July 24, 2019

Mercedez completes incredible, decade-long juggling act

Mum to two young kids, a charity co-founder and now a Doctor of Business Administration

Taking on a doctorate was a no-brainer for Mercedez Hinchcliff, a former corporate banker who thrived off 70-hour working weeks, and wanted to keep her mind occupied when she fell pregnant.

“I thought I’d be bored having a baby at home,” Dr Hinchcliff said.

She certainly avoided boredom. Her son was born with a rare medical condition and when Henry was one, Dr Hinchcliff helped to start a charity, eager to create awareness about eosinophilic oesophagitis, which prevented him from eating most foods. She wrote two children’s books and the charity distributed them to all major hospitals and libraries.

“We would slowly introduce foods to Henry’s diet, this would fail and he’d get sick and really upset,” Dr Hinchcliff said. “I remember my son, when he was four years old, saying, ‘Why do I have to have this?’ I said, ‘There’s meaning to it. Without you, all these other people wouldn’t have had support.’”

The early years of her doctorate studies were the most taxing. Dr Hinchcliff remembers the sleep-deprived delirium, where she would cradle her son in her left hand while breastfeeding, and plug away at a literary review with her right hand.

“It was a nightmare,” Dr Hinchcliff said, able to laugh about it now.

“Luckily I had some extremely generous and empathetic supervisors who didn’t put too much pressure on me to hit the targets I should have at the time.”

The juggling act is finally over.

Her children Henry, 10, and Kate, 8, are growing up and Dr Hinchcliff is graduating with a doctorate of business administration at the University of Wollongong on 24 July.

“Because of my children I didn’t want to quit, I wanted them to see what I could achieve,” she said.

In times of doubt, her late grandfather’s legacy was a driving force.

“My grandparents raised me, my grandfather was learning a sixth language before he passed away at 89,” Dr Hinchcliff said.

“That’s what led me here, that thirst for knowledge.”

Initially, her research focused on the banking sector’s outsourcing of customer service, and more recently she has investigated general consumer patterns. Dr Hinchcliff firmly believes that business academics are informing corporate decision-makers.

“Someone from my cohort a couple of years ago is a director at one of the top four banks. That’s why the University was keen on my research initially because it had such a nice crossover.”

A thirst for acquiring knowledge has developed into a desire to share it.

For five years, Dr Hinchcliff has been teaching marketing, advertising and economics at the Faculty of Business, Sydney Business School and UOW College. Teaching allows her to interact with students from a diversity of cultures on a daily basis.

“When they leave the classroom, they smile, they say, ‘Thank you,’ and ‘See you next week.’ It’s really meaningful, knowing I’ve been able to reach somebody else.”

She hopes to secure a more permanent teaching position in upcoming years.

“When I finished the doctorate, I said to my husband, ‘I wonder if I should go to medical school?’ I thought about it for 15 minutes. But no, it’s time for me to slow down, enjoy what I’ve learned and apply it to my passion for teaching.”

A supportive network in her husband, David, and supervisors Elias Kyriazis and Grace McCarthy, has helped Dr Hinchcliff to achieve her academic goals.

As for Henry, he is now able to eat most foods.

“There’s a very few percentage of kids that get to that point, he’s one of the rare ones,” Dr Hinchcliff said. “It’s such a blessing, we hope that continues forever.”

Dr Hinchcliff has no regrets about the past decade of self-imposed mayhem. She would recommend further studies to anyone.

“Almost everybody I know says, ‘Why are you torturing yourself and doing what you’re doing?’ There’s never been anyone I know who has regretted learning more. If you have the opportunity, take it.”