Scholarship / The concept of leadership was first instilled in me during my undergraduate studies. [3]

Chevening Application - Leadership and Influencing Essay

The concept of leadership was first instilled in me during my undergraduate studies. I rose through the hierarchy from being Sub-Treasurer to President of our academic organization. The leadership role provided me a platform to spearhead the tutorial initiative wherein senior students would tutor their junior peers in accounting subjects. The said initiative was unique to our organization as it provided students supplemental learning activities in handling their accounting subjects. In addition, interactions with students, professors, and university officials improved my people management skills. There was a time that I had to convince our University President to allow the entire senior class to participate in an academic conference as the university had a policy of sending only the contestants to attend said conference. I had to justify the need of my peers to attend said conference not only academically but it would serve as an avenue for future professionals to interact. Ultimately, the senior class was allowed to attend.

Under my leadership, our organization placed second in the competition for the Best Academic Organization in the college. Though being new to the leadership role, I developed the values of management and responsibility and realized that I have a natural inclination to be a leader.

In my work at the xxxxxx I do offsite supervision of financial institutions specifically banks. One of my main roles in the central is formulating an appropriate supervisory strategy that is commensurate with the risk profile exhibited by the bank. The assessment of the risk profile is done quarterly for problem banks and semi-annually for non-problem banks. After devising the supervisory strategy, it is my job to justify the strategy to higher management for implementation. It is a constant exercise wherein I use my people management skills to justify the supervisory strategy. Though disagreements are rare in the job, there was an instance wherein I stood my ground as to the appropriate supervisory strategy I devised for my bank.

Scholarship / Receiving the Chevening scholarship would enable me to nurture existing networks [3]

Chevening Networking Essay

Hello everyone, hoping to receive your comments regarding my essay.

Over the course of four years working at xxx, I was able to develop and maintain a professional network both within and outside the organization. My network consists of account officers from various departments of the xxx, senior officers of banks and classmates from my first masteral degree.

Information is vital to an organization and knowing who you know in the xxx would make it easier to have an access to such information especially in processing requests from banks. When one processes a request from a bank, the account officer prepares the memorandum on his own. The xxx does not maintain a database of previous requests processed and thus each account officer strategizes in processing the Bank's request. This is where knowing who you know expedites the processing of such request. If you know your respective account officers' banks and the requests that they have processed, you could request for the memorandum that they have prepared relative to the Bank's request. In one instance, I was able to prepare a memorandum in one day relative to request for delisting of a former employee of the Bank as compared to an average five days if I did not request if from a fellow account officer in my network.

Second, it is a requirement as an account officer of a Bank to continuously engage the officers of the Bank you are supervising. Aside from the usual professional interaction, I was able to connect with the officers on a personal level. For example, asking how they are working for the Bank and the difficulties their current jobs entail. By having that connection, the officers have become more open and transparent as to future activities and news regarding the Banks under my supervision. With first-hand information, I am able to develop supervisory strategies earlier as to address possible issues from the Bank's future activities and news.

Lastly, during my master's degree in Finance, majority of my classmates were from the banking sector with jobs ranging from analyst to managers. By developing this network, I get a feel as what their impression is of the xxx as a regulator especially when it releases new issuances with regard to the banking sector. Having that conversation and future ones, I am able to develop comments regarding future issuances of the xxx as my peers before would give inputs with regard to the issuance.

Receiving the Chevening scholarship would enable me to nurture existing networks by sharing what I will be learning from my masteral degree. Moreover, it would also enable me to create new ones by being more engaged in the future.

Scholarship / My interest in capital markets, banking and finance, second master's degree - Chevening [3]

Chevening - Three University Courses

My initial interest in capital markets and finance started with taking up subjects in Mathematics of Finance and Financial Research during my undergraduate studies. One takeaway I had was how capital markets and banks contribute to the economic growth by allowing businesses to grow thereby creating employment opportunities. How capital markets and banks operate and interact within the economy is the reason why I was keen on working for a bank after graduation. However, my career path took a different turn when I landed a job as Bank Supervisor at the xxx. Though I was not able to do banking and capital market operations, doing the regulatory side has been a challenging and fulfilling job. Having a say on how should banks and capital markets operate and seeing its favorable impact on people's lives and the overall economy as a whole made me realize how I made a wise decision to be a public servant for my country.

My continued interests lead me to take up my first master's degree in Finance. In one of our subjects, Financial Sector Regulation and Ethics, I was able to produce four policy papers and one research paper all subjects concerning the banking industry. My research paper focused on the determinants of rural bank failures in the xxx setting.

Taking up my second master's degree will strengthen my knowledge of banking and capital markets with an international perspective as the United Kingdom is considered as the world financial center. My schools of choice are as follows:

My first choice is MSc Capital Markets, Regulation and Compliance from the University of Reading. I chose this course because I considered it the most relevant to my undergraduate and master's degree as well as my current job. This course will broaden my understanding of financial risk-taking, accountability and governance as the specialized course has focus on regulation and compliance. In addition, I plan to validate findings on my research paper on my first master's degree with data set coming from the United Kingdom and possibly apply the findings in the xxx setting.

The second choice is MSc Banking, Regulation and Financial Stability from the University of Bristol. I chose this course because it focuses on banking regulation, supervision, compliance and risk management. All aspects to be studied are relevant to my work as a Bank supervisor. The knowledge that I will gain from course will broaden my skillset as a regulator.

My last choice is MSc Finance and Banking from the University of Brighton. I chose this course to further improve my knowledge on banking and finance. Since I did not have first-hand experience on banking and capital markets operations, taking up the course would address any gaps I have encountered in my role as a regulator.

Overall, all three course would provide me the needed the knowledge and skills to advance my career as a public servant in the xxx.

Scholarship / Pursuing financial literacy and education for Filipinos. Chevening Post Study Plan [3]

This is the last essay. Hope you could help me.

plans upon return to the home country

Upon returning, I will further utilize my learnings by transferring to the xxx of the xx. My four years at the xxx were all offsite supervision and transferring to onsite examination would operationalize the learnings from the master's degree. In addition, I will lend my knowledge in technical working groups of the xx in line with forthcoming regulatory reforms of the xx such as OTC derivatives and securitization frameworks.

Second, I will coordinate with xx and the xx of the BSP to bid for projects under the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's South East Asia Prosperity Fund. The priorities of the fund include improving the business climate, competitiveness and operation of markets, energy and financial sector reform, and increasing the ability of partner countries to tackle corruption.

One aspect of financial sector reform that I would be pursuing is financial literacy and education for Filipinos. Based on the survey by Standard & Poor's Ratings services in 2016, only 25 percent of Filipinos are financially literate. In other words, about 78 million Filipinos have no idea about inflation, risk diversification, insurance, compound interest and even the simple bank savings. In addition, more than 80 percent of the working, middle class have no formal financial plan. My project proposal would be targeting the 571 unbanked cities and municipalities of the country as I consider the most prone individuals. They are easily targeted by "bogus" investment schemes as they currently don't have the financial knowledge to identify said schemes.

As a future leader in my country, I see that addressing financial literacy would not only educate Filipinos but it will also lead to a stronger and more competitive market in the Philippines.