Group CEO of Hollard Ghana Holdings, Patience Akyianu, has said the insurance company is committed to bridging the gap between the academia and industry by creating a pool of talented and ready students for the local and international job market.

Mrs Akyianu said this on Thursday, March 5, 2020 after she was unveiled as the newest Ambassador of the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS) Alumni Association.

Three other Ambassadors of UGBS Alumni Association who were present at the event are, Anthony Sarpong, Senior Partner at KPMG; Dr Gibrine Adams, Founder and President of Zenith University College and Dr Kofi Koduah, CEO of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation.

Mrs Akyianu, together with the Ambassadors, are tasked with assisting in branding the image of the UGBS Alumni Association both locally and internationally.

They will also be required to raise funds for the UGBS Endowment Fund and deliver a paper at the soon-to-be-instituted annual UGBS Ambassadorial Lectures.

Speaking to the media after a short event organised by the UGBS to introduce the Ambassadors at the British Council in Accra, Mrs Akyianu said: “It’s humbling and it’s a privilege and an honour to be able to serve my beloved alma mater in such a manner and I am looking forward to working with everyone else to contribute to the further success of our school.”

She said apart from promoting the school globally and locally, her “greatest focus will be to help the school to prepare students who are ready for the global workforce. And the idea is to create a strong pool of talented and ready students for companies to be able to choose from.”

“We are going to continue to be mentors for students and lecturers alike and as a result of that, both the school and my company will enhance our images in the communities in which we are; and once students are better prepared for the world of work, and they are economically stronger, they will be better able to access our products and services. So it is a win-win situation for all of us,” she added.

Dean of the school, Prof Justice Bawole, said the concept of the Ambassadors of UGBS Alumni Association is a unique one that will enable the business school to tap into their networks and also assist the school to improve its teaching curricular.

“They will be required to also mentor; they will be required to do a lot, not only for the association, but also for the school. Our ambassadors are not going to be like the ordinary ambassadors where (in some schools) students are selected to be Ambassadors…our ambassadors are people who have distinguished themselves. They are products of the school who have distinguished themselves in the society so we will really want to take advantage of their current social standing to give back to the school and give back to society,” Prof Bawole told journalists on the sideline of Thursday’s event.

The climax of the two-hour event was the launch of the UGBS Business Awards. The awards will honour alumni who have distinguished themselves in the six major disciplines in the Business School – five alumni who will be proposed by the Dean and three individuals and industries. The awards will be given based on criteria such as CSR, Digital Innovation, Business Academia, Family Business, Sustainability and Transformational Leaderships.

The event brought together distinguished personalities and captains of businesses in Ghana.