Celebrating excellence: IBA honours distinguished alumni at Reunion 2018

The Institute of Business Administration, Karachi, held its annual Alumni Reunion 2018 for all batches at the IBA City Campus, Karachi, on Tuesday.

The theme of this year’s reunion was “Celebrating Excellence” where the IBA honoured its venerated alumni whose achievements, both within and outside the country, helped strengthen the IBA’s resolve towards being the top institution of higher education in Pakistan and promoted an enlightened image of Pakistan, said a press release issued by the institute on Wednesday.

IBA Dean and Director Dr Farrukh Iqbal, Alumni Representative on the Board of Governors Shahid Shafiq, associate deans, IBA management and faculty and alumni from 1966 to date attended the event.

The award ceremony commenced with a welcome address from Malahat Awan, head of Alumni & Corporate Relations, IBA Karachi, who emphasised the role of alumni in the welfare of its alma mater.

She announced the commencement of a need-based scholarship from alumni and encouraged the audience to give back to society through educating needy students. Shahid Shafiq asserted that the educational institutions were recognised from the achievements of their alumni and the idea behind the event was to re-engage the senior alumni whose equity and expertise could help the IBA achieve its vision of being in the top 100 universities of the world. He announced that to engage the young alumni, the IBA was in the process of developing an online job portal which could allow the alumni and students to explore career opportunities and enable recruiters to choose their potential employees.

Dr Farrukh Iqbal spoke proudly about the IBA’s alumni network, which was not only strong in number but also strong in quality. The IBA has survived and grown in strength and reputation for 62 years.

He stated that the IBA today was dedicated to the idea of attracting not only meritorious students but also those belonging to the far-flung areas of the country and once they became a part of this institution, the IBA would like to support them with the help of its alumni network.

A ceremonial cheque of Rs2 million was handed to Dean and Director IBA Dr. Farrukh Iqbal by the representative of the Class of 1997 for Syed Ahmed Scholarship Fund in memory of their departed classmate.

Later, the awards were distributed to around 20 prominent alumni. They included Zahid Bashir, chairman of the Patients’ Aid Foundation, recently conferred with the Sitara-e-Imtiaz for public service, Salman Alvi, an acclaimed singer, recently awarded the Pride of Performance, and Mohsin Nathani, recently appointed as the CEO, Habib Metropolitan Bank.