Grace Harding doesn’t fit the typical profile of an MBA student. ‘I don’t know if I’m the oldest person ever to do this MBA…I’m nearly 61…and I’ve been working for 45 years,’ she says, half-joking.
After more than a decade as CEO of Ocean Basket – and a lifetime spent building a career the hard way – Harding had little reason, at least on paper, to go back to school.
But curiosity has always been her driver.
‘I arrived in the business world with very few qualifications – my family didn’t have money – so I studied at night,’ she explains.
It’s a story she tells without sentimentality. There was no fast track, no formal roadmap, just persistence and a need to understand how things work.
Over time, that instinct became something she could name. ‘I’ve come to terms with the fact that my curiosity is my stability. I love to learn.’
Curiosity aside, when Harding enrolled on the Global Executive MBA programme at Henley Business School, she admits to being quite nervous.
‘The last time I learned, someone stood in front of a blackboard… now I had to learn Canvas.’
The adjustment was challenging, but the payoff has been almost immediate.
‘Since I started this programme, I have been the best CEO of my career,’ she says. ‘The way Henley has designed this programme, I feel like I’m in therapy and gym at the same time… plus someone’s giving me vitamin B injections in my head and my brain has quadrupled.’
It’s been an intense, energetic awakening that has also, paradoxically forced her to do something that doesn’t come naturally to a fast-paced executive: slow down and reflect.
That deliberate pause, largely as a result of the extensive work on personal development that the Global Executive MBA requires of its participants, has shifted her entire perspective on leadership, culture, and organisational change and even helped her solve a long-standing issue in her global business.
‘When I finished my personal development (PD) assignment, I realised how clever it was because it forced me to rethink everything from the last five months and prepared me for the next module,’ she notes. She quickly brought that collaborative self-awareness into her group work suggesting that they take everything they'd learnt from our PD assignments and organise themselves accordingly around their strengths.
It also altered how she viewed the people around her, allowing her to appreciate more fully the diverse, purpose-driven mindsets of her younger classmates.
‘The people in the class have definitely been a highlight! I have loved being with younger people. I love how they question everything, how they don’t respect authority just for the sake of it. I love how their perspective is broad and they are driven by purpose, not simply to impress a boss. And that is awesome, because the old style of leadership needed to die long ago, and we all need to go and pull off all those reserved signs on the parking that says reserved for CEO and PPO. And I love that the fridges are filled with protein yogurts – it’s a whole new world!’
Ultimately, the journey of self-discoverydiscovery and reflection has changed how she views her own evolution. ‘I think the younger me would say that Grace has improved her ability to pause, her ability to gather more information, and to merge what she thinks is the right direction with a lot more data – which is obviously better for the day and the year in which we live.’
The programme has also reshaped Harding’s relationship with the more technical side of business. Finance, in particular, had long been a source of anxiety, but the classroom environment reshaped that relationship completely.
‘I have far more confidence sitting with the auditors… and with logistics and supply chain,’ she says.
Harding recalls being really stressed by to her perceived lack of proficiency with Excel, but she relaxed when she realised that the lesson is not about mastering tools. ‘They’re not testing if you can write the whole balance sheet… they’re testing if you know how to work with the data and make good business decisions.’
And, as it turns out, she’s already had a few opportunities to demonstrate her improving ability to make sound business decisions.
Fresh from the People Management Module in Finland, a few months into the programme, Harding’s emerging new leadership style was tested when tackling a complex, long-standing operational challenge in Ocean Basket’s international portfolio.
The brand established its Cyprus business in 2008, evolving into a successful operation with nine restaurants driven by the entrepreneurial instincts of its local founder. However, friction arose when Harding attempted to impose standard South African corporate frameworks on the Cyprus operations.
‘Over the years, I wanted to introduce more systems, a little bit more rigour, technology, and data-driven ways of working, but there had been what I’d perceived as resistance to change.’
The People Management module provided the vital context she had been missing, revealing that the cultural gap between the South African head office and the Cypriot team was wider than she had appreciated. ‘This is not how they built that business,’ she says. ‘The management and managing people module helped me really, really understand that.’
This insight completely derailed a rigid, top-down approach she had planned just days before travelling to Finland. Instead of enforcing compliance, she leaned into collaboration. ‘I changed my focus from telling to enquiring. We explored together where we needed to go, how different it would be, and what needed to be considered.
The result of this more measured, culturally aware leadership style has led to stronger business decisions that benefit the local and global operations.
‘I’ve learned to reduce my speed, to spend time creating context, and to be very aware that cultural difference is real.’
Even everyday interactions became part of the learning process.
‘I’ve had to breathe,’ she says, smiling. ‘When we have meetings, because the Cypriot culture is very social, they love asking how you are. So, I now allow 10 minutes to talk about coffee, the weather, and the family… and I’m getting into it.’
The value of the journey
That simple shift from certainty to curiosity and deep immersion in different contexts has been transformative, and is exactly what Harding values most about the qualification, even if she has no plans to flaunt the acronym.
‘My personal objective is not to have an MBA as such, I probably won’t even put it next to my name,’ she says. Instead, for her, the return on investment lies in the network, the world-class academic support, and the sheer joy of learning.
‘I’ve met the most amazing people, both in the academic and support teams... the access to this huge library of over 15,000 books – if you add up all these things, it’s incredible value for money. I think the diversity of the Global Executive MBA is very valuable. As a South African, sitting in a room with British people and Finnish people. When I was first exposed to them, they thought I was mad, because it’s such a different culture,’ she says, laughing. ‘I was in the naughty corner once or twice, for sure!’
Reflecting on the timing of her studies, she notes: ‘I wish I would have done this before I ran my own business for 15 years. But if I ever go into my own business again, it’s going to be much more powerful.’
Ultimately, it is about approaching the business world with a clean slate. ‘You’ve got to go in there knowing that you don’t know, and you will love it. There really is so much to learn, I feel like a kid in a candy store. Henely has changed my life.’