APPLICATION FOR ADMISSION

EXECUTIVE MASTER OF BUSINESS

ADMINISTRATION PROGRAM
YEAR 2019
Attach a passport
photograph here or
submit a photo image
with preferred
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400 x 514 pixels

Please type or print in ink.

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Family name / Surname First name Middle name Gender

LIU XXX-XXX Female Male
Place of birth Date of birth
Taipei City / /
(dd/mm/yyyy)

Nationality Present country of residence

TAIWAN R.O.C. TAIWAN
Home address Home telephone
+886-2- -
(country code)

Mobile phone
+886- - -
(country code)

E-mail

Preferred mailing address Home Work

(please select only one)

If you applied before, please give the year and details: None (yyyy)

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EMPLOYMENT

Current employer / firm

XXX XXX Software Technologies LTD.

Work address
XF, No.6, Sec.4, Xinyi Rd., Taipei 10683 Taiwan

Work telephone
+886- - -
(country code)

Nature of employer’s / firm’s activities

Develop new innovations based on the Software Blade Architecture, providing customers with
flexible and simple solutions that can be fully customized to meet the exact security needs of any
organization.

Current job title

General Manager/Taiwan
Date of commencement of current position
1/2016 (mm/yyyy)
Current responsibilities
1. In charge of Taiwan business
2. Develop and manage a rolling business plan for the Taiwan business and deliver targeted
increases in the market share, footfall, sales and profitability
3. Managing Distributors and Channel partners’ business plan to achieve company goal
4. Managing the sales/pre-sales team on a daily operation and performance management
5. Lead the execution of overall market business plans to meet or exceed KPI metrics (country
targets, goals and strategic objectives)

Invoice address (please select only one) Home Work

Please attach your curriculum vitae in English with the following information:
 Your full employment history
 Awards and professional distinctions
 Periods of residence abroad for the purposes of study or work
 Extra-curricular activities

REFERENCE

Name and position of the person at your place of employment you have asked to provide your
reference:
Khoo Bok Hwee
Director, CSP Sales
F5 Netwroks APAC

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EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND
ACADEMIC QUALIFICATION FROM UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES
Please list the official names of all colleges, universities or institutes attended.

University or institution From To Degree Major field

(yyyy) (yyyy)

Western Pacific University 2000 2001 Master Business Administration

OTHER PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

Institute or organization From To Qualification or award

(yyyy) (yyyy)

Circle of Excellence/APAC+Japan Sales

F5 Networks 2012 2014
Manager
Nortel Networks 2008 2009 Circle of Excellence/APAC Sales

LANGUAGE SKILLS Native Fluent Good Basic

English

OTHER TEST SCORES

GMAT, TOEFL, IELTS or other test scores are not minimum requirements to enter the Executive
MBA, however, if you have these scores please list them. Scores may be used to choose between
applicants who have met all the minimum entry requirements.

Test Date Score Total Verbal Quantitative Analytical

GMAT / writing
(mm/yy)

Test Date Score Total Speaking Listening Reading Structure/

TOEFL / Writing
(mm/yy)

Test Date Score Total Speaking Listening Reading Writing

IELTS /
(mm/yy)

Test Date Score Total

OTHER Name the test /
and provide the score details
(mm/yy)

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SELF-EVALUATION AND EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES
This application requires that you write 4 short essays in English, each one maximum one A4 page
long. Your answers will be used to learn more about you and your reasons for applying to enter this
program. The Admissions Committee considers your essay responses to be extremely important in
the selection process. Please be concise in your answers, but respond as fully and completely as
you feel is necessary.

In addition to answering the questions, you are expected to demonstrate the abilities to
 write English clearly in paragraphs
 describe career experiences
 present an argument

Please type the essays and use separate sheets of paper for each. Send the essays with your
completed application form.

SIGNATURE
The information presented in this application is true, accurate and complete.

8/3/2019
Date (dd/mm/yyyy) Signature

The Admissions Committee of the Aalto Executive MBA Program appreciates the time and effort
you took to complete this application.

A complete application includes

Application form
Curriculum vitae
Four essays
A recommendation from your employer
Official copies of academic degrees and transcripts

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ESSAY QUESTIONS

A. How will this Executive MBA degree help you to achieve your career goals?
Please outline your career objectives and how the MBA will help you to achieve them.

As a country manager of Taiwan in Check Point Software Technologies- a leading worldwide

Cyber Security Company, I am in charge of all Taiwan business including Sales, Technical
support, Marketing and Service team. We grew fast in the past 3 years and expecting to have
better growth in 2019; however, we are facing challenges from increase market share and
improve the productivitis.Therefore, how to achieve these 2 target will be a critical topic for me.

There are two objectives in terms of short and long to be discussed below.
1. Increase the market share (short term)
2. Business transformation (long trem)

To increase the market share is not so difficult for me as we did quite well in the passed 3
years; however, if we have to increase the market share by growing the business of 35% YoY
including 20% from new customers and 15% from new solution delivery and required to make it
happen year by year, that will be quite challenge for me. In order to make the plan, solve the
problem, take the correct actions and achieve the target, I think I will need to get more
professional knowledge and advancement.

My long term objective will be to have Business transformation in 2-3 years, I am thinking only
doing the transformation correctly can help me to achieve the goal of incrase the market share
and also have better productitives.
IT market is changing fast now, we can see more and more customers stop buying IT
equipment but move into cloud service; they don't invest on hardware purchasing but turn into
paying annuel fee for management service; more and more executives aware that security is
not only secure the infrastruture but also need to secure all the internet connection in the future.
According to that, how to fufill all the different requirement to those different customers will
need to do the business transforemation.

If I want to be successful for the long term objective, I definitely need to get more professional
knowledge from Aalto EMBA program in terms of Service Marketing, Strategy Management,
Risk & Crisis Management and Digital Strategy & Transformation…etc. I do believe I can study
and learn lots of idea, advancement, strategy, experience…during the EMBA program

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B. Why did you choose the Aalto Executive Education Executive MBA program?
Please discuss the primary advantages and disadvantages.

By one popular estimate, 65% of children entering primary school today will ultimately end up
working in completely new job types that don’t yet exist. What does that mean? It means In
such a rapidly evolving employment landscape, the ability to anticipate and prepare for future
skills requirements is increasingly critical for businesses, in order to fully seize the
opportunities presented by these trends—and to mitigate undesirable outcomes, It would be
necessary to recharged. Alought I have a MBA degree but that was 18 years ago and I think it
is a good timing to be refresched. I start to think if I should find some frofessional programs to
learn more and preparte for the future.

What do I want? What shold I learn? I want to improve myself to have better vision and
visibility for the market trend; I want to gain a more international business outlook; I want to
apply learning directly into the workplace not from books; I also want to gain a powerful global
network and definitly, I want to get a better education certification which from glogal top 100
university.

I do the research and find out that Aalto EMBA program will be the excellent choice for me if I
can take it. Considering the school reputation, Aalto university is not only presenting as top
school in Finland but also the global top 100 EMBA program in the world.
Aalto University Executive Education holds three respected accreditations: AACSB, AMBA,
and EQUIS certificates. This places it in the top 0.5 per cent of the world’s institutions. I like it
as it can help me to improve my education certification at first.

Secondly, I look into more detail of this EMBA program, "The Aalto EMBA program is
designed around the four major areas of Innovations, Leadership, Finance and Marketing,
with a special emphasis on Innovation and leadership in a global context. is approached from
a variety of perspectives with an emphasis on inventive strategies and novel business models.
Leadership covers a range of themes from self-leadership to leading and inspiring others". I
do believe I can learn more professional skills and experience through the professors and the
discussion during the class. As a country manager, I am always focusing on Innovation,
Strategy and Marketing, but I almost forget I do need to think about the leadership and also
consider the Finace. This program is going to offer me the overall business management I
need.

Finally, To create business value, leaders need to understand both the local and global
economies. Aalto EMBA combines TW and worldwide professors paticipanting this program
that make me feel more confidence of it. I can't go oversea to attend the international
University as I am based in TW, It is so exciting that Aalto EMBA program in TW also provide
worldwide professionals to paticipant the class and I think it will bring us a lot of different
knowledge and experiece.

In conclusion, I believe Aalto EMBA program will bring me as much as what I want and also
what I need, allowing me to fill knowledge gaps and tackle some of the most pressing issues
faced by today’s business.

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C. Describe both an achievement and an adverse experience from your professional or
personal life. What have you learnt from those incidents about your strengths and
weaknesses regarding setting and achieving goals, and working with others?

My previousluy job was a Taiwan sales manager in F5 Networks, the #1 global company that
specializes in application services and application delivery networking (ADN). I joined this
company in 2010, at that time, it was No.3 (~20% market share and only focus on
Finace+Enterprise sectors) in Taiwan market. My goal is to penerstate the Telco and
Government markets and help the company to become #1 market leader in Taiwan.

At first, we rebuilt the market awareness, we are not only selling hardware's company but also
provide the professional service with L7 application visibility, that make us to have big
difference to our major competitiors.
2nd, we terminaed the old and always dis-commited distritutor and sighed 2 value-added with
strong commitment distributors to work with us to deliver the high quality service in the marekt.
3rd, we demonstrated lots of Proof of Concept from worldwide successful case studies to
prove our capability in Telco and Government sectors. We got quite good satisfaction form
those customers and penetrate this market in 1.5 year.
4th, we invest more and more certification trainging to help our partners to be certified and
become trusted advisor to their customers.
5th, we provide exiciting incentive program to recruit competitor's partners to work with us to
provide more professional service to their customers.

In 2014, F5 gained the market share by 59% and becomes the #1 market leader in Taiwan. I
was awarded 2 times Circle of Excellence/APAC+Japan Sales Manager, my team contributed
60% of Taiwan revenue.

What I learned from that was we have to know what is our strength, I am experienced in sales
management in Telco and Government sectors for 10+ years in IT industry, so that I know
what I can do, make the clear goal and then make it happen. .

The adverse experience was I try to apply the country manager of F5 Taiwan but I failed as
below.

In 2015, my manager left the company and I expected I can be the one for her replacement. I
made a plan and presented to our worldwide directors, at that time, I only focus on what I had
done, what I contributed to the company and what I think we can do in the near future.

I was failed after 1 month competiton, they hired a county manager from a security company
(Check Point Software). In 2015, the company does not only focus on ADN business any
more but also seeking for the new business market. They invested a lot in security domain
and wished to increase the business from security market but I didn't aware that will happen
so soon at that time. I had never metioned what we see in the new market and of course, I
don't know how to do the business in the new security market.

What I learned was that my strength is making a good plan and doing good business with the
customers, but my weaknesse is I didn't have the good vision as a company leader and well
prepare for the future.

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D. Describe an ethical dilemma you have experienced. How did you manage the situation
and what were your feelings about it?

In 2013, 4G projects were the largest opportunitis in the market of Taiwan, and we spend lots
of time to convince the Telco customers to select our solutions v.s the other competitors. After
many times of presentation and Proof of Concept, we got Taiwan Mobile's recognition and
they introduced us to Nokia Networks. We met Nokia Networks and they said they are definitly
welcome but they will make the decision at the final stage.

2 days before the final bidding, Nokia told me that we are their 1st choice but they don't know
our solution well and decided to out source to one local system integration company and
asked us to cut down 15% price to win this deal. In that case, I got the price approval from
high executives, followed their conditions, and we won the deal.

My manager is HongKongese and always based in HK, when she reviewed this project in 1
week after we got this PO. She doubted that why do we have to go through a local company
which I am familiar with and gave them 15% margins in the last 2 days. I was so angry at that
time as we finally won this big project but I faced an ethics issue by my manager? It was
totally unacceptable and it broke the trusted base between she and me. It was the first time I
am thinking of leaving the company.

After several days calm down, I realized the problem must be because I have good
relationship with the local company and I didn't tell her at first, she might think of I did it on a
personal reason. To solve the problem, I talked with her openminded, invited her to visit Nokia
and asked them to help to explain the whole situation to her. The conclusion is I may have the
good relationship with the local company but they do much more business with the local
company than I do. We solved the ethical problem by open our mind to discuss it and find a
way to work it out.

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MARKET SURVEY – OPTIONAL

1. How did you find about the Aalto Executive MBA Program?
(Please select only one)

Direct mail
Personal contacts who?
Company recommendation who?
An article which publication?
An advertisement which publication?
Internet which WWW site? Face book
EMBA fair which fair?
Other what?

2. What made you decide to apply to this particular Executive MBA Program?
(You may select more than one option)

High academic standards International faculty Price

Internationally recognized program Networking possibilities Location
Other reasons (please describe)

MAILING ADDRESS

Please mail your complete application to the following address:

Aalto Executive Education Academy Pte Ltd

c/o Pan Asia International Education Center
9F., No.295, Sec.2, Heping E. Rd., Taipei City 106, Taiwan (R.O.C)

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