Nottingham University Business School at 25: The Second Quarter Century around the World

This past year has marked the 25^th anniversary of the formation of Nottingham University Business School. While the University of Nottingham had been teaching courses that now sit within the business school – Industrial Economics or our globally-ranked MBA, for example – it was the opening of Jubilee Campus that created a new home for business education in Nottingham. The University of Nottingham’s School of Management and Finance was renamed Nottingham University Business School, and moved to the brand new campus when it opened in 1999. Since then, the school has gone from strength to strength, with seven departments teaching more than 7000 students every year, and campuses in Malaysia and Ningbo, China.

Over the past academic year, we’ve been marking this occasion by connecting with some of our 30,000-strong international alumni community with a series of events across the globe. From India to China, Lagos to London, we’ve been celebrating past achievements and looking towards the next 25 years in business and finance with our Second Quarter Century events. Most recently, this took us down to PwC's London headquarters to hear from their Chairman and Senior Partner Kevin Ellis, amongst others - and we'll be in Nottingham on 22 May for the home leg of the series.

We kicked things off in November as Professor David Park welcomed alumni in New Delhi and Mumbai to talk about the challenges and opportunities for the country in the next 25 years, with insightful discussions on India's youthful demographic as a catalyst for growth, the transformative innovation of the India Stack, and how the government and business must work together to tackle climate change.

Next came Hong Kong, where the Deans of our China and Malaysia Business Schools joined Professor Park to bring a tri-campus perspective to proceedings, alongside esteemed alumnus YK Pang, Deputy Managing Director & Chairman of Hong Kong at Jardine Matheson. Tackling climate change was a big topic on the night, and the panel agreed that the individuals and businesses who can learn to adapt and provide solutions for the rapidly changing world will be the most successful in the years to come.

In December, our colleagues from UNNC welcomed alumni from our Nottingham and Ningbo campuses in Shanghai. As well as speeches from Professors Kok Wei Khong and David Goodwin, the Deans of NUBS China and NUBS Malaysia, there was a thought-provoking panel discussion with alumni insights from various industries on the important topics of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and sustainability.

In March, our Lagos alumni chapter rolled out the “blue carpet” to celebrate this landmark occasion, bringing together members of the 1500-strong community of University of Nottingham graduates in Nigeria to discuss the future of business in the East-African country. Speaking on the panel, Kola Oyeneyin, alumnus and CEO of Opportunik Global Fund, said Nigeria needs to get the balance of development and growth right if it wants to compete globally, adding the country cannot achieve inclusive growth without including human capital development which can lead to national development.

And for our Business School family based in the UK, we hosted the London leg of the series at PwC’s Embankment headquarters on Tuesday 5 March, alongside Kevin Ellis, Industrial Economics alumnus, Senior Partner and former Chairman at PwC UK. Kevin’s keynote speech featured insights from his 40 year career at the ‘Big Four’ firm, and he spoke about the key challenges for business in the future, and the importance of embracing the power of a diverse workforce.

“The key challenge - I think it's adapting to change", he said. "I think one thing we've all got used to is being disrupted. So that constant need to adapt to change and ensuring that you've got the diversity of thought and the collaboration to have the best ideas to deal with the change.”

As the global event series draws to a close, details have been finalised for the remaining dates in Nottingham, New York, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. You can find details below - we hope you can make it to an upcoming Second Quarter Century event near you.