From classroom to boardroom in less than seven years

After graduating with an MSc Entrepreneurship at Nottingham University Business School in 2009, Alex Grace joined family business Banana Moon Clothing undertaking various roles and is now Managing Director of the company. During the same period the business has trebled in size and Alex was recently listed in the Yorkshire Business Insider's '42 under 42' list.

We recently caught up with Alex to ask him about the phenomenal success of Banana Moon, what challenges the company faces and how his time at the Business School helped to develop his career.

"The aim of my university education was to provide a grounding that would help me when I joined the family business. The Business School took me from naive student to professional graduate full of confidence and eager to get started in the outside world. Although my learning since university has been incredible, the Business School gave me the skills to progress quickly. How to research, how to set strategy and stick to it, how to hone my creative instincts and how to work closely with bright people to channel ideas for the good of our business.

I first joined the company as marketing manager, then became a director and shareholder. Now I am the Managing Director of the company and as MD of an SME, I get to do a bit of everything! Every day is totally different, new challenges appear and my work is never done. I also really enjoy working with the people we have here at Banana Moon, we continue to mould our team with some excellent people. We have great fun doing what we do."

What are the main challenges in the business?

"Staffing is definitely the biggest challenge. Growth brings new staffing needs all the time and recruiting skilled staff with the right attitude is challenging. Implementing good training programmes and upskilling staff, ironing out any day to day issues which can be work related or personal and finally motivating every member of staff to reach their potential and live and breathe and the Banana Moon brand. But it is all worth it and there are many rewards, for example, the website we’ve worked tirelessly on is currently nominated for Fashion/Apparel E-commerce website of the year amongst some seriously big household names."

Why did you choose to study MSc Entrepreneurship and why specifically at Nottingham University Business School?

"The course appealed to me due to the diversity of each module. This meant that the year would be really varied, fast paced and would keep my interest throughout. Being fortunate enough to know my end goal of my employment at the end of it, the skillset I would gain would assist me greater than any other course.

I fell in love with Nottingham University Business School as soon as I visited the campus, it was so different to other campuses I’d visited being so modern and eco-friendly but also has really peaceful feel to it. I met Professor John Perberdy, who was so welcoming and his passion for the course meant I knew studying there would be good for me. The school also ranks excellently for business courses as I wanted to ensure I would receive the best possible tutoring for my future career.

Strangely, my fondest memory is the module presentation days we would have as part of the formal assessment. Normally, presentation days are pretty daunting but I had some amazingly bright course mates and we took the projects really seriously. It helped that the subject matter was interesting and fun too. The presentations were just the culmination of all that hard work and it gave us the moment to show to everybody the creative ideas and work we’d done. The feeling of achievement after a good presentation and the growing confidence I felt after each one was special."

 Why would you recommend studying at Nottingham University Business School?

"The campus is beautiful, the tutors extremely professional and also great people. The cohort the school attracts is a fantastic range of people from countries all over the world. The differing ideas and customs they have relating to business in particular are fascinating to learn from.

My advice to others about to start on a course  here would be to make sure you are clear on what it was that you want to get out of the course and where you want to be at the end. The world of employment and working life is eye opening no matter what qualifications you have gained, so making sure you are prepared for that is key. Don’t go in to the course with a lax attitude, higher education isn’t a cheap pursuit so make sure you are the one who is going to stand out of the crowd in employment and make the most of the learning and experience gained."

How important is remaining connected to your alumni network?

"I still keep in touch with a few of my fellow alumni, fairly regularly catching up when in the same city or even re-living our days in Nottingham and heading to a few of the old haunts.

The alumni network means I can keep in touch with the great friends I made in Nottingham and even use those contacts to do business together as I have already done in the past. We connect mainly through LinkedIn now. It’s great to see how successful everybody has been. Some seriously great careers have formed from the Business School. The regular newsletters ALSO keep me up to date with everything going on and make me still feel a part of something that I was very proud to be involved with.

Whenever I am in Nottingham I always make sure to drive through the campus. There is always a new funky building or feature which catches my eye. Always developing and improving."