Zuricka Azavedo

Zuricka Azavedo originally dreamed of becoming a pilot, flying a Cessna 152 Aircraft during high school and then enrolling in Aviation School. However, the cost of lessons proved inhibitive.

Instead Zuricka opted for an Information Technology career. After gaining a Bachelor of Computer Science from Karnataka University, she worked at an American call centre in Bombay. However she soon realised in order to attain her professional goals she needed to further her qualifications and gain some international business experience.

With this in mind, she chose New Zealand, enrolling in a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in International Business at AIS St Helens.

18 months on, Zuricka�s now completing the final stages of her research project which looks at the barriers the wine industry faces in regards to conducting their business on-line. At the same time she�s got an excellent job working full-time in the IT sector for TradeNZ, a government agency which helps New Zealand export to the world, through a TradeNZ Internship. �Currently I assist the account manager and offshore posts, training them in how to use the marketnewzealand.com system. The job is fun. It�s a small team and all the people are really supportive. It�s really good to have relevant business experience as well as my MBA qualification.�

The AIS St Helens MBA can be completed full-time over two weekends per month for 15-months. Although Zuricka found aspects of her studies difficult, she said it was also very valuable. �It�s hard to absorb everything in two days worth of classes and then go back home and read books about it. But if you know what modules you want to concentrate on, it�s really fun and it definitely gave me a proper picture of what international business is all about.�

With qualifications and experience, Zuricka is well on her way to realising her goal of becoming a business analyst. She also plans to open her own company giving e-commerce solutions to small businesses, first in New Zealand and then overseas.