The Independent - Association of MBAs' Student of the Year Award: 'The combination of business and development work will become the new trend this century', 20 November 2007
WINNER - "Bart Knols, 42, has learnt about malaria the hard way. He has suffered
from it nine times. In Africa he almost lost his wife Inga to it.
Having seen its effects as a young man, Knols dedicated himself to
fighting the disease, and at 32, with a PhD in medical entomology, he
was running a research station on the shores of Lake Victoria, with
more than 100 staff. Slowly he came to realise that scientific
knowledge on its own might not be enough. But it was while working for
the United Nations in Vienna that he was introduced to the Open
University's MBA course".
FINALISTS:
"Abbott Cocco, 31, grew up in the Dominican Republic, where she took
degrees in economics
and corporate finance, helping to set up her
country's first credit bureau. The country's largest commercial bank,
Banco Popular Dominicano, offered her paid leave to do an MBA at the
Instituto de Empresa Business School in Madrid. The experience, she
says, has helped her grow as a person. She has forged links between
Empresa and her country, and is also a director of Fundació* San Miguel
Arcángel, a non-profit organisation that provides loans to poor rural
families, allowing them to invest in income-generating activities".
Haan, 29 and Dudok van Heel, 29 (see "Continue reading...")
Haan, 29, spent seven years as a consultant at Accenture,
specialising in business transformation consulting, before his two-year
MBA at Australia's Monash University. He wanted to move into private
equity, a step that recruitment companies were telling him was
"impossible" given his background. He has just started working for
Partners Group, a Swiss Alternative Investments company which, says
Haan, specifically targeted MBA graduates. At Monash he provided
support on the MBA student committee and led a winning team in an
international entrepreneurial competition.
Finally, Dudok van Heel, 29, studied law with the Open University
before
taking his MBA at Rotterdam School of Management/Erasmus
University, and now works at F. van Lanschot Bankers. He also sits on
the board of the Peduli Anak Foundation, a global NGO which fights for
the rights of street children. "The combination of business and
development work will become the new trend in the 21st century," he
says. "Every person has to contribute not only to nature as a whole,
but also to the ones for whom prosperity is only an abstract term."
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