In the final installment of a three part series, we take the time to chat with students from our London campus who have exhibited an exemplary level of “fit” and have been awarded merit scholarships.
- By
- November 15, 2018
- Executive MBA - Scholarships
Meet Our Scholarship Students: London
We recently learned about two Executive MBA scholarship winners from our Chicago and Hong Kong campuses. I would like to introduce two impressive winners from our London campus – Tayssir Hawary and Neysa Harilal.
The London-based admissions committee awarded two Dean’s Initiative Scholarships to exceptional candidates in our 2018 intake. The aim of these scholarships was to support high-potential students who demonstrated exceptional ‘fit’ with Chicago Booth and its values, committing to the belief that the students supported by these scholarships will enhance the diversity of the program and provide an excellent contribution to the school and their classmates.
In this blog post, we will not only meet the winners, but also delve deeper into the reasons why they choose to embark on an Executive MBA at Chicago Booth and why they considered this program to be the right choice for them.
Tayssir Hawary
Tayssir Hawary started his professional career at IBM and went on to co-found Emerge Technology, a company that provided media-oriented software services to Hollywood studios and created one of the first interactive Blu-ray discs.
The events of the 2011 ‘Arab Spring’ drove Tayssir to create a venture that would improve the life of his fellow Egyptians. He co-founded Tawseela to tackle the fragmented and often unreliable public transport sector. The company’s platform (Eazy) targets underserved cities in Egypt, with plans to expand to other developing countries. It leverages ridership data to create optimized bus routes that provide a higher quality, more efficient service.
Earning an MBA is an essential step in his plans for continued company growth. Tayssir is particularly keen to leverage the diversity of the classroom and learn from his classmates’ personal success stories and experiences. He was also drawn to the data-driven approach of the Chicago Booth Executive MBA Program. He knew the ‘Chicago Approach’ would bolster his confidence, knowing his decisions were “not just relying on gut-feeling”, but supported and strengthened by the powerful frameworks and deep knowledge gained here. Since starting the program, Tayssir has not only enjoyed acquiring theoretical knowledge, but also practical advice and personal experience from his professors. He was delighted to share that he has already applied knowledge gained from the first two weeks of the program to his company as they work to launch a new product.
Neysa Harilal
Neysa Harilal began her career in management consulting, working across diverse industries and sectors in South Africa. She enjoyed roles within various divisions of Liberty Financial Services before ultimately progressing to her current position, Head of Strategy at STANLIB, a South Africa based Asset Management firm.
The decision to embark on an MBA was in part spurred on by her desire to gain not only a depth of knowledge, but greater confidence across industries, with the aim of ultimately influencing industry change. Neysa felt additional formal academic qualifications would unlock further opportunities for advancement.
Eager to leverage not only the collaborative learning environment, which enables students to learn from a rich and incredibly diverse group of peers, Neysa is especially enthusiastic to acquire knowledge from professors at the forefront of their areas of expertise. When it came to ‘fit’, Neysa explains, “It was as much to do with the academic rigor of the program as it was the network of students and alumni.”
While on our London campus for her international week, she shared that despite coming into a new environment and working incredibly intensely to meet the demands of the program, everything “just worked and she felt at home”. And although she’s “absolutely loving” the learning experience and “can’t imagine a better place than Booth to truly learn and gain something valuable”, she is already looking forward returning to Booth as an alumna, to participate in additional elective courses and commit to life-long learning!
To learn more about scholarship opportunities in the Executive MBA Program, please visit our website.
Christina Tzovaras
Assistant Director, Recruitment & Admissions, London
Christina works with prospective students from across the EMEA region. She also assists with events, marketing communications, and the application process.
Christina Tzovaras