Nefesh-Clarke graduated from ESCP Europe’s MBA course in June 2009. In her position as Director for the Philippine arm of the humanitarian organisation Enfants d’Asie, Nefesh-Clarke was inspired to improve her managerial skills, picking ESCP Europe’s Executive MBA programme to help do just that.

“I wanted the business management leadership skills to take my humanitarian work further,” she told The Independent. “I want to work in the field of micro-finance, which is about enabling poor people to borrow small amounts to help themselves and their business flourish. This is one of the most important ways to alleviate poverty.”

In addition to her work with Enfants d’Asie, Nefesh-Clarke will soon launch The Women’s Worldwide Web, an online platform that aims to use micro-finance to empower women with loans they can use in the pursuit of an education or the creation of their own small businesses. The project will go live on International Women’s Day 2010.

The enterprise was created as a part of the company consultancy project within Nefesh-Clarke’s MBA studies. This aspect of the course is designed to provide participants with collaborative, multi-disciplinary and often intercultural work experience. Students work on a real-life strategic challenge and put into practice the concepts and theory developed during the MBA.

Nefesh-Clarke beat 59 other entrants from every continent to win this year’s award.  Four highly impressive candidates were short-listed, three of whom were women.  Nefesh-Clarke received the award from Will Hutton, Executive Vice-Chairman of the Work Foundation.

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ESCP Europe Business School’s European Executive MBA programme is currently ranked 3rd in the world for career progression (Financial Times, 2009), and 25th worldwide overall.  Comprised of core courses, electives, seminars and an international consultancy project, the ESCP Europe EMBA allows students to study with any of the School’s five European campuses (Paris, London, Berlin, Madrid and Turin).  Please contact Alison Clarke for further details.

"People do not take enough responsibility for the damage they are doing to the environment through their activities," says Julien. "Human interference through population growth and industrial and agricultural activities is rapidly increasing the amount of greenhouses gases in the atmosphere – negatively affecting biodiversity and causing extreme weather, sea level rises and reduced agricultural yields. It's no good just waiting for businesses and the Government to come up with new schemes and technology – everybody needs to take a long hard look at their own impact on the environment and take steps to improve it now.

"And although planting trees doesn't change the root of the problem caused by industrialization and overconsumption, it is a very effective way to minimize the negative effects."

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