One crucial part of the Lagos Business school experience that intrigues me is the abundant extracurricular activities that sweep across a lot of sections. From sports to cocktail events to career fairs and state of the art conference talks. These events are not the ones to be missed; they are packed with so much activities, interesting line ups of events and feature successful individuals from all walks of life. The crème de la crème of the industries you hope to join are just a table next to you and you would probably end up in a chit chat with them if you know how to take your chances. These are the events that provide some glamor and interesting spice to the rigorous academic work we have to cater to.
On Thursday 9th of November, it was the career fair day; a day of academic glimpse, corporate glamor and professionalism. The day started with guests arriving at the venue. As we get seated, we could see the tension in the air. This tension was largely facilitated by the MBA21 class who had to present their industry report. They were scrambling around, making last minute adjustments, trying to dot every Is and cross every Ts, making sure every loose ends are tied, practicing their speech and juts generally making sure they give the audience a very good grasp of the topic they have been assigned. It was interesting to see; it gave a nostalgia of the old days when were selected to present in important events like deliver a speech at a cousin’s wedding or give a speech at your dad’s retirement party. It was a good sight to behold.
Before the presentations, we got to listen to an alumni of the school who had become a successful entrepreneur. Ayodeji Balogun has graduated from the MBA program and went into the agro-allied industry. He founded a commodities exchange company that traded agro products, provided the much needed financing to local farmers to up their produce, increase their efficiency and aggregate their returns. The company had grown into having subsidiaries in at least 5 African countries. He was doing well for himself. We all looked in awe as he gave the keynote address at the event. He detailed his experiences as an entrepreneur, his trials and travails, his methodology of navigating the very complicated business environment in Nigeria and other African countries. The speech was a clear insight into what life was going to look like for anyone who took the road of entrepreneurship. As we listened, the stage was been set for the networking event which was on the sidelines of the event. Before the industry presentations by the MBA students, we took a quick break.
On the break, we got to have personal conversations with representatives of selected companies who had been invited to the career fair. This was going on while we munched on carefully curated snacks that were available at hotspot areas around the career exhibition center. While I gulped my glass of chapman mock-tail, I quickly found my way to the AFEX stand to have a chat with the CEO. As a boy who had grown up on a plantation myself, I was always fascinated by folks who worked in the agricultural value chain. We had a brief conversation where I asked him certain questions and we exchanged contacts. I was glad to have been able to do that. This is a company I was willing to connect with in the future.
The event ended with various presentations from the MBA students. They spoke on varying topics from FMCG, oil and gas, IT sector, banking, etc. It was a very interesting event overall.
Thank you.
