Henley Business School taps Nigerian alumni to deepen presence

London-based Henley Business School said it plans to deepen its presence in Nigeria by leveraging its alumni network comprising of over 400 former students.

Established in 1945, the University of Reading of business school is ranked 27 among the top 100 best schools in the world. Presently, the school boasts of 80,000 alumni network spread across 160 countries,

The dean of Henley Business School said at an alumni network meeting in Lagos that Africa is a focal point for the institution. But while it has a physical presence in South Africa, its presence in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country is yet to gain traction. The institution faces competition from more entrenched schools such as the Lagos Business School.

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Nevertheless, Board says its entry strategy is more collaborative.

“Our approach is to learn as much as we can from the market. Let’s be honest, we do not so much about Nigeria to put up a physical presence, but we have had an amazing set of students from the country who are our alumni’s now. We expect them to be our ambassadors here,” Board said.

He further said that the visit to Nigeria was primarily to connect with a much larger range of Henley Alumni so as to ensure everyone is in connection with one another.

While in Nigeria, the business school is spreading its tentacles to include creative and digital entrepreneurs. Jean-Pierre Choulet told BusinessDay that this is in line with the school’s evolving strategy and the shift in global market operations where organisations are increasingly investing in technology. Nigeria, he said, has a rich population of 200 million people with 65 percent of the people below 35 years of age and feeding into the workforce and market.

However, Choulet says making a successful business is beyond just buying new technologies and creating solutions

“We are working towards adding value to accompany the youths from the grass root, middle class, and upper class to develop themselves and be enabled to drive Nigeria’s economy towards a sustainable developed economy.”

Paul Orajiaka, head of Nigeria Alumni told BusinessDay that Henley Business School’s uniqueness to other schools is its ability to take students on one-on-one journeys. MBA students have one tutor assigned to help them build their ideas into viable businesses.