MBAus founders celebrate inaugural conference success
The Melbourne Business School students who founded MBAus to promote the value of an MBA say their inaugural conference was a great success.
Speakers included EY’s Annette Kimmitt talking global disruption, Mark Ritson taking on the digital generation and economist Ian Harper hosting a discussion on a post-Trump/Brexit world.
Diversity also took centre stage at the conference at our School on 26–27 August, with the founder of LGBTI Jobs Michelle Harper running a workshop on ‘LGBTQI allies in the workplace’. Adding to the mix, Aesop CEO Michael O’Keefe explored business development models, including local niche, local leader, global niche and global leader.
Graduating students from our School’s 2017 MBA class – Emma Young, Soumya Ranjan, Peter Pelikhov and Nathan Spence – founded MBAus to connect MBAs students and graduates around Australia and raise awareness of the value MBA graduates can add to organisations.
Speakers and workshops at their first conference covered a range of cutting-edge business issues from workplace diversity, innovation and entrepreneurship to the fourth industrial revolution and globalising Australian businesses.
EY’s Annette Kimmitt gave a compelling keynote speech on the mega trends driving global disruption and how responding to them has become the most important activity for leaders.
The conference attracted seven sponsors, 19 speakers and 115 attendees from 10 business schools across Australia and New Zealand, providing a strong base for the MBAus founders to build future events.
“We started MBAus to connect over some of the most important but often neglected topics at business schools. We wanted to be a bit provocative but still within that frame of what makes businesses successful,” MBAus co-founder Nathan Spence said.
For a full report on the conference, visit the blog of fellow MBAus Remya Ramesh.