For most people, ‘conflict’ means a confrontational board meeting. For three alumni, though, the field of work really is a warzone. In the campaign to clear the world’s battlefields of landmines and other unexploded ordnance, an MBA from London Business School emerges as a surprisingly potent weapon. This was first published in AlumniNews, Issue 131, February 2014. Find out more about our alumni community at http://www.london.edu/alumni

1. AlumniNews ISSUE 131
FEBRUARY 2014
Treading carefully
For most people, ‘conflict’ means a confrontational board meeting. For
three alumni, though, the field of work really is a warzone. In the
campaign to clear the world’s battlefields of landmines and other
unexploded ordnance, an MBA from London Business School emerges
as a surprisingly potent weapon. By ALEXANDER GARRETT

2. ■TheBigIssue/Masterminding mine clearing
PAUL HESLOP
AS DEPUTY DIRECTOR AND
chief of programmes for the
United Nations Mine Action
Service, Paul Heslop
MBA2004 has seen at first
hand the carnage and misery
wrought by unexploded
landmines. Yet he cheerfully
professes to have “the best
job in the world”.
Paul, a graduate of Sandhurst
and the Defence Academy at
Shrivenham, oversees 18
programmes in 14 countries
worldwide from his office in New
York. After a brief stint as a
financial advisor (following an
injured knee that put his army
career on hold) Heslop joined
mine action charity the Halo Trust
and spent eight years clearing
mines in Mozambique, Angola,
Cambodia, Kosovo, Laos and
Afghanistan. “My job was to run
teams of local staff in each
country to find bombs and
landmines, and once they’d
found one, it was my job to blow
it up,” he recounts. “I’ve probably
been involved in the destruction
of somewhere between 20,000
and 30,000 items.”
A highlight of those years was
hosting Princess Diana on a visit
to de-mining operations at Kuito
and Huambo in Angola; the
images of Diana in full body
armour were beamed around the
world, proving a watershed
moment in the campaign to rid
the world of landmines. In one
picture she laughed as she held a
decommissioned mine; “I’d just
presented her with that and
when I gave it to her. I said, ‘For
God’s sake, don’t put it in
Charles’s bed,’” says Heslop.
His decision to do an MBA
came after he was promoted to
Paul Heslop MBA2004
guided Princess Diana
through the minefields of
Angola

3. ■TheBigIssue/Masterminding mine clearing
director of New York-based Halo
USA. “After ten years of mine
clearing I’d probably started using
up my luck,” says Heslop. “I was
interested in joining the UN and I
thought it would enable me to join
at a much higher level.”
After graduating he successfully
applied for a vacancy at the UN
and was subsequently promoted.
As the head of UNMAS operations,
he manages a $250m budget,
comprising $70m from donors and
the balance from UN peacekeeping
operations. “I love it, because every
day is a different challenge,” says
Paul. “I’m well paid, have a great
team, travel to interesting
countries. Three times a week I sit
in on meetings with the head of
peacekeeping operations and find
out what’s going on around the
world. And I’m helping people.”
“I use more than one aspect of
my MBA every day whether it be
finance, building a brand, marketing
or organisational behaviour,” he
adds. “Major budget negotiations,
for example, involve accounting,
strategy and presentation skills, as
well as justifying spending to
donors. Organisational behaviour
skills are key to understanding what
motivates people and the reasons
behind their decisions.” Since
completing his MBA, he’s
maintained a close relationship with
the School, conducting more than
50 interviews and speaking at
numerous recruitment events.
Paul is particularly proud of
playing a part in bringing down
annual landmine casualties from
20,000 to 3,000 over two decades.
“I’ve also been instrumental in
bringing in an extra half-a-billion
dollars over the last ten years to
clear mines and remove explosive
hazards. Part of that has been
because of my knowledge of
finance and how budgets work.” If
funding is maintained, most of the
mines around the world could be
cleared within five years, he
believes, adding that UNMAS is
now extending its role into clearing
other unexploded ordnance, such
as shells, bombs, rockets and
grenades.
The next challenge is Syria,
where, Heslop says, “we are
looking at supporting OPCW with
regard to chemical weapons, and
planning how to clear mines and
unexploded bombs, and protect
the peacekeepers and
humanitarian actors from IEDs and
other explosive devices.” A
daunting but vital task, if peace is
to be achieved.

4. ■TheBigIssue/Masterminding mine clearing
OLIVIA SELBIE
On her first day with UNMAS
flying out to Afghanistan, Olivia
Selbie MBA2005 heard there
had been a suicide bomb in
Kabul. “That’s our office,” said
her colleague who was also on
the flight. The next few days
were spent sweeping up
shattered glass and moving
furniture to get the office back
up and running.
Olivia worked in technology,
latterly at Skype, before attending
the School. Her change of career
came about through serendipity
after she bumped into Paul Heslop
on a School trip to Kenya and
found out about UNMAS’s work.
“We kept in touch and he let me
know when an opportunity came
up in Afghanistan,” she says. “It
was a big step to jump to such a
different sector, but there was a
common thread because the job
involved managing relationships
with suppliers and NGOs – and I
had been managing partnerships
at Skype.”
Olivia spent a year in
Afghanistan, visiting a number of
landmine sites during that time.
“They had been left there over the
course of 20 years, from the Soviet
occupation, through the
mujahadeen, right up to the
present conflict. Nowadays, the
biggest problem is improvised
explosive devices,” she explains.
Putting it in context, Olivia says:
“Landmines are a development
inhibitor because it means you
can’t use the land safely. So at the
moment the emphasis is on
development enablement. The
other thing is that there are 15,000
locals hired as de-miners who are
contracted to clean up the land. So
that is providing employment and
supporting all of their families.”
After a year she moved to New
York and managed a portfolio of
smaller projects such as Nepal and
Colombia, also getting a firm grasp
OLIVIA SELBIE
MBA2005 (left) is
an UNMAS
Planning and
Monitoring
Consultant
“Landmines have been left in Afghanistan over 20 years, from
the Soviet occupation, through the mujahadeen, right up to the
present conflict. Nowadays, the biggest problem is IEDs”

5. ■TheBigIssue/Masterminding mine clearing
of how the organisation really
works. She has since returned to
London and is now working on a
project to improve the monitoring
and evaluation of UNMAS’s mine
clearing projects globally. “This is
being done at a local level, but we
need to be better at aggregating the
information globally,” says Olivia.
“Donors quite rightly ask what
happens to the money we spend.”
At the heart of that project is the
creation of a global database
management system that maps
the consequences of UN
programmes, such as land use and
personnel training. “The aim is that
in future it will allow us to use more
evidence-based decision making.”
Alongside specific skills such as
project management and finance
which have proved invaluable,
Olivia says of her MBA: “It has
given me much more confidence.
What I walked away with was a
breadth of understanding about
how organisations function, how all
the parts fit together to drive the
organisation forward.”
The satisfaction that comes from
the work is largely selfish, she
claims. “You are working with
interesting people, you travel to
interesting countries, experience
different cultures. Compared to
other sectors, you get a broader
picture. You work with
governments, you work with
suppliers, as well as with
colleagues in the UN.” And there’s
particular pride in having taken
steps to empower the three Afghan
women in her team in Kabul.
Looking forward, Olivia says: “I
would love to stay in this area but
juggling with a two-year-old son is
difficult. When he’s older I would
love to do more field work, so I
suppose I will have to negotiate
that with my husband!”

6. ■TheBigIssue/Masterminding mine clearing
PIU BOSE
Since February 2013, Piu Bose
JEMBA2012 has been based in
Juba, South Sudan, where she
is programme officer for
UNMAS in one of the world’s
newest countries. It’s a long
way from her previous job as a
management consultant with
Accenture.
Piu has two main roles in South
Sudan: managing the programme
of mine clearance through
contractors and NGOs, and
building capacity through the
National Mine Action Authority, so
that it can take over when UNMAS
exits the country. A key part of her
job is developing evaluation and
monitoring of the UNMAS
programme that can be used to
demonstrate outcomes to donors.
That means going out to the field
“to make sure the people collecting
the data are asking the right
questions,” she explains. And that
entails danger. “You have to go in a
convoy of UN vehicles, and in the
minefield you have to wear mine
protective armour. We operate to
very high standards but there is
always an element of risk.”
The conflict between north and
south Sudan went on for decades
until the south eventually seceded,
two years ago, with both parties
laying mines to strategically guard
their territories. “It’s not well
documented where the mines
were laid, and you often have to
rely upon hearsay from villagers,”
says Piu.
When she started her Executive
MBA, she was already interested in
switching to a career in
International Development, and the
breakthrough came as a result of
networking. “One of the team in the
School’s career development
services suggested I email Paul
Heslop,” says Piu. “He put me in
touch with Olivia, who I was then
lucky enough to work with on the
impact monitoring system.” That
helped her get a six-month posting
PIU BOSE
JEMBA2012
(far left) is
UNMAS
Programme
Officer in
South Sudan

7. ■TheBigIssue/Masterminding mine clearing
with Accenture’s international
development practice in Tanzania,
prior to joining UNMAS.
Bose feels very close to the
School. “Whenever I am in London
I try to stay in or near the School.
For me it is home.” She would love
to set up an internship for students
to come to UNMAS. The most
valuable aspect of her MBA, she
says, is the organisational and
change management skills she
acquired to motivate the people in
South Sudan’s NMAA. “There are
treaties the Government needs to
sign up to and we need people in
the NMAA to act as advocates,”
Piu explains. She has taken the
‘small steps’ approach embedded
in Kotter’s Principle to drive
incremental change in that
organisation, with some success.
Fulfilment comes from “having
the vision of a world that is safe
and being able to deliver that,”
says Piu. “The victims of landmines
are often far removed from the war
and end up being women, children
and animals. What I particularly like
about UNMAS is that it’s very easy
to measure the impact of the work
being done.There is huge
satisfaction in going back after six
months and seeing land that was
previously unusable, due to
contamination from landmines and
other explosive remnants of war,
now being used by the community
for socio-economic development
such as building houses, growing
crops and raising cattle.”
To find out more, visit
unmas.org
“Any time you go out to an operations site, you have to go in a convoy
of UN vehicles, and in the minefield you have to wear mine protective
armour. We operate to very high standards but there is always an
element of risk”