Kathmandu, November 1

Leadership Academy Nepal and Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business (Rice Business) have launched Executive Leadership Development Programme, its flagship training programme for owners, chief executive officers and senior managers in a week-long residential programme at Hotel Mystic Mountain in Nagarkot.

Over 40 executives from banking, insurance, hospitality, telecom, and other sectors completed the programme. As an ongoing executive education programme in the region, ELDP aims to transform the advanced leadership and strategic management capabilities of senior business leaders across Nepal.

Rice University Professors Brent Smith and Balaji Koka delivered speeches at the programme. The participants received an ‘Executive Education’ certificate from Rice Business.

Michael L Koenig, associate dean for Innovation Initiatives and executive director of Executive Education at Rice Business,

said, “The collaboration with LAN and Rice Business Executive Education aims to set the benchmark as the high-skilled learning and development accelerator for Nepal and South Asia at large. Additionally, a deliberate aim of this partnership is for LAN to serve as a hub for thought leadership related to human capital development for business leaders from this part of the world.”  He further added that the vision for the partnership of Rice Business with LAN was to provide advanced business expertise for Nepal..

Prof Sriram Bhagut Mathe, chairman and chief executive officer, and  Arun R Joshi, founder and chief technical officer of LAN, stressed the importance of building effective and adaptive business leaders. “The focus will be on engendering contemplative leaders with strong core values and ethical standards as well as the essential knowledge and skills required to make significant contributions within their work and communities,” he said.

Starting in early 2019, LAN and Rice Business School will offer online and blended education, training and programming for senior to mid-level and young emerging business professionals.

Anukool Bhatnagar, CEO of Nepal SBI Bank Ltd, a participant of the programme, said, “It was great to be a part of this programme for the last five days and a very well-conceived and an excellent programme with practical orientation. In the interest of development of local talents, I highly recommend more executives to participate in this programme. My executives would definitely be participating in the programme.”

Govinda Gurung, CEO of Civil Bank, said, “The programme was a fruitful experience for strategic preparation and implementation. It also taught us how to lead the team effectively and capitalise on human strength. I would recommend mid-level to senior executive level people to participate in this programme.”

Manish Agrawal, vice-president, Corporate Finance, secretariat and legal, at Tara Management Pvt Ltd, said, “I personally feel that this being the first of its kind training in Nepal, it has been a very good initiative. The fact that they partner with Rice Universityitself is an achievement. In terms of overall content of the programme, I feel professors were able to effectively impart the framework which will help the participants in strategic management and leadership and team building efforts.”

According to Joshi, LAN is a private initiative that aspires to play a vital role in addressing human resource challenges in Nepal and the South Asia region. LAN in collaboration with Rice Business aims to set the gold standard for high skill development in Nepal and South Asia region.

LAN also provides a hub for fruitful exchanges on human capital development among business leaders and institutions. Participants learn from both the innovative and finest faculty, as well as from the breadth of experience of fellow learners.

Similarly, Rice Business is a forward-thinking business school for the next generation of global leaders. Named in honour of the late Jesse H Jones, a prominent Houston business and civic leader, the school has steadily risen in reputation to top 10 in the US.

Degreed programs include Full-Time MBA; Executive MBA; Professional MBA; MBA at Rice. Its new online MBA includes coordinated MBAs in engineering and professional science, and a dual MBA/ MD with Baylor College of Medicine; a Master of Accounting; a PhD in Business, and an undergraduate business minor. Rice Business Executive Education offers open enrolment, customised and specialty programmes.