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What and who is the Graduate Business Forum?
Established in 1983, the GBF is a global organization dedicated to bringing together
student leaders from graduate business programs worldwide, assembling them for inspirational
dialogues and debates at annual Graduate Business Conferences, and keeping them
connected in a global network of peers, alumni and inspirational leaders.
For more than 25 years this dedication has fueled uniqueness, bold change, and
exceptional will to succeed in thousands of tomorrow’s business leaders. It has
empowered these leaders to make a positive impact in our world through their activities
within their own business schools and later in the companies and organizations they
join.
What is the Graduate Business Conference?
The annual Graduate Business Conference (GBC) is the world’s only international
MBA leadership conference. The goal of the GBC is to bring together the top leaders
from the world’s best business schools to share best practices, discuss solutions
to common issues and promote a strong network among the participating MBA student
leaders while enriching their educational experience.
The annual three-day event is planned, organized, and run by student leadership
at the host school. Since its inception, the GBC has claimed as its venue 18 of
North America’s top 30 graduate business schools and has expanded to top business
schools worldwide. Approximately 2,400 student leaders have participated in these
forums, and 475 executives have shared perspectives in GBC sessions. Over 260 GBC
workshops have facilitated the exchange of leadership initiatives and helped create
new student programs.
Conference programming is a combination of theme based content and presidents’
network best practice workshops. The theme based content is developed to be relevant
and timely while fully utilizing the host school’s unique location, resources and
capabilities. The presidents’ network best practice workshops facilitate the development
and dissemination of best practices and ideas to the participant schools. The conference
culminates with the presentation of the Student Leadership Award at the Awards Ceremony
and Banquet.
Who Attends the GBC?
The conference is attended by the incoming and outgoing presidents from the top
50 MBA programs in the world as ranked by the Financial Times. Last year, over 80
student leaders from top graduate business schools across five continents attended
the conference and this year we expect to exceed that attendance level.
What is the Presidents’ Network Best Practice Workshop?
The essence of the Graduate Business Conference is to share ideas and exchange
best practices in order to create a forum of mutual inspiration. The Presidents’
Network Best Practice Workshops are a series of interactive meetings between the
student leaders where best practices and new innovative ideas are shared and solutions
to issues suggested by the student leaders are developed.
What is the GBF Student Leadership Award?
The GBF’s key mission is developing leadership and global citizenship with influence
and so they recognize individual brilliance in this area with our Student Leadership
Award (SLA). The SLA is won by an individual student or a team in recognition of
leadership and innovation at a graduate business level. The SLA is open to full
time graduate business students of schools participating in the annual Graduate
Business Conference. This Award is given to the individual (or team) best exemplifying
the GBF’s ideals of leadership and innovation within the graduate business community.
The award is presented at the Awards Ceremony and Banquet, which closes the conference.
Previous guest presenters of the award include HRH Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark
and U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
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