Initially established as the UWI Institute of Business in 1989, the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business (Lok Jack GSB) was created as an ambitious and unprecedented collaboration between The University of the West Indies and the private sector. In the late 1980's the business climate was ideal for the development of a business school. Although trade liberalization and other IMF led structural adjustments created greater competition and increasing pressures on businesses to perform, growth was still foreseen by some parts of the private sector. At the same time, prevailing management education had an academic bias and companies were challenged to find managers of high caliber. Advanced management education to manage growth, make companies more agile and help achieve competitive advantage was required.
A private sector coalition therefore approached the UWI with a view to establishing a postgraduate management education offering which was funded by the private sector and backed by University accreditation. The idea found support with the UWI Vice Chancellor Sir Alistair Mc Intyre and St. Augustine Principal Professor George Maxwell Richards. The private sector then joined together to raise funding for the Institute and among the initial subscribers were the Royal Bank of Trinidad & Tobago, Republic Bank Ltd., Neal & Massy, Ansa Mc Al and Trinidad Cement Ltd. This model of collaboration and self-sustenance has attracted interest from other business schools in the United Kingdom and the United States.
The Lok Jack GSB has trained and developed more than 20,000 people locally, regionally and internationally and has even gone as far afield as Botswana, Swaziland and the Seychelles. The Business School has been listed as one of only three centres of excellence in the Commonwealth. The first academic programme offered by the Lok Jack GSB was the Executive Master of Business Administration, which was launched in June 1990. In 1993 the Post Graduate Diploma in Human Resource Management was birthed followed by the International M.B.A. in 1995, and the Post Graduate Diploma in Management Information Systems in 1997. The M.Sc. Marketing Programme was launched in 2002 with the Master of Human Resource Management being introduced in 2003.
In 2003 the Executive M.B.A. and the International M.B.A. were awarded international accreditation by the Association of M.B.A.'s of the U.K. in world record time of six months. The Doctorate of Business Administration developed in conjunction with our sister schools at the Mona and Cave Hill campuses of The University of the West Indies admitted its first cohort in January 2008, while the newest addition to the list is a Master of International Finance launched in March 2010. The Lok Jack GSB has graduated over 1400 persons from these programmes.
Currently Executive Education, Conferencing, Professional Development and Business Advisory services are provided by the Executive Education, and Diagnostics and Assessment Centres, with these offerings continuing to complement the formal academic programmes with accessible learning experiences aimed at the full range of business professionals in the marketplace. In July 2005 the Lok Jack GSB moved into the state of art facility located on 8.5 acres of land and continues to enjoy strong endorsement from the business community. It has attracted a $TT20 million endowment from the Arthur Lok Jack Foundation and other sponsorships from Republic Bank Ltd, Yara Trinidad Ltd, The Neal & Massy Group, Guardian Holdings Ltd and businessman Byron Gopaul.
The Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business currently enjoys partnership with the World Economic Forum, the Institute for Strategy & Competitiveness of the Harvard Business School, George Washington University and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. The Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business has also produced the Vision 2020 Draft Strategic National Plan for the Government of Trinidad & Tobago. With these and other developments in areas such as Conferencing and Corporate Responsibility Centres, we look forward to your continued support and partnership as we advance the mission of developing the latent greatness of our region through the empowering of our people.
Currently offered at the Lok Jack GSB:
The Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business is currently offering as its graduate programmes:
�2 The International MBA
�2 The Executive MBA
�2 Master of Marketing
�2 Master of Human Resource Management
�2 Master in International Finance
�2 Doctor of Business Administration
A number of short courses and workshops are always available, such as Events Management, Project Management, Train-the-Trainer and Technical Report Writing, amongst others.