The Suleman Dawood School of Business (SDSB) hosted MBA alumni, Mr. Ali Naqvi and Ms. Amna Naqvi for a talk on Sports Management in Pakistan and Global Equity Markets as part of the Sports Management class on November 10, 2017. Both guests, Mr. Naqvi, who hails from the Finance sector and is currently serving as Executive Chairman Global Markets Asia Pacific, Credit Suisse and Ms. Naqvi, CEO Leonine Global Sports, and Founding Director of Gandhara Art Council were welcomed by Dean SDSB, Dr. Jawad Syed; Dr. Atif Saeed, Director MBA Programme; senior SDSB faculty members and Mr. Syed Shoaib Naveed, Adjunct Faculty Member at SDSB.
The event started with a faculty meet-up followed by the talk moderated by Mr. Syed Shoaib Naveed. The engaging talk which soon turned into an interactive discussion with the students focused around franchise sports as a budding industry in Pakistan, its business management, the future of franchise sports in emerging markets, and how learnings from the Finance and other industries can be applied to ownership of sports teams, running a sports franchise and sports management as an industry.
The graduates touched upon many aspects of management during the discussion. Ms. Naqvi stressed on the need for qualified people in the field of sports management. She said that all businesses need good management skills and data driven decisions to meet success and that the sports industry is no exception.
Elaborating about sports management, Mr. Naqvi delved in details about the success of Islamabad United and commented, "One must understand that there is a complete management of this business of sports. That is where you, the students of management come in and can bring a sense to something that is as volatile as sports in Pakistan, since we all tend to become too emotional about it." The audience thoroughly enjoyed the interactive session as they got to know the ins and outs of commercialisation of sports and its management.
