About
About Next Stage Oxford
A small admissions practice, founded in 2016, advising candidates for Executive MBA and MBA programmes at leading European business schools.
Our story
Why this practice exists
We started Next Stage Oxford to give candidates the shortest honest route to an offer — the route we did not have.
An application made harder than it needed to be
When our principal applied to the Executive MBA at Oxford, there was very little written in Japanese about how the process worked, what the essays asked, or whom to ask. Much of the preparation was done by trial and error, and a good deal of it was wasted effort.
Work that should not have to be repeated
With the right information and the right guidance, most of that detour was avoidable. Sparing the next candidate from repeating it is why this practice exists.
What a graduate can tell you
We know the admissions process, and we also know the terms that follow it — the teaching, the cohort, the effect on a career. Advising with that in view is what distinguishes a counsellor who has completed the programme.
The shortest route, walked together
Having taken the long way round, we know where the pitfalls are and what genuinely matters. We use that to design the most direct route to your offer.
What we do differently
How we work
Every engagement is handled personally by the principal — an Oxford Executive MBA graduate and certified public accountant.
Among clients of our Complete Support programme, some have not been admitted to their first-choice school; to date, none has completed the process without an offer from a business school. (As at August 2026.)
First-hand information on the admissions process and on life after it.
Native-speaker review of every English document, by a counsellor with over twenty years in MBA and EMBA admissions.
Essays, CV and interview preparation under one roof.
A deliberately small client list — no more than five engagements a year in the Oxford and Cambridge programme.
The name
What it means
Next Stage
Studying abroad is a means, not an end: the point is to move a career, and a life, to the stage that comes next.
Oxford
A class on entrepreneurship at Oxford is what prompted this practice. The name keeps that in view.
Counsellors
Who you will be working with
Two counsellors, and no one else. There are no junior associates and we do not subcontract.
Hiroaki Tamura
Principal — Executive MBA, University of Oxford (Saïd Business School) · Certified Public Accountant and Licensed Tax Accountant (Japan) · Alumni Ambassador, Pembroke College, University of Oxford
Hiroaki Tamura began his career as an auditor at Deloitte Tohmatsu, qualifying as a certified public accountant and later as a licensed tax accountant. He completed the Executive MBA at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School while continuing to practise, and was appointed an Alumni Ambassador of Pembroke College, Oxford, in 2026.
Because he prepared his own application while working full time, he understands at first hand the four pressures that decide most Executive MBA applications: time, English, career timing and funding. He handles the strategy and substance of every engagement personally.
Oxford Saïd EMBACPA · Tax Accountant (Japan)Formerly DeloittePembroke College Alumni Ambassador
Jeff Roah, MBA
Native-speaker counsellor — Principal, Roah Consulting · MBA · over twenty years in MBA and EMBA admissions
Jeff Roah is a native speaker of English from California who has advised MBA and EMBA applicants for more than twenty years. He reviews essays, CVs and interview preparation, assessing the logic of an argument, the precision of the language and the register — the qualities that decide whether a strong career reads as a strong application.
MBA20+ years in admissionsNative speaker
The practice
Company details
| Practice | Next Stage Oxford |
| Company | Interarc Consulting Inc. |
| Principal | Hiroaki Tamura — Oxford Saïd EMBA, CPA (Japan) |
| Established | 2016 |
| Services | MBA and EMBA admissions counselling and application support |
| Related | Meridian Leaders — corporate leadership development |
Contact
Start with your CV.
You do not need a shortlist, a test score or a decision. Send us your CV and we will tell you where you stand and what the realistic options are.
We reply within one business day.