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Real Lives
Mark Johnson
Sainsbury Management Fellowship
University & Course:
Cambridge
A-levels: Maths,
Further Maths, Physics
There’s a big jump between an
idea on paper and a real product but the Best
programme helps to teach people how to take good
ideas to market. The Sainsbury Management Fellowship
funds qualified engineers for a year’s study at a
top overseas business school towards an MBA (Masters
degree in business administration). Cambridge
graduate Mark Johnson is one of those who have taken
up the MBA challenge – it has helped him to combine
his two favourite things, engineering and sailing.
Mark and his brother Clive
founded their company, Tacktick, in 1996 based on an
idea Mark got from a sailing magazine. He realised
that no-one sold electronic compasses for small
boats so he designed his own for what he knew was
potentially a huge market. Solar powered, robust and
waterproof, Mark’s new navigation device set the
tone for Tacktick’s technology development into
low-power electronics. He then applied to The Royal
Academy of Engineering for MBA sponsorship and spent
a year at INSEAD in France learning about the
business side of engineering while Clive set out to
develop sales of their product. “My MBA was
enormously helpful,” says Mark. “I love developing
new ideas but I have to do that in a commercial
context – the course gave me the basic tools for
business and in a small outfit like ours someone has
to have that technical business knowledge.”
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