Ravi Himmatbhai Savalia

Graduate Diploma in Applied Management

India

Ravi Savalia got a good understanding of New Zealand and its people and culture during his time at OPAIC.

The graduate has now put his experience and qualifications to use and landed a job at MediaWorks as Finance Analyst.

Ravi was born and raised in a city called Navsari in Gujarat, India. He went to the United Kingdom to study in 2005 with the intention of getting into the field of Human Resources.

However, he found a profound love for finance during what was supposed to be a temporary job at Lloyd’s Banking Group. He ended up spending over six and a half years at the bank, beginning as a telephone banking consultant and working his way up to Coach, Recruiter, Team Manager and Subject Matter Expert.

He also graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration with specialisation in business and finance from the University of Sunderland in 2011.

In 2013, Ravi returned to India where he and his father started an immigration consultancy firm.New Zealand was his biggest market and many of his students studied at OPAIC.

Ravi says he wanted to understand what it was like to be a student here in New Zealand, so last year he enrolled in the Graduate Diploma in Applied Management at OPAIC.

“I knew how things worked in real life, but you don’t really understand how everything comes together. I thought having that theoretical approach would actually add sense to the way we do things,” he says.

 “One of the things that I really found interesting was that Otago Polytechnic was really heavy on experiential learning.”

That experiential learning helped him understand the country, culture, the people and what is expected of you.

“Otago helps their students to give them the practical view of how real life works, through their qualifications.”

Ravi was awarded the Most Outstanding Achievement Award during the March 2018 graduation ceremony for top results across all courses. 

He started working at MediaWorks part-time last December while he studied. He had an initial contract of six months but as a result of his work ethic, results, and chemistry with others he was given a permanent contract.

Ravi says those in the industry are aware of Otago Polytechnic and respect people who have studied there.

He has aspirations of climbing the finance ladder as well as continuing his business back home. Now he’s able to share what he’s learned with students coming here from India.

Read more about our Graduate Diploma in Applied Management here.