Agunbiade Emerges 13th Recipient of 7Up Harvard Business School Scholarship
Nigeria’s leading CSD brand 7Up, has announced Miss Oreoluwa Agunbiade as the recipient of the 7Up Harvard Business School (HBS) MBA Scholarship for 2023/2024 session.
Agunbiade becomes the 13th winner of the scholarship which was instituted in 2010. The fully funded MBA scholarship at the prestigious Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States, is awarded each year by Seven-Up Bottling Company to a Nigerian resident in Nigeria who must have been admitted to HBS for an MBA programme but unable to fund it.
The scholarship award goes through a thorough and rigorous competitive process until a winner is selected based on the set criteria by the management of Seven Up Bottling Company.
Ms Agunbiade, a lawyer-turned management consultant was unveiled at an inspiring ceremony at SBC’s head office in Ijora, Lagos.
Mr. Norden Thurston, SBC’s Chief Marketing Director explained that the 7Up Harvard Business School Scholarship was launched in 2010 by the Chairman of SBC, Mr. Faysal El-Khalil, in commemorating the 50th anniversary of the business based on his passion to raise and inspire a generation of young Nigerian leaders by leveraging quality global education that breeds and equips them with the right mindset.
According to Thurston, the 7Up HBS Scholarship has already created a pool of young business leaders in the political economy of Nigeria who are driving innovation and change in diverse sectors for a better society.
He further highlighted that a key part of this initiative’s next step would be establishing an Alumni community that will have all past recipients who are doing amazing things and adding value to the society such as: Olujimi Williams (2012), Mayowa Kuyoro (2013), Oluwasola Olaniyan(2014), Bankole Makanjuola(2015), Chidozie Ibekwe(2016), Ahmed Alimi(2017), Olunma Izejiobi (2018), Uzoma Anyanwa (2019), Abdul-Rahman Buhari (2020), Desayo Ajisegiri (2021) and Dafi Rogers-Halliday(2022) all come together to see how they can further inspire the next generation of young leaders and see opportunities to give back collectively.
Commenting on the 7UP HBS scholarship, the Managing Director of SBC, Mr. Ziad Maalouf, said: “as an organisation that strives for excellence, diversity and inclusion, we are pleased to welcome Ms Oreoluwa Agunbiade to the 7UP Harvard Business School family. I have no doubt that you will follow the tradition of hard work and excellence that has been the hallmark of previous recipients of this prestigious scholarship in one the world’s iconic business schools. We were swayed in awarding you this scholarship by what you are already doing to impact your environment and our hope is that you are able to return and impact Nigeria by insight and learnings gained.”
Apart from the 7Up HBS scholarship, Maalouf highlighted a few people-centred initiatives of Seven Up Bottling Company aimed at empowering and inspiring Nigerians. Some of which include: the Pepsi Football Academy which has continued to produce young talented footballers, provision of social amenities such as borehole to host communities, provision of books and laboratory equipment to secondary schools, award of scholarships to indigent students to post-primary and tertiary institutions and support for cancer and cholera awareness programmes.
Speaking on the 7Up HBS scholarship award, Agunbiade thanked Seven-Up Bottling Company for the opportunity to actualise a life-long ambition of studying at Harvard. She pledged to use the education and training received to further the cause of women empowerment by setting up an impact fund to assist female owned businesses in Africa to thrive.
