LUMS and Unilever Pakistan signed an MoU to support a scholarship grant in perpetuity for one National Outreach Programme (NOP) scholar and a generous donation of PKR 18 million was made to the endowment fund. To finalise the agreement, Syed Fawad Ahmed, Field Sales Director, Unilever Pakistan and Dr. Arshad Ahmad, Vice Chancellor, LUMS, signed the MoU on May 22, 2019. Other individuals representing Unilever included Shahzad Waris and Muhammad Aasif. LUMS was represented by Dr. Adnan Khan, Dean Office of Student Affairs, Nuzhat Kamran, Director Office of Advancement and the Donor Relations team.
This MoU is a further strengthening of the long-standing partnership between the company and LUMS. Unilever often works in close coordination with the Rausing Executive Development Centre at LUMS for training programmes for its employees. Mr. Ahmed, who is also a LUMS alum, expressed his desire to further build the Unilever–LUMS relationship through collaborations in research and development.
Dr. Ahmad spoke about potential areas for collaboration, shedding light on the work of the existing research centres at the University, and his vision to make them cross-disciplinary. Furthermore, he spoke about working towards initiatives that would increase women empowerment and mentioned that the University is currently providing a 50% tuition fee waiver to females admitted to the EMBA programme with the aim to support women leaders in the industry. Dr. Ahmad also shared that LUMS will soon be introducing an online learning programme to benefit a wider community.
Syed Fawad Ahmed took the opportunity to laud the efforts of his colleagues at Unilever Pakistan, Aly Yusuf, Director Finance and Muhammad Bilal Khan, Finance Lead Modern Trade, who worked really hard to make this endowment fund a possibility. The meeting ended with the Unilever team expressing their intention to stay in contact with the LUMS management for further collaborations in different areas of interest.
