Daniel McCombe: a master of global business

Daniel McCombe’s family and friends are looking forward to seeing him collect his Master of Global Business degree at UVic’s November convocation ceremony. He has been away for a year living his dream and working in Germany.

McCombe is part of the first graduating class of MGB students—a new one-year master’s level degree—that sees students in the Sardul S. Gill Graduate School at the Gustavson School of Business study international business managment and leadership at three campuses around the world. They begin at UVic, then move on to the National Sun Yat-Sen University in Taiwan and finish at the Johannes Kepler University in Austria. Upon completion of his courses and an internship in Germany, McCombe landed a job with Mazda Motor Europe.

“An international career is what I wanted when I started the MGB,” says McCombe. As a veteran of an exchange term in Portugal and an international co-op work term in Germany, McCombe says living on the road was not a new experience.

“I was already in the mindset of staying abroad,” he says. “It’s a really challenging yet exciting time to be in trade finance, particularly in Germany,” says McCombe who’s an analyst in network development and finance. He and nine other members of the team negotiate between $1.5 billion and $2 billion Euros a year in financing with numerous global banking institutes on behalf of Mazda’s more than 2,500 European dealerships that are located across the continent from northern Russia to southern Spain.

“We’re a bit like a commercial bank—we help our dealers purchase wholesale inventory with better financing rates than they can get on their own. There’s also lots of travel,” says McCombe who found himself in Romania, Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands all within the first month on the job. It’s routine for him to be away from his desk building networks and alliances anywhere in the region.

McCombe credits both his BCom degree and subsequent MGB degree with giving him the ability to work in groups. “It’s one thing to motivate yourself, but learning how to motivate others, is something else. There is a lot of trust involved.” He also has a lot of praise for John Oldale, associate director of the MGB program who was tasked with anticipating and solving the challenges associated with running a new program. “John was always there for me,” says McCombe.

“I also found a wonderful mentor in Ernst Balla, director of leadership development with Voestalpine AG. We were completing a consulting project for the company and Ernst would always encourage us to reflect on the collaboration process. He knew getting the mix of Canadian, Taiwanese and Austrian students working together as a cohesive team was the real challenge. We’re still in touch.”

McCombe has lots of advice for other UVic grads thinking about the MGB program, or looking for a job outside Canada. He decided he would not place any geographic restrictions on his future for five years following the completion of his last term in Austria, and it’s a strategy he recommends to others. He thinks being in Europe was a key to launching his career with Mazda’s European headquarters.

“By physically being in Europe I overcame 80 per cent of the challenge of job seeking abroad and had all my energy to focus on the 20 per cent that really mattered: making a great first impression through face-to-face networking.”

He’s also finding his status as a Canadian and native English speaker a bonus, both at work and at home. His command of the language helps him communicate more precisely than those who speak English as a second language. It hasn’t hurt his “celebrity” either. A recent post on an online forum for expats to help him find a place to live netted him a TV gig. His ad was spotted by the casting director for House Hunters International who has decided to follow McCombe’s apartment hunting trials. Filming wrapped up at the end of October and will air on HGTV in the new year.

He will keep us posted though. Look for more of McCombe’s thoughts on living and working in Germany on his blog at danielmccombe.blogspot.com.