Manchester Business School honours its first Middle East MBA graduates

All three Middle East graduates were awarded the same University of Manchester MBA degrees as full time students who study on campus.

The three new graduates were honoured at a recent gala dinner in Dubai, which also marked the launch of the MBS Alumni Association - Middle East.

MBS Worldwide launched its MBA programmes in the region in 2006 and has now has over 500 MBA students in the Middle East; the first MBA graduates now join a worldwide MBS alumni network of 27,000 business professionals.

The three students with the distinction of becoming the region's first MBS Worldwide MBA graduates are - Bijoy Jose, Vice President - Operations for an investment company in Dubai; Mohammed Fazil Abdulraheem, Senior GM for a group of companies in Saudi Arabia; and Wayne Sheridan, Director, HSBC Private Bank in Dubai. Wayne Sheridan was awarded an MBA degree with merit, which is a special honour for top performing graduates.

Speaking at the recent Alumni Association-Middle East gala dinner in Dubai, Nigel Banister, Chief Global Officer of MBS and CEO of MBS Worldwide, commented, "We are enormously proud of our achievements in the UAE since our launch here only three years ago. Dubai is an exciting business hub for the region and we are delighted to play our part in the development of its human capital."

"There is superb support and infrastructure at Dubai Knowledge Village but it is the excellent quality of our Middle East MBA students, now over 500, which puts them amongst the best in the world. We congratulate our first graduates who will now benefit from their world class business skills, as well as the global MBS alumni network," Banister added.

Applications from Middle East business people for MBA programmes at Manchester Business School Worldwide (with its Middle East Regional Centre in Dubai) for the January 2009 intake rose 18% compared to July 2008 (the school has two student intakes per year - January and July).

The Middle East Regional Centre accepted over 100 new students on to the school's three blended learning MBA programmes - Construction MBA, Engineering Business Management MBA, and Finance MBA - bringing the total number of MBS Worldwide MBA students in the region to more than 500.