Business school student Alastair Lumsden has been awarded the Rising Star Award offered by the John Mather Charitable Trust, allowing him to pursue his dream career in the extremely competitive arena of strategy consultancy.Business school student Alastair Lumsden has been awarded the Rising Star Award offered by the John Mather Charitable Trust, allowing him to pursue his dream career in the extremely competitive arena of strategy consultancy.
The John Mather Charitable Trust has awarded Alastair £10,000 to help him achieve his career aims. John Mather was a former office tea-boy who became head of one of the most successful port authorities and he left a multi-million pound legacy for Scottish charitable causes.
The John Mather Trust makes awards to those who can prove they have the potential to make a genuine impact in their chosen fields. Whilst designated for postgraduate students, the Rising Star award has been offered in recognition of Alastair’s clearly defined career aspirations, his potential as a graduate, and his clearly articulated plans for realising his goals. The award was to be made to the best response to the question “What will you do with the money to further your career and to enhance your profession?”
Alastair, who has been identified as a top undergraduate student of the business school, recently awarded a First Class Honours degree in Management and Business Enterprise, was nominated for the award by Strathclyde Business School's Executive Dean, Professor Susan Hart.
While being an outstanding academic student, Alastair has also excelled outwith his studies. He has undertaken several internships, one of which resulted in a Motherwell-based company securing £130,000 in matched funding thanks to his business plan. He was also picked to attend the global leadership exchange programme, being the first UK national to study at Japan's top 6 university, Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, where he achieved A grade level in all his studies and completed two finance and economics-related MBA modules as an optional extra. While in Japan, he sourced, secured and delivered an internship project at AngloINFO, a Tokyo-based website company.
Alastair also won the prestigious Carnegie Vacation Scholarship through his collaboration with a University of Cambridge academic where they designed a new module for the Judge Business School MBA programme. In addition, Alastair completed a summer project working with the economic development agency Highlands & Islands enterprise, working to develop their EU policy and funding strategy.
Keen to give something back to the student community, Alastair established the Management Consultancy Society at Strathclyde which, while nascent, has organised over 10 successful events, including with senior staff from organisations including Lloyds Banking Group, the Institute of Directors, Tesco Bank, and Edinburgh Airport. Alastair has also made links with senior staff at big brand names like IBM, SSE, Babcock, Virgin, National Australia Group, KPMG, and Wood Group, all with a view to promoting greater industry engagement between industry and Strathclyde students.
Professor Hart said, "Alastair is one of our top undergraduate students at Strathclyde Business School. He is an outstanding student who has already made an impact on the business community. Alastair creates opportunities for himself and others where possible and is a fantastic Strathclyde ambassador."
Despite the awards being established prior to this year, Alastair is the first ever recipient to secure the Rising Star award from the John Mather Trust. The Trustees have commented that they are excited to see what value their award can make and what impact Alastair can make as he transitions from student to graduate, and they will watch his progress with great interest. Alastair will report back to the Trustees on a regular basis to keep them informed of his performance and how the award has supported him.