Welcoming our new Rewley Scholars to Oxford Saïd

Community support funds these extraordinary scholars

As another year begins at Oxford Saïd, we’re thrilled to welcome 337 new MBA students to the School. The MBA class of 2023-24 includes 63 nationalities and is 51% female. This is the first time we’ve reached full gender parity in our MBA class and is a significant achievement of which the School is very proud. Scholarships are a crucial way to ensure we’re able to attract students from diverse backgrounds to the School, and achieve this important gender parity target.

Among the students embarking on their journeys with the School, are our new cohort of Rewley Scholars. The Rewley Fund, which our community supported on Giving Day in June, is this year funding the awards of three MBA students, one MSc Financial Economics student, two ROMBA fellowships, three Forté fellowships, and is also co-funding the Oxford-Grace Lake scholar. Further to this, we’re anticipating a further seven Rewley Scholars joining the School in 2024, with Executive MBA and Diploma Scholars joining in the January intake, and the MSc Major Programme Management Scholar joining in September.

The Rewley Scholars benefit from joining a scholarship community which endorses their academic excellence and right to be at Oxford Saïd, as well as a community of alumni-funded scholars with whom they’ll share a common bond and enjoy networking with.

Shahbaz Merchant, an equity analyst tracking the Indian BFSI sector, is pursuing the Oxford MBA to push his career to the next level and move from the sell-side of investment to the buy-side. He’s keen to learn more about the applications of AI and data science in investment research which he believes would allow a larger number of potential opportunities to be assessed and ultimate enhance the quality of insight generation.

Shahbaz was motivated to join Oxford Saïd due to the diverse class composition which will allow him to engage with peers with technical backgrounds to better understand the potential of AI tools in this area. He is also participating in the Finance Lab, and hoping to gain a place in the Asset Management Masterclass.

He describes choosing Oxford Saïd as a ‘no-brainer’ and receiving the Rewley Scholarship as ‘instrumental in being able to pursue an MBA' and looks forward to engaging with the School and wider University community.

Michael Chan, our MSc Financial Economics Rewley Scholar, has aspirations to pursue a career in strategy consulting. He believes that consulting offers the unparalleled opportunity to tackle the most pressing challenges at the heart of organisations even at the analyst and associate levels. He says that the MSc Financial Economics at Oxford Saïd offers a curriculum that uniquely balances theory with practice that he hopes will further his quantitative framework and prepare him for his career aspirations. He’s looking forward to experiencing all that the course and Oxford have to offer, and hopes to attend Oxford Union debates, and join the badminton team.

On receiving the Rewley Scholarship he says:

‘I am extremely grateful to have been selected for the Rewley Scholarship. It’s an immense and indescribable honour to have been awarded as the only member of the MSc Financial Economics cohort, a programme comprised of unbelievably talented individuals with greatly diverse experiences, in recognition of my academic achievements.

The Rewley Scholarship will undoubtedly support me throughout my studies at Oxford financially and enables me to further the pursuit of my career aspirations through the exclusive opportunities afforded to connect with alumni and benefactors of the scholarship programme.’

We’ll bring you more updates on the scholars’ experience throughout the year and introduce you to the scholars joining in 2024.