GBF Leadership Awards presented to National University of Singapore, Indian School of Business and Georgia Institute of Technology MBA students
The Conference, founded in 1983, aims to engage student leaders and enhance leadership skills through active participation in best practice student government and leadership workshops, learn from global business leaders and inspirational innovators and share global views on responsible and sustainable leadership practices. The GBF announces with pleasure that the winner and host of the GBF’s 30th Anniversary, the 2013 global Graduate Business Conference will be the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, India (www.isb.edu).At the Leadership Awards banquet and gala GBF VP Wieteke Dupain, GBF founder Jim Deveau and Simon School of Business Dean Mark Zupan honoured three student leaders and one company for their exceptional leadership, innovation and achievements within the global MBA community. The 2012 Student Leadership Awards were presented to Varun Mittal from National University of Singapore and Santosh Mohanram of the Indian School of Business. The 2012 Responsible Leadership Award was presented to Angela Behnken and her team including Shilpa Arya, Carter Posey and Chris Chandler from Georgia Institute of Technology. Constellation Brands received the 2012 Business Leadership Award.
Varun Mittal from the National University of Singapore received the GBF 2012 Student Leadership Award for his ability to implement his vision for an integrated IT platform which allows NUS MBA’s to overcome the challenges of communication and continuity both during and after the MBA. While his efforts will allow NUS MBA’s to sustain their MBA email addresses for life, the primary focus was to maximize productivity through a unified web portal, create a knowledge management system to maintain best practice legacies, and establish a common multimedia repository across all NUS MBA departments by synchronizing various existing social media initiatives. Mr. Mittal took the initiative to analyze the current challenges, motivate fellow classmates to leverage their knowledge and ability to create viable solutions and skilfully negotiated and collaborated with industry leaders like Google to create an independent system.
Santosh Mohanram from the Indian School of Business also received the GBF 2012 Student Leadership Award to recognize his selfless contribution to classmates and the schools’ quality of education for setting up a peer to peer teaching initiative which enabled increased development, collaboration and learning. He conducted revision sessions, within a competitive MBA environment, in which his classmates could contribute and realise their full potential in preparation for their post MBA careers. Though his academic sessions were often attended by more than 100 students, he further managed and led development for a new “ISB Student Wiki” initiative to create a sustainable knowledge repository.
The GBF 2012 Responsible Leader Award was bestowed upon a team of 4 student leaders from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Angela Behnken, Shilpa Arya,Carter Posey and Chris Chandler for establishing the Georgia Tech MBA Community Fund. As a result of three life changing events within Georgia Tech’s MBA community, this student led initiative recognizes the value of support and community during times of crisis. With no institutionalized program to support its community in need, the group overcame the challenges to establish this Fund and successfully initiate sustainable requests for funding. Their tenacity led them to create an annual allotment protocol to subsidize the Fund in addition to initiatives to receive contributions from students, faculty, staff and alumni and establish a legacy program with which to support each other in times of need.
Constellation Brands received the 2012 Business Leadership award for their contributions to the Simon School of Business, strong support for education and the community at large.
Winners of the GBF 2011 Responsible Leadership Award, Robert Seiler, Eric Seidnerand Alex Song from China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) returned to present an update about their Carbon Neutral initiative. An inspirational presentation from the students outlined how they initiated their program and successfully manoeuvred challenges towards implementation. They also presented a “How To” guide for organisations and Universities to begin their own carbon mitigation journey. The team will continue their efforts on behalf of the GBF to seek out, support and encourage other Responsible Leadership projects among student leaders globally within top tier MBA programs.
Wieteke Dupain, GBF VP, said: “Every year we’re impressed by the high quality of nominations coming in from all over the world. The Leadership Awards provide recognition, but mostly it is about sharing highly inspirational and successful initiatives within the global Business School community. It is important local best practices and knowledge on how to set up successful programs are shared around the world as it inspires and translates in more successful initiatives that can make a difference in the quality of education and the global community”.
