Your gifts at work: perspectives from the Campaign Leadership Board

At the heart of the Forever Forward campaign is a community of LBS alumni and friends who have made gifts at impactful levels – and by lending their influence, networks and vision, they help maintain LBS’s position at the forefront of business research and teaching. The Campaign Leadership Board is a vital advisory body; a driving force of bold thinkers and doers who each have a passion for the School’s mission.

As Chair, Savio Kwan MSc09(1976) believes the Forever Forward campaign “reflects the ambition, energy and vision that LBS is known for, with a clear focus on areas where philanthropy can help the world’s leading global business school accelerate progress and amplify real-world impact.” Savio has been a long-standing supporter of LBS since completing his MSc 20 years ago, and is joined by nine Vice Chairs, five Faculty Vice Chairs and 16 additional Committee members.

Married Vice Chairs, NHS consultant Dr Fiona Pathiraja and Danish investor Søren Fryland Møller, met as classmates on the 2017 Executive MBA programme, where “LBS didn’t just shape our careers, it changed the course of our lives. It feels like home, so it’s a no-brainer to give back to the LBS community.” Ten years on, the very lecture theatre in which they sat as students is now named in their honour. As Fiona explains:

Faculty Vice Chair Lynda Gratton is a Professor of Management Practice in Organisational Behaviour. She has been named by Thinkers50 as one of the top 15 thinkers in the world and, alongside directing LBS’s programme ‘Human Resource Strategy in Transforming Companies’ (considered the world’s leading programme on human resources) and authoring more than six books, she has led the Future of Work Consortium for over 10 years, bringing together executives from more than 60 international corporations.

Committee member Dr Andreas Guldin MBA1993, CEO of Emil Capital Partners LLC, believes LBS “transformed my knowledge base and allowed me to pivot into a career as a venture capitalist and corporate executive”. Inspired by his mother’s experience of migration in the 1940s and his own experience moving from Germany to London for his MBA, Andreas established the Guldin Family Scholarship with his wife and daughter to support students with a history of family migration. He sees philanthropy in very simple terms. “The success of LBS has helped me in the past and it continues to do so today. Therefore, I am directly invested in the School’s success and I am happy to support it through philanthropic giving.”

The Campaign Leadership Board has seen Forever Forward raise a significant proportion of its £200m target in just four years. In the 23/24 academic year, £462,639 was raised in just 24 hours. In 24/25, 543 scholarships were allocated with the help of donor funding, and the gifts already received this year will help to establish LBS’s first endowed research institute. The Board’s success lies in its blend of highly successful individuals, all woven together by their love of LBS past and present and by their commitment to its future.