Oxford Odyssey

Author: cowleycorporateclimbers

  • Startup ecosystems

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    Oxford has a superb entrepreneurial ecosystem. Casting our eyes out, many exist overseas outside of the UK as well. You want to be in an environment that has people building together – just as peers who pressure-test ideas, suggest new avenues for resources, or just give you that motivation to survive one more day. You…

  • The lean startup

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    Before university, I spent hours meticulously crafting business plans for ideas that excited me: edible insect farms, automated restaurants, and drone delivery networks. These plans were my prized possessions, backed up across multiple storage devices like precious relics. Diving into new industries and dissecting the intricacies that made them commercially promising was thrilling. I relished…

  • Debt – good or bad for a company?

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    As a kid, I loved the Suze Orman show. My favourite segment involved callers asking Suze Orman if they could make a purchase, and Orman would tear into the obviously irresponsible purchases with a “DENIED”. Most financial advice recommends that consumer debt should be kept down. There are some quibbles over good and bad debt,…

  • When Good Customer Service Becomes Complex – And Why AI Chatbots Can Be Frustrating

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    Contextual ServiceStarbucks is often cited as the epitome of a customer-focused business, inspired by Howard Schultz’s vision of fostering community around coffee. Sitting in Gail’s as I write this, I can’t help but reflect on how many of us equate good service with the cheery greetings and casual chats we share with baristas. However, good…

  • Climate Change – explained in economics

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    Climate change has been acknowledged for many years now. A majority of people (about 70% of the population across the Western hemisphere) believe that it is a problem. It’s an impending catastrophe with a solution that is completely within grasp. The problem is man-made, and can hence be stopped if we had the willpower to…

  • Game Theory

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    Game theory is about anticipating the reactions of the other party and making your move based on that reaction, projecting it out into the future. However, it is often reduced to iconic examples like the Prisoner’s Dilemma, a scenario so frequently cited that it risks trivialising the depth and breadth of this field. While the…

  • Mergers & Acquisitions: How a company can be less than the sum of its parts

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    I blame both Spring Week and Summer Associate recruiting for the number of times I told an interviewer that M&A was my passion and intellectual calling. I had to read up on so many deals – looking at each bank’s transactions and picking one to express my amazement at the genius of such a deal.…

  • The Signalling Problem in Higher Education: Why Gen Zs in University have it tough

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    Is a university degree still worth it? For many in Gen Z, the question feels more urgent than ever. Despite skyrocketing tuition fees and growing student debt, university enIs a university degree still worth it? For many in Gen Z, this question shakes the once-unquestionable value of further education. Many were told growing up that…

  • Tips on changing your job

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    Feel like you’ve outgrown your job and thinking of moving on? We’ve all been there. Around the one-year mark, I found myself in the same situation. I realised I would need to make a change sooner or later, so I thought, why not sooner? But there’s a fine line between making a timely move and…

  • Finance – Why we should look to new asset classes in our career

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    Disclaimer: This is not financial advice – just my thoughts about how I would structure my buyside career. In the early days of private equity, firms like KKR were trailblazers in a largely untapped market. Their landmark deal buying RJR Nabisco in 1989 set the tone for what private equity could achieve, delivering staggering returns.…