Stay connected

“We have 20 Alumni Ambassadors in the MENA region who are instrumental in helping us engage with our alumni by hosting events on behalf of the Alumni Relations team,” she said.

“As part of the MENA Chapter, our Alumni Ambassadors in Dubai have started hosting monthly gatherings to ensure the alumni community is regularly engaged.”

Pathan, who has been instrumental in setting up this chapter, said: “The spirit of this chapter is alumni helping alumni. We’ve set up three initiatives: the Entrepreneurs’ Club, the Professional Women’s Club and an employment initiative which will focus on helping alumni to find work opportunities. We have 2,000 graduates based in the region, so if we can figure out how to keep alumni employing alumni, we’re on the right track.”
Additionally, in May 2018, as part of an effort to inspire and support the next generation of entrepreneurs, the Dubai Centre and Alumni Relations team hosted a breakfast networking session ahead of a newly launched four-day New Venture Creation course led by Professor Costas Andriopoulos, Professor of Management and Associate Dean for Entrepreneurship.

Ambassador-led events are happening all around the world. Here’s a snapshot of some of the alumni events held over the past year:

• Our alumna Bronwyn Cosgrave (International Journalism, 1993), along with the US Alumni Board and our Alumni Ambassadors in the area, hosted a Send-Off Party for new students coming to City, University of London at her home in New York. Following this successful initiative, our Alumni Ambassadors in New York continued organising monthly evening drinks gatherings during the autumn of 2017.
• In Lagos, the Nigerian Alumni Group organised an Alumni reunion in September 2017 hosted by our Ambassador Bode Adewoju.
• In Doha, Qatar Ambassadors Osama Javaid and Mahmoud Barraj organised the first
  official alumni event in December 2017.
• Indonesia Ambassadors Usman Lodhi and Wijaya Surya hosted a year-end celebratory dinner for fellow alumni in Jakarta in December 2017.
• Once again our Zurich Ambassador Amrit Sohal organised networking drinks for our alumni community. We are very grateful for their continued support.
• In April 2018 we had the first Alumni Gathering in Montreal, Canada, hosted by Professor Neil Maiden, Professor of Digital Creativity at Cass Business School and supported by our new Ambassador in Montreal, Didem Cataloglu.
• The MENA Alumni Chapter in Dubai has started planning a series of events named ‘First Sunday’, which will be monthly alumni gatherings. During the holy month of Ramadan they also hosted a late-evening alumni suhoor (pre-dawn meal) in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
• Our Alumni Ambassadors in Beijing and Shanghai coordinated a highly successful mentor dinner event, pairing up recent graduates with established alumni mentors in November 2017 and again in April 2018.
• Our Ambassadors in Greece launched a bi-monthly drinks gathering in March with 200 alumni attendees at the first event.

Find out more: www.city.ac.uk/alumni/international-ambassadors