When Patricia Salume was growing up in the island city of Vitória in southeastern Brazil, she knew that to be successful in life, she needed two things: the ability to speak fluent English; and an MBA.

She went to university, graduated with a degree in communications and toyed with the idea of running an advertising agency (at least until she learnt more about the industry), but her two must-haves remained out of reach. So she moved to London. And confronted an unexpected challenge.

“I did not understand anything that people said to me,” Ms Salume, now 32, said. “I had learnt American English, so when I heard UK English I wondered if people were speaking another language.”

She spent two years working as an au pair, but then — oddly, perhaps — she took a further risk with her accent by moving to Australia, where she worked as a team leader at The Body Shop, the skincare retailer.

“I didn’t really like working in retail or in Brisbane,” she said. “I found being in Australia very isolating, because my friends were here [in Britain] and in Brazil. That was when I started thinking that I wanted to do a bit more with my life and started planning for it.”

What she enjoyed doing most, she realised, was supporting people — at university, for example, she had taught Portuguese to adults who had gone back to secondary school — so on her return to England she started to work her way into the notfor-profit sector. For the past two years she has been a funding administrator at The Learning Trust, a private not-for-profit company that runs education for Hackney council in London.

Ms Salume works in the organisation’s early years and play department, which is responsible for children aged up to five years. It is her job to make sure that the borough’s nurseries, play groups and the like get the money to which they are entitled and that they use it properly.

“There’s a very fine balance between being flexible, to meet the real needs of children and families, and complying with the rules and guidelines [about] the appropriate use of public resources,” she said. “That’s challenging, but it also makes the work very interesting.”

Last year, nearly a decade after leaving Brazil, she decided that it was time, finally, to get that MBA. “I started researching my options and looking into funding, because I could not afford to pay the fees,” she said. Then she won this year’s Times/Henley Business School scholarship, which covers the £40,000 cost of the school’s two-year, part-time executive MBA.

Yet her expectations of what she wants to do with the qualification have changed since she was a teenager in Vitória. She no longer wants to make it to the top of a corporate behemoth; instead, she wants to take a leadership role in a public or not-for-profit organisation.

“My 17-year-old self would not be surprised that I am studying an MBA, but she would be surprised at why I am doing it,” Ms Salume said. “I thought I would end up in advertising ... [but now] I want to do something that has meaning to it. I think that’s why I was never very good at retail. I hate shopping, for a start, so how could I tell other people to buy things? Now I want to get somewhere that I can have a bit more influence so I can continue doing things which are a bit more meaningful.”

She has completed two modules and picked up a couple of tips from her private sector classmates. “For example,” she said, “my employer has helped me to find a mentor, which has been especially useful when I am doing assignments.”

On the other hand, she has not yet learnt anything directly relevant to her job. “I am still having a bit of a hard time applying what I am learning in my work because all the business models are designed for for-profit businesses. The concepts do still apply, but you have to adapt them.”

2010 MBA scholarship

Register your interest for the 2010 Henley Business School MBA Scholarship by e-mailing mba@henley.com and you will be sent further information on the Henley MBA. Full details of how to apply for the scholarship will follow as soon as they are released.