Lahore School of Economics

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Lahore School attends second NBEAC Deans and Directors Conference 2015
February 13, 2015

A five member delegation of Lahore School of Economics led by Dr. Shahid Amjad Chaudhry attended the second NBEAC (HEC) Deans and Directors Conference 2015 in Karachi from 9-12 February. The Conference, held at three venues, and attended by some 100 plus Pakistani business schools, was convened by NBEAC-HEC.

The Conference, titled “Building Bridges and Fostering Collaborations in Business Education”, held multiple sessions, including “Academia and Corporate Linkages”, “Experience of International Linkages”, “Developing Entrepreneurship”, “Strategic Planning for Business Schools”, “Promoting Research Collaborations and Commercialization” and “Promoting CSR”. The format included speeches by keynote speakers and panelists, and questions and enthusiastic discussions by the participants.

The highlight of the Conference was the inaugural remarks by Chairman HEC Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed, who reiterated his commitment to the cause of business education in Pakistan. Keynote speakers included Director IBA Dr. Ishrat Hussain, Chairman NBEAC Dr. Hasan Sohaib Murad, Vice Chairman NBEAC Dr. Muhammad Nishat, and many other luminaries.

The Conference discussed at length some key issues regarding promoting collaboration between the various business schools of Pakistan, e.g. teaching at one another’s institution, helping one another with research programs and sharing best practices so that schools deficient in some areas could benefit from others. So that there is continuity, it was decided that the next conference would review progress on the points agreed this time.

Dr. Shahid Amjad Chaudhry, the Rector Lahore School of Economics was a keynote speaker at the Conference. In his address he congratulated HEC and NBEAC for organizing this conference. He elaborated on the achievements of the Lahore School which were in line with the agenda items of the Conference. He pointed out that the model of the Lahore School leveraged the School’s expertise in both economics and business. He listed some key research projects undertaken by the Lahore School, such as its work on Sialkot Soccer Ball industry, led by Dr. Azam Chaudhry and Shamyla Chaudry; Incentivization Attendance in Production Teams, led by Dr. Theresa Chaudhry; Incentivizing Development; and Understanding and Addressing Rural Povery in Pakistan. These projects, he noted, were good examples of industry linkages with business schools. Dr. Shahid emphasized that industry would only value business schools if the former saw value added by the later.

As further example of these linkages, Dr. Shahid Amjad informed the audience that the School invited around 50 industry and business experts to Lahore School in 2014 alone to address its MBA and undergraduate students so that industry knowledge was shared by the students as well. Last year, these speakers included CEO of Rozee.pk, Sales Head of Nestle, Director Operations of Metro, HR Heads of Hubpower, Metro and HBL, and Head Supply Chain of PepsiCo. Then, he gave examples of research projects by Lahore School students which included examination of problems faced by Nestle, Coca-Cola, Zong, Metro and many other companies in Pakistan. He informed the audience that the Lahore School had 20 Professors, 12 Associate Professors and 98 Assistant Professors/Lecturers as full time faculty and 58 part time faculty.