Academia, businesses urged to collaborate – MD of Ecobank

The Managing Director of Ecobank Ghana, Mr Daniel Sackey, has asked for a national policy framework that will stimulate collaboration between academia and the business community in the country.

“An important role a national policy will play is to enforce standards, monitoring, reporting and evaluation of the collaboration,” he stated.

Mr Sackey was speaking at the second graduation of the Noble International Business School (NIBS) in Accra.

In all, 38 corporate executives who pursued Master’s and doctoral programmes at the university were graduated and honoured with their respective degrees.

Real economic progress

Mr Sackey stated that Africa needed a new generation of leaders with high cognitive skills to make proper decisions for lasting impact for its businesses and the society at large in order to make real economic progress.

“Africa as a continent has come to the crossroad and its push towards economic freedom with the lack of astute leaders in both the political and the business community forming the bedrock of the teeming leadership challenges confronting the continent.

“Ghana indeed is not excluded from this dying need of pragmatic leadership who are capable of introducing workable solutions to solve the common problems confronting its citizenry,” he said.

Mr Sackey observed that it was becoming imperative to provide innovative and world-class training for business leaders in Africa as their decisions had a ripple effect on the continent’s economy.

“Business leaders should be able to offer innovative alternative solutions for the common good of our society and if we look at some of the challenges confronting most of our businesses today, one will ask, do we have the right leaders in place?

“It is important for governments in Africa to play an active role in the training of business leaders in order for them to act as agents of change by providing evidence-based input in decision making so that the livelihood of people will be improved,” he added.

Mr Sackey described the educational model adopted by NIBS as an one that would certainly produce graduates who were authentic leaders, visionary and passionate about achieving results.

Positive impact

The Programme Director of the NIBS Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) course, Dr Livingstone Caesar, challenged the graduates to use the knowledge and skills they had acquired to make a positive impact in their communities.

“Use your knowledge to proffer workable solutions to the many problems our business and general communities are battling with on a daily basis.

This is the essence of a doctorate, as anything less than that will be a serious shortcoming on your part,” he told the graduates.

The President and Executive Dean of the school, Prof Kwaku Atuahene-Gima: “So, today is not only an important milestone for you, but also for NIBS.

I take this opportunity to congratulate you on reaching the pinnacle of your educational career, a point where most strive to reach but just a few succeed,” he added.

Source: Graphic.com.gh