Graduate, Consultant, Chef and Co-Founder: an Interview with alumnus Alan Tang

67% of Warwick Economics graduates choose careers in finance, consulting, technology and government*. But a degree in economics opens the door to a wide variety of professions, both traditional and non-traditional. We caught up with alumnus Alan Tang to discuss his fascinating career changes, how his degree at Warwick equipped him with the confidence and skills to work in multiple fields, and his new role as Co-Founder of educational social impact business Collaboration Laboratory.

Alan Tang graduated from BSc Economics at Warwick in 2010, heading straight into a Senior Audit Associate role at Grant Thornton UK. After working for 6 years in corporate finance, Alan took a two-year sabbatical to train as a chef, working in some of the top restaurants in London.

Alan then went on to create his own consultancy company to develop new startups, taking the role of Director of Special Projects for different businesses such as Tailify and Eaten Alive. In July 2023, Alan set his sights on a new project, founding a social impact business to teach children key social and soft skills: Collaboration Laboratory (CoLab). We spoke to Alan about his fascinating career journey.

After graduating from Warwick, you began working in the corporate finance sector, following an internship with Grant Thornton. What made you want to enter this sector?

I chose to go into finance as it was a career that opened many doors. I remember being inspired by my Principles of Finance lecturer Peter Corvi. His lectures were always practical and fascinating and he played a big part in my decision to go into corporate finance.

After your time in finance, you then decided to take a sabbatical and train as a chef. This is a huge career change – what gave you the confidence to decide and initiate that change?

I had a good amount of savings built up, I had a strong enough CV to act as a backup plan and I had spent time doing my due diligence (working in restaurants part time, volunteering at food pop ups) to know what I was throwing myself into. I loved those 2 years as a chef and I don't regret it for a moment! This mindset shift of believing that I could change has helped me in so many parts of my life and I wholly recommend it to anyone.

You then decided to step into consultancy and set up your own business. After already experiencing two major industries, what made you want to try consulting?

I love the variety involved in consultancy. You're often presented with a problem that no-one else has solved and it's up to you to figure out and build what the MVP (minimum viable product) solution looks like! I recently had to help an employer brand agency build an employer brand sentiment tracker and did everything from finding vendors, analysing the data, building the dashboard and selling the service line!

How has your degree in Economics at Warwick equipped you for your professional life and the major career changes that you have made?

My economics degree gave me the qualitative and quantitative skills I've needed in each of my start-up and corporate roles and I'm thankful for that. The biggest value added, however, came from the curiosity that was instilled into me by my tutors and also the friendship groups that I made at Warwick. I'm still very close to my economics group and rely on them frequently when I have challenging situations to deal with.

The biggest takeaway from my economics degree has been an ability to articulate fairly complex ideas and frameworks in an easy to understand manner. I often have to explain quite complex ideas to a range of audiences and the ability to do this with a sprinkling of storytelling makes life much, much easier as a consultant.

Alan’s latest venture is CoLab. Co-founded in July 2023, this project aims to teach school children different social and soft skills needed in the modern workplace, through a variety of online games, discussions and escape rooms. CoLab currently reaches 11 countries, and encourages its 170 students to work across their various language barriers and cultural differences to problem-solve. The business also works to reduce educational gaps and has given over $10,000 of scholarships to children from less privileged backgrounds.

Alan, when did you become interested in social impact work and the focus on children’s education?

My family have a history of supporting schools in rural China but it wasn't until I started working at Synthesis that I realised the true impact education could have on the world. After working 10+ years in for-profit organisations I wanted to put my time and effort towards a project that made a difference.

In my experience, soft skills (especially emotional intelligence and communication) are crucial to succeeding at work and in your personal life and they're skills that become increasingly difficult to learn as you grow older. When I interview graduates who are looking to join the start-ups I advise, many of them sadly struggle to break down a problem if it's slightly outside of their comfort zone. I don't doubt that they have the ability to solve the problem but I think that many graduates are so focussed on learning exam technique to pass exams that they've forgotten the real purpose of learning. I suspect a fear of failure also plays a part in this. We started CoLab to help kids develop a toolbox of skills that they can apply across a variety of situations and scenarios - all via experience-based learning.

CoLab is an incredibly diverse project and allows its pupils to learn about and share cultures. What impact does diversity have on a child’s development?

CoLab is intentionally global because we want kids from around the world to meet. The idea is that this will lead to diversity of thought, sharing of cultures and will also help to remove any unconscious biases that they may have previously had. We recently had a student share about Diwali and how it's celebrated in India and that was a really lovely moment to witness. Many parents have also said that they want their child to develop their confidence in the English language and CoLab provides this opportunity in a fun, low pressure environment.

CoLab also aims to make education and development more accessible for children, and will have made a huge impact to children’s lives through the scholarships that you have offered. What is the value of accessibility for education?

Having seen how hard my parents had to work to support me through university, I strongly believe that wealth shouldn't be a barrier to good education. I think that there's enough literature out there to show that education is core to escaping the poverty cycle and I hope the work we're doing at CoLab can help towards this.

Corporate finance, cheffing, consulting and social impact – what’s next?

I'm focussing on growing CoLab and also supporting other social impact/food businesses that interest me. I want to help CoLab become a sustainable business that does even more good. Ideally we get to 250 students and then have an internal reset to think about how we could make CoLab even better.

Right now, I'm fundraising for a kimchi manufacturer, coaching the founder of an ethical debt collection business and investing in a variety of environmental startups. I want to do my bit to help the world and hopefully inspire others to do the same.

Alan Tang, BSc Economics 2010

*based off the Economics Undergraduate Destinations Report 2022.