basic entry requirement after I graduate in the coming years. The program provides me comprehensive knowledge on quantitative skills on finance and risk management skills, including courses such as Security Analysis and Portfolio Management, Risk Management Models, Regulation and Management of Financial Institutions.

Although these courses makes qualified in the technical skills required in the job, there are still certain number of students studying the same or related programs going to compete with me. To differentiate myself from others and have competitive advantage over them, I have to obtain excellent academic result. This will be very impressive, which shows my willingness and ambition to learn, and also the concrete knowledge on risk management that can be applied in the job.

Besides academic aspect, which provides me basic knowledge on technical skills for the position, I should also acquire sufficient working experience in the banking and financial institutions. In 2008, I joined Hong Kong Standard Chartered Bank as a Branch Assistant to receive and offer help on general customer enquiries, and handle back office documentary jobs. From this experience I got better knowledge on daily operations of banking institutions and wide variety of banking products and services. In 2010, I participated in a Mentorship Program and work as a Trainee in Convoy Financial Services Limited, which provides me strong knowledge on the sales operation of financial products and services. These make me more familiar with the banking and financial institutions than others, however, it is still not sufficient to make me capable of a position in credit risk management.

In the business world, communication is essential as it helps to deliver messages, make people understand and provide way to response. It is also very essential for a credit risk manager to have sufficient human skills, as there are many occasions for him/her to communicate with other members in the company and present the work to the manager. As a native speaker of Cantonese, it is not a problem for me to communicate with other local colleagues.

My language skill in English is fair, as I acquired a D Grade in Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination and Grade 4 in Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination. This is not adequate for me to compete with others, as there are many English proficient students all over the world. Taking an international public exam on English Language will bring employers confidence. The rapid growth in economic development of Mainland China increases the importance of Putonghua. I am quite unsatisfactory with my language skill in Putonghua, as I did not take any related public examinations and I seldom practice this language in daily life.

Nevertheless, language skills are not the whole part of human skills. Relationship building, leadership and team building skills are also important characteristics for being an excellent manager. As a Financial Committee Member of Students Union Council, I am responsible to monitor and audit the financial situation of the clubs, societies and associations under Students Union, and I have to work in teams with other committee members and sometimes as an individual. From this experience I have learned much in human skills, but I think this is still incomparable with the actual workplace in a company with such a large scale and high complexity in nature.

IV) ACTION PLAN

I have set an academic goal, which is to achieve 3.5 Grade Per Average and 1st Class Honour in the bachelors degree program, in order to make my academic result impressive to my employer. To meet this goal, I have to acquire B+ grade or above in every course throughout my university life. Although this will be very demanding, it is very critical for me to become competitive and distinguish among outstanding students from various local and overseas universities.

Moreover, I am going to apply the Wholesale Banking Internship Program organized by Hong Kong Standard Chartered Bank in the coming summer, so I can take part in credit risk management and gain practical experience. These experiences can enhance my technical knowledge in Basel II, SAS and other statistical tools, credit modelling development and portfolio management. Besides technical knowledge, human skills can also be trained in the challenging workplace, including relationship building and team building, so as to make me capable of the credit risk manager position in the future. It is a rare opportunity that offered internship for undergraduates by the credit risk management of a banking institution, so I have to treasure this precious experience if I can apply it successfully.

To prove my language standard for my future employer, I will applyInternational English Language Testing System (IELTS) and set a score of 7.5 as my target. To train my communication skills and get interaction with people from different cultures, I will join the Exchange Program and study in an overseas university for one semester. My preferred places for exchange are USA and European countriesThe

requirement is to achieve 2.7 Grade Per Average or above, pass the exchange interview and have an IELTS score 6.5 or above.

V) ARTEFACT PLAN
To represent my skills and abilities, I will use several useful certificates as evidence. The Certificate of Bachelors Degree provides evidence that I have studied BBA (Hons) in Quantitative Finance and Risk Management in City University of Hong Kong, which also shows the 1st Class Honour in the program. With this evidence, my employer will have confidence on my technical knowledge of analytical skills.

To represent my working experience in the credit risk management, I can show my Certificate of Internship Program issued by Standard Chartered Bank. With this certificate, my target employer will recognize my practical experience and royalty on the company.The Certificate of Appointment as Students Union Financial Committee member will show my willingness and attitude on bearing responsibilities, abilities on working in teams as well as individual.

The IELTS Certificate, which shows my score of 7.5, can represent my English proficiency and communication skills with international acceptance. To represent my willingness and abilities to interact with different cultures, I will present the Certificate of Exchange Program, which proves that I had studied in an overseas university. I can have an advantage in communication as Standard Chartered Bank has employees from various nationalities and cultures.

VI) REFERENCE
Standard Chartered Bank Public Limited Company http://www.standardchartered.com

Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited http://www.standardchartered.com.hk