The University of Ghana Business School (UGBS) Alumni Association has reaffirmed its commitment to deepening engagement among past students and supporting critical infrastructure development at the school, as it hosted its 2025 End-of-Year Alumni Networking event on December 17 in Accra.
Held in collaboration with the University of Ghana Business School, the event brought together alumni across different year groups for an evening of interaction, networking, and reflection on the association’s role in advancing the school’s development agenda.
President of the UGBS Alumni Association, Mr. David Okyere Nyarko, described the gathering as a key platform for reconnecting alumni and strengthening professional bonds, even though attendance fell short of expectations.
“Today we met here for our usual annual networking activity, just to link up with friends, old and young, and also network, get to know each other, exchange numbers, and then catch up with them,” he said.
“I think a lot of people came, but unfortunately the participation was not as much as we were expecting,” Mr. Nyarko added.
He noted that while some had attributed the turnout to traffic challenges in the city, the association would intensify efforts to mobilise year groups more effectively in the future.
Despite this, he described the event as productive. “Today has been very fruitful, with a lot of dancing, eating and drinking, and networking and interacting,” he stated.
Mr. Nyarko also highlighted the long-standing collaboration between alumni and school management, driven largely through year group-led projects.
“What we do normally is to encourage the various year groups to pick up various projects in the school,” he explained, citing examples including the construction of a mentoring office and the refurbishment of the UGBS auditorium by the 1993 year group.
He said other cohorts had also contributed significantly, including the renovation of staff facilities and the construction of a baby bay to support students and lecturers with young children.
The coordinator of the UGBS Alumni Association, Dr. Edward Entee, said the core objective of the event was to reconnect alumni and strengthen networks beyond graduation.
“The idea was to get a number of people in here for us to just network, to meet up and see where each other has been or is after school,” he said, adding that while attendance was lower than anticipated, the engagement was encouraging.
Looking to the future, Dr. Entee indicated that plans are underway for an expanded alumni-focused event in 2026. He said the programme, scheduled for the third quarter, would be led by the various alumni and year groups, adding that structured preparations and a well-defined roadmap would be put in place in the coming months.
On a proposed new undergraduate block at UGBS, Dr. Entee said the alumni association was expected to take a leading role in fundraising. He stressed the urgency of the project, describing current classroom conditions as unsustainable.
“For a classroom that should take about 100, we are taking about 500, and it’s not a good size. The experience of the students is not something that we are proud of,” he said.
The new undergraduate block, which is expected to significantly ease pressure on existing facilities, is estimated to cost US$9.5 million and is projected to be completed within 24 months once construction begins.
Dean of the University of Ghana Business School, Professor Ernest Yaw Tweneboah-Koduah, underscored the importance of a collaborative approach with alumni, explaining that the networking event was deliberately not designed as a fundraising platform.
“What I don’t want is for you to always be going for money whenever your alumni hear from you. It’s not good,” he said.
“Today was not meant for fundraising, just to interact, just to network. We exchange numbers,” he added.
He noted that such engagement would make future fundraising efforts more organic and sustainable.
Prof. Tweneboah-Koduah expressed optimism that with sustained dialogue and trust, alumni would rally behind the new undergraduate block project, describing the networking initiative as a valuable step toward strengthening alumni-school relations.
