Dean of Lagos Business School, Prof Enase Okonedo, recently featured in the Financial Times ‘Meet the Dean’ Interview. She highlighted LBS’ efforts to remain a bastion of quality management and executive education despite infrastructural challenges, brain drain and the international perception of Nigeria as insecure, among others.
In terms of infrastructure, Okonedo cited inadequate electricity and water supply that LBS was tackling with standby generators and boreholes.
She observed that sourcing quality candidates for the School’s MBA programmes was challenging because higher education was yet to be across board; while prospective candidates set their sights abroad for the programme due to costs and personal preferences.
Explaining why LBS’ MBA programme costs a whopping $23,000 which only a handful of prospective candidates in the country can currently afford, she noted that the School “prices for value.”
“I really do need to attract professors from the rest of the world with a global perspective,” the Dean maintained, while addressing the growing international perception of Nigeria as unsafe and hostile. She justified the School’s interest in a Pan-African approach to management education with the assertion that multinationals were looking to operate across the continent.
“Over the past five years, I have aspired to prepare managers for Africa, not just for Nigeria,” she said. “The model we have is to attract managers from across Africa to Lagos.”
