Geraint Roberts
MSc Operational Research, 2012
Financial Controller at Simply Scuba Ltd
I am a Chartered Management Accountant and had been working for several years in various finance roles. With datasets growing ever larger in almost every industry, I found that the traditional management accountancy skills were often becoming limited in their relevance.
I wanted to study for a higher degree in a respected institution, and I considered several programmes that appeared to meet my requirements, such as mathematics, statistics, economics, and management. However, I was attracted to operational research because it has such breadth of scope as an applied science in the real world.
My choice of institution and programme was governed by two key criteria. Firstly, it was important to me that the programme was run from a business school – in principle, I wanted to pursue a business degree. Secondly, I wanted to acquire a toolkit to apply within my field of work – I didn’t want to be an operational researcher, but rather to use the skills.
The course offered a great combination of theory and practice. In particular, links with industry featured throughout the course in the form of case studies and projects, a useful way to see the benefits of OR in many sectors.
I was jointly awarded the prize for the best overall performance on the course. Furthermore, I won the Operational Research Society’s prize for the best student project, evidence of the quality of the teaching and supervision.
Today, I am the Financial Controller in an ecommerce retailer. I’m currently working on a project to implement two IT systems that will vastly improve our data quality and will improve decision support throughout the business.
