Community, Commitment, Christian Values — and a Sincere Desire to be True to Modern Management

Lagos Business School holds its head high and stands firm on its core beliefs to create balanced, compassionate leaders of industry.

Nigeria’s Lagos Business School (LBS) is a community committed to creating and transmitting management skills and business knowledge.

The graduate school is part of the Pan-Atlantic University (PAU), a private institution owned by the non-profit Pan-Atlantic University Foundation (PAUF). LBS is guided by Christian values, coupled with business and management expertise relevant to Nigeria and the greater African continent. “We strive to be a world-class business school that will have a significant impact on the practice of management by creating and transmitting knowledge,” says dean Chris Ogbechie.

The practice of management, for LBS, means focusing on high-potential professionals, with an emphasis on ethics and management-as-a-service. Guiding values are professionalism, integrity, spirit of service, mutual respect, and care for the community.

Vision

When it comes to vision, Lagos Business School (LBS) “aims to be widely recognised as the business school with the greatest impact on the knowledge and practice of management in Africa”. Teaching, research, and engagements are aimed at developing responsible leaders with the skills and expertise required to help solve Africa’s business, economic, social, and institutional challenges.

LBS’s brand promise is to provide world-class management training matching that of the world’s top educational institutions. What follows is a link to the world’s best companies and managers — defining management development and leadership transformation among top-tiered Nigerian corporates and multinationals.

The Prelature of Opus Dei, an institution of the Catholic Church, guarantees that Christian vision and values underscore all teaching, publishing, and research.

Organisational Structure

The school is organised in functional units or directorates (academic and non-academic), each headed by a substantive director, who is assisted by managerial and administrative staff.

The LBS management board, chaired by the dean, is responsible for overall organisation, direction, and management — including strategic and operational decisions. The board reports to the University Management Council (UMC) via the dean.

The LBS faculty board, also chaired by Ogbechie, is responsible for student-related academic decisions. It addresses student discipline, curriculum and learning and admissions.

The International Advisory Board was established to create a mechanism for measuring effectiveness and to advise on future direction. The IESE-LBS Advisory Board guides LBS management on academic and management practices. It also provides on-campus learning visits for faculty and staff. The board reviews and advises LBS on administrative and programme activities.

Pan-Atlantic University (PAU) adopts governance mechanisms to ensure currency and relevance in academic and administrative pursuits.

Lagos Business School offers academic and executive programmes, function-specific seminars, and customised executive sessions in management education. Its courses have been ranked among the best in Africa and the school has won the recognition of world-class organisations. Besides the quality of education, LBS stands out because of the emphasis on professional ethics and community service.

There is a wealth of experiences in the diverse faculty members and industry practitioners, and education at LBS is comprehensive. The main pedagogy is the case-study method and group work to ensure participant-centred learning.

Academic Programmes

LBS offers postgraduate masters’ degrees in business administration (MBA) in four formats: full-time, modular, executive, and modular executive. Graduates will be versed in business management, analytical thinking and problem-solving. Communications, global awareness, and interpersonal and ethical reasoning skills are also taught.

It also offers Doctorates in Business Administration (DBA), and academic programmes are complemented by an executive education unit. In line with LBS’s strategy and vision for Africa, the executive education programmes are designed to build holistic perspectives and integrate functional expertise into the general view of business.

There are executive programmes in open-enrolment and in-company (custom) formats across various management disciplines. They include globally recognised methodologies and workplace application.

Short, function-specific programmes cover various management disciplines, such as strategy and innovation, sports business management, agro-allied sector, operations management, marketing and sales management, leadership and personal effectiveness, human resource management, general management, business information systems, board effectiveness and governance, accounting, finance and economics.

The school has a commitment to advancing thought-leadership in leadership, sustainability, financial inclusion and entrepreneurship. These areas are woven into the fabric of the school, as well as the business environment and society.

Business ethics is the bedrock of Lagos Business School, and has been since its inception. Students and executive participants take sessions on business ethics. The aim is to arm graduates with the capacity to make sound moral judgments in their personal and professional lives. This is done through research creation, dissemination, and capacity building.

The LBS Sustainability Centre is the first of its kind in Nigeria. It is designed to refocus the relationship between businesses and stakeholders by creating responsible leaders. The centre works with organisations to help them incorporate sustainable practices in their operations. The development of innovative products and services can transform communities — and generate revenue.

This enables businesses to sustain livelihoods, reduce poverty, and contribute to national development and the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The LBS Sustainability Centre achieves this through stakeholder engagements and partnerships, research, and industry engagements.

The Sustainable and Inclusive Digital Financial Services (SIDFS) initiative was founded in 2015 when LBS began a work entitled Sustainable Business Models for Delivering Digital Financial Services to Lower Income, Unbanked Citizens of Nigeria. Through research, engagements and advocacy, the work created an evidence base for financial inclusion, and identified market-enabling policy interventions in Nigeria.

The LBS also developed a series of technical economic papers investigating the relationship between financial inclusion and vital macro-economic parameters, advocacy, and communication. The objective of SIDFS is to enhance the responsiveness of financial services providers to create and deliver value propositions that improve the economic well-being of Nigerians — with an emphasis on gender equality, poverty reduction and support for rural populations.

The Business Innovation Accelerator, a collaboration with the Bank of Industry, aims to provide entrepreneurship training and empowerment to young Nigerians across the six geopolitical zones.

This centre is intended to play an essential role in shaping Nigeria’s Entrepreneurship Ecosystem to support and enhance technical, managerial, financial, and leadership skills. The accelerator has been set up to develop impact-driven entrepreneurs who use for-profit business models to solve problems and transform society in positive ways.

LBS is a member of the Global Network for Advanced Management (GNAM), Association of MBA’s (AMBA), AACSB International, the Association of African Business Schools (AABS), the Global Business School Network (GBSN), the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD), Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG) and the Convention on Business Integrity (CBI).

Accreditation and Ranking

LBS is ISO 9001:2015 certified and accredited by two of the world’s leading accreditation bodies, the Association of MBAs (AMBA) and the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).

It is also accredited by the Nigeria Universities Commission (NUC). LBS has been ranked among top global providers of executive education every year since 2007 by The Financial Times, and rated #1 in Africa and #41 in the world in the 2022 Executive Education Rankings. The school is listed among the top 100 global business schools on The Economist magazine’s 2021 MBA Ranking, and holds a Tier-One status on CEO Magazine’s 2022 Global MBA Ranking.

Qualified to a Fault, Steeped in Experience for his ‘Passion Subjects’, Blessed with Energy

Lagos Business School’s dean could not be better suited to his position.

Chris Ogbechie is Dean and Professor of Strategic Management at Lagos Business School — but his titles don’t stop there.

He is also Visiting Professor at Strathmore Business School in Nairobi, Kenya, and at the University of Kigali, in Rwanda. His academic career started with his own tertiary education — a first-class honours degree in mechanical engineering from Manchester University, an MBA from Manchester Business School, and a PhD in Business Administration from Brunel Business School — and has since been nourished by his vast experience in marketing, strategy, corporate governance, and sustainability.

Ogbechie has held senior posts in various companies and countries; he was head of marketing and sales at Nestle Nigeria and held international posts for the famous company in Malaysia, Singapore, and Switzerland. He has also worked as a consultant at Nigerian, Ghanaian and Kenyan firms.

Professor Ogbechie teaches strategy, sustainability and corporate governance at the Lagos Business School, and at the Strathmore Business School. He is the founding director of the Lagos Business School Sustainability Centre. His research interests are in strategy for turbulent environments, strategic leadership, board effectiveness, and corporate sustainability.

Professor Ogbechie has over 30 years’ experience in corporate board matters and has been involved with several start-ups in Nigeria. He was chairman of the board of directors at Diamond Bank Plc, and he sits on the board of several private and public companies, including National Salt Company of Nigeria Plc (NASCON), Health Partners Ltd, Hubmart Stores Ltd, Summit Healthcare Group, and Palton Morgan Holdings.

Chris Ogbechie has written for several publications on the subjects of financial services marketing, strategic management, corporate social responsibility, corporate governance, and sustainability.