Upon leaving school, Mrs Simmonds was unsure what sort of career she wanted to take up and moved to Sydney to work. 

Now, she’s just completed an MBA (Master of Business Administration) and she wants everyone to know you can juggle both work and study, even if it’s not the first path you thought you would take.

On top of that, Mrs Simmonds has just moved home to Leeton where she is now working for a global company from the comfort of her house. 

“I grew up here and lived here until early 2004 … I didn’t do uni straight out of school,” she said. 

“I moved to Sydney, worked for about nine years and then I did my MBA after that (at Macquarie University).

“I did pretty well in my HSC – I just didn’t know what I wanted to do straight away.”

While completing her MBA, Mrs Simmonds had to juggle many balls in the air at the same time. 

Not only was she studying, but she changed jobs twice, purchased an apartment and got married. 

“So that definitely made it more challenging … some of the subjects were also quite challenging,” Mrs Simmonds said. 

The hard work and focus has now paid off for Mrs Simmonds. 

She gained her MBA and now with her husband they decided to return home to Leeton where they feel it is a much easier life and will be the best place to raise their children when they start a family. 

Mrs Simmonds is putting her MBA to good use.

She is currently employed by Hitachi Vantara, a subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd as a business process manager working for the global operational excellence team. 

Her job entails many global projects and her manager is based in Copenhagen. The rest of her team is based in the company’s head office in the USA. 

However, she is able to complete her work from her home office in Leeton and it’s a role she is loving each day.

So, what drove Mrs Simmonds to undertake her MBA studies? 

“At the time I was working with a company, which I had been with for about 10 years … I had about five or six different roles, but I felt I couldn’t go any further if I didn’t do some studies,” she said.

“It’s never too late to study or change your direction. 

“You don’t need to know straight out of school what you want to do.”

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