AMBA & BGA honour business schools and their students and graduates in Excellence Awards 22/23

The AMBA & BGA Excellence Awards, which were held December 9 2022 at the five star Biltmore Hotel in London, brought together leading lights from the global business education community to celebrate excellence and commend achievement among business schools, MBA students and graduates, suppliers and employers.

The ceremony was attended by more than 210 business school leaders , as well as category finalists, judges and members of the media

Congratulations to:

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The winners in the AMBA & BGA Excellence Awards’ 10 categories were as follows:

BGA Business School Impact Award 2022/23

Athena School of Management (India)

The world has changed in the past 24 months in more ways than predicted with great opportunities and deep challenges. Technology has become both an enabler and disruptor but the challenges of income inequality, food shortages, adverse climate change, pseudo-nationalism, inflation and war are all clear and present.

As a believer in Impact Leadership – Athena is taking a clear focused path to inspire and innovate internal and external stakeholders to make an impact on people, profit & planet underpinned by their deep commitment to ESG, SDGs, Sustainable Finance and Digital Transformation to help stakeholders across the Global South.

Best CSR and Sustainability Initiative 2022/23

School of Business, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (China) for ‘Training Global Talent with CSR Competency and a Sense of Sustainability’

The School of Business (SoB), Guangdong University of Foreign Studies endeavours to train business talents with SMILE (Social Responsibility, Mutual Respect, Integrity, Learning by Doing and Entrepreneurship) values – who pay great attention to the social challenges and ethical issues.

CSR and sustainability are strongly embedded in curriculum, research and extracurricular activities, and great achievements have been made. SoB faculty integrates Confucianism into blended learning activities, which is highly praised by students and has won a provincial-level excellent education prize.

Best Lifelong Learning Initiative 2022/23, in association with Kortext

Universidad Externado de Colombia (Colombia) for ‘Privilegios Program’

Privilegios program was created with the aim of enhancing relationships between students, graduates, the business world and the business school. Graduates find a source of updating and generating a network of contacts for their development and strengthening of skills.

The operating model involves an investment by the school to provide the services that are offered at no cost. The program registered a participation of around 1,000 people representing seventy per cent of the MBA graduates.

Lastly, this initiative has been highlighted as a strength in the AMBA and AACSB accreditation processes.

Best Culture, Diversity and Inclusion Initiative 2022/23

School of Business, the American University in Cairo (AUC)

With the progressive objective of accelerating and improving the gender balance of corporate boards in Egypt and the MENA region, the Auc Egypt Women On Boards (Wob) Observatory defies the odds by fostering women’s readiness for boards and eliminating barriers to entry. The initiative aims to sensitize male board members to gender issues and advocate for policy and legislative changes that institutionalize gender diversity in organizations.

Disrupting explicit and implicit gender bias patterns, the Egypt WoB observatory continues to achieve a scalable and replicable impact that crosses borders and resonates with the national, regional, and global commitments to gender diversity and inclusion.

Best Innovation Strategy 2022/23 in association with Barco

TBS Education (France) for ‘The Blind Search (TBS)’

‘The Blind Search’ was inspired by the reality singing competition ‘The Voice’, to engage, motivate, surprise and entertain students, and celebrate their return to classrooms amidst the pandemic restrictions in France.

The aim was to introduce edutainment (educational entertainment) and consider educational wellbeing in the teaching pedagogy for the research methods course (and similar theoretical courses) and make it truly student centric. Such unique pedagogical innovation opens new paradigms for designing and delivering courses post pandemic, creating the right balance between using digital tools and inspiration from the entertainment industry to enhance students’ classroom learning experiences.

Best Business School Partnership 2022/23

Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (Netherlands) with Dutch Brazilian Chambers

Dutcham and the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM), developed a Talent Academy that brings together young professionals from the Dutch business community in Brazil. Twenty four talented people have been selected from top Dutch companies operating in Brazil in order to share expertise, crack a business case, and grow their personal and business skillset.

The collaboration with RSM was a strategic choice in order to help the Dutch business community in Brazil to develop real leadership among local talents, create an open mind, and ultimately grow young Brazilian professionals into future business leaders with a sustainability-focused mindset.

MBA Startup of the Year 2022/23

Damien Demoor, Audencia Business School (France) for GREENOV

Damien Demoor graduated from École des Mines de Paris, École Nationale Supérieure de Géologie and Audenciaʼs Executive MBA. He has over 20 years of experience in managing operational teams and has strong skills in business and innovation. Created in January 2021, Greenov develops disruptive maritime CleanTech, including the SubSea Quieter, to protect marine ecosystems. Offshore wind turbines, currently undergoing rapid development, cause powerful acoustic disturbances severely impacting fish, cetaceans and molluscs for miles around. The SubSea Quieter, carbon-free technology, reduces 99% of noise emissions. Highly anticipated by the maritime industry, it will be commercialised in 2024.

MBA Entrepreneur of the Year 2022/23

Jérôme Pasquet, Audencia Business School (France) for PEEK’IN and Jinlong Ming, School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (China) for Anhui Conch New Materials Technology

When Jérôme Pasquet launched Peek’in in 2017, it was not his first entrepreneurial venture. He had just exited a 5-year project during which he successfully launched D-Vine, a wine-by-the-glass machine for hotels and restaurants. The hotel industry continues to be his schoolyard. After selling part of his D-Vine shares, Jérôme entered a hidden market with huge potential: returning forgotten items to their owners, a tedious task that hoteliers are reluctant to perform. The Peek’in solution is simple, easy to sell and applicable worldwide. It is also on its way to revolutionising a blind spot in the hotel industry.

Jinlong Ming graduated from School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) with a MBA degree in 2021. He is a senior economist and an excellent entrepreneur. In May 2018, Anhui Conch New Materials Technology Co., Ltd was set up and Jinlong is one of the main founders. With 20 years’ deep engagement in cement admixture industry, he has got successful achievements in innovative business strategy. He owns 5 inventions and utility model patents, and participates in drafting 1 national industry standard as the main author which impact a lot in the concrete admixtures industry.

MBA Leadership Award 2022/23

Kerry McLaverty, UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, University College Dublin (Ireland)

Completion of an MBA at UCD Smurfit was the springboard which catapult a Chartered Physiotherapist at Irelandʼs only childrenʼs hospice to becoming its new Chief Executive Officer in just 3 years. In turbulent times and in less than 2 years since assuming the CEO role, Kerry has capitalized on her MBA learnings to oversee record fundraising revenues for LauraLynn year-on-year.

Furthermore, for the first time in the organization’s history, she has secured a historic €1.5million in annual statutory funding, enabling the expansion of hospice services and the development of the first Childrenʼs Hospice Regional Hub in Ireland.

MBA Student of the Year 2022/23

Fardod O’Kelly, UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, University College Dublin (Ireland)

A trailblazer in his field, Fardod O’Kelly is a true inspiration who has achieved an incredible amount whilst undertaking his Executive MBA at Smurfit, in addition to an Advanced Diploma in Medical Law, whilst continuing to practice medicine and progress his professional goals. With his new business acumen, he has developed a thriving new surgical practice during COVID, and a new public/private partnership to allow access to surgery for children in the west/south of Ireland. Furthermore, he has been invited onto several European urological boards as an expert in his field and he has continued to research and publish.

On behalf of the AMBA and Business Graduates Association (BGA) team, I would like to congratulate the Finalists and Winners of this year’s Excellence Awards.

This year the competition was stronger than ever. The entries who have made the final shortlist in each category should feel proud of their achievements.

Additionally, the students and graduates who have been shortlisted as finalists today have all used their qualifications to achieve a spectrum of impressive results, in terms of the positive impact they have made to business, education and society as a whole.

It was thrilling to be able to celebrate the AMBA networks achievements in person at our Gala Dinner – our first in person awards ceremony since 2020.

I also want to take the opportunity to thank our sponsors Barco and Kortext. Their support for our awards – and the business education sector – is greatly appreciated.

Andrew Main Wilson, CEO of the Association of MBAs and Business Graduates Association (AMBA & BGA)

Excellence Award 22/23 is sponsored by:

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Excellence Awards 2025 coming soon.

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