The Farmleigh Fellowship Newsletter December 2012

Please find below an update on the Farmleigh Fellowship.

2011 Fellows UCC Graduation

The graduation ceremony for the 2011 Fellows was held in UCC on 30th October 2011. As the majority of the 2011 Fellows are currently employed in Asia, only four Fellows attended their conferral. We would like to congratulate our 2011 Fellows on their graduation.

Completion of the 2012 MBS programme

All of the 2012 Fellows have successfully completed the programme and will be submitting their theses to UCC. All twenty-two participants have completed their final work placement on the 1st week of December, and have returned to Ireland to complete their final wrap-up at UCC on the 13th and 14th of December. This completes the MBS Asian Business Studies for 2012. We are delighted that the programme has gone so well with feedback being enormously positive from all quarters. The success of our second year is a testament to the power of networks and to what can be achieved through harnessing the enormous goodwill and talent of the Irish Diaspora. On behalf of the Board, I would like to express our sincere thanks to all our Sponsors, UCC, NTU, the Government of Ireland, the IDA, Enterprise Ireland, Ireland House in Singapore, the Mentors, the Irish Chambers of Commerce in Singapore and elsewhere, and finally the Fellows themselves for making our second year an outstanding success.

Progress of the 2013 MBS programme

The candidate selection process is well underway. The application closed at the end of September and we were pleased to report a 45% increase in number of applicants over last year. Currently sponsors are in the process of selecting their candidates. We target to fully complete the process before Christmas and the new Fellows will begin their academic year on the 7th January 2013 at UCC.

Events

Farewell event for the 2011 Fellows

An event was held on the 6th of December to celebrate the end of the program and to send off our Fellows who were returning to UCC to submit their theses. Our chief guest was the Honorary Patron for Asia, Mr George Yeo, who was formerly the Minister for Foreign Affairs for the Republic of Singapore, and many of our sponsors, mentors and supporters also attended. We thank everyone for their support, especially Ambassador Hayes and his team for hosting the event.

Special Visits and Lectures

There were a number of special visits and lectures for the 2012 Fellows throughout August, September and October. We would like to thank the following:

Fred Then, mentor at NTUV, for the talk on “Innovation and Entrepreneurship” on the 21st August

Fiona Mullin, Regional Head of HR, for the class visit to Microsoft on the 24th August

Dave Hourican, CFO of RBS, for the talk on Asian Financial Markets on the 3rd September

Simon Kelly, Director for Strategic Accounts, and Alvin Kan of LinkedIn for the LinkedIn talk held at NTU on the 12th September

Frank Boland, CEO of Pilot Crew, for the talk on “Personal perspectives on building a successful business” in Asia on the 17th September

Micheal Collins, Director of Kraken Media, for the class visit to Prep Zone, on the 15th October

Our mentors for participating in the Speed Coaching event at NTU on the 20th October, where the Fellows received intensive career counselling

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

As the Farmleigh Fellowship comes to the close of our second year, we would like to wish all our friends and supporters a very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2013.

If you have any further interest, enquiries or suggestions regarding the Fellowship, please do not hesitate to contact us. Best wishes The Farmleigh Fellowship The Farmleigh Fellowship is a not for profit organisation based in Singapore.