Facing an employee demonstration at the age of 12 was a decisive moment for UQ Business School Master of Business Administration (MBA) student, Ashwin Sreekumar.
Mr Sreekumar will receive an award for service to the community at UQ Business School’s Top MBA Awards on Thursday, November 15.
He said his commitment to community service had been strongly shaped by his childhood experience of facing a crowd protesting wages and conditions at his father’s factory in India. He said he had listened to their concerns before relaying them to his father.
“I think my father was testing me by putting me in that position,” Mr Sreekumar said.
“I was brought up amid a strong tradition of service to the community – one grandfather was awarded a Benemerenti Medal from the Vatican for his services to the Catholic Church in India.
“My other grandfather was the first one in my family to be awarded an MBA, from Columbia University in the US in 1948, and it’s been a tradition in my family to do an MBA ever since.
“We’ve got MBAs from Harvard, University of California (Berkeley and LA), and, of course, Columbia.
“Come this December, I will be the first one in my family to get an MBA from Australia as part of this 60-year-old tradition.”
Among his achievements are teaching English to children in under-resourced government schools in India; working on The Million Minds Project launched by multinational chemical company, BASF; and participating in a tsunami rehabilitation project also while working for BASF.
At UQ Business School, Mr Sreekumar contributed to the student community through his active involvement in the Business School Postgraduate Association.
Sponsored by Mirvac, the Top MBA Awards celebration features six excellence awards, a community service award, and the Top MBA Award for the student with the highest Grade Point Average (GPA) across the program.
UQ Business School’s Top MBA Awards will be held on Thursday, November 15, from 5.30pm at UQ Business School Downtown, Level 19, Central Plaza One, 345 Queen St, Brisbane. To RSVP, please contact Amy Hyslop on (07) 3365 8561.
Media inquiries: Cathy Stacey on (07) 3365 6179 or 0434 074 372.
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