Pride@SBS

We are proud to join the 2020-21 list of Reaching Out LGBTQ MBA Club Affiliates.

As part of our membership, we are delighted to offer a Reaching out Fellowship, a bursary to support active members of and advocates for the LGBTQ+ community.

The Reaching Out MBA Fellowship was created as a joint effort between Reaching Out and top business schools as a scholarship & mentorship for out LGBTQs & active allies pursuing their MBAs. 

‘These fellowships are incredibly important because members of the LGBTQ+ community are under-represented in MBA programmes and by extension, in business,’ stated Khaya Makhabu, Oxford MBA 2019-20 candidate and Pride@SBS club chair. ‘The community needs more members in MBA programmes because we need to have more LGBTQ+ role models that succeed in all areas in society, and the MBA is an enabler of that.’

Two impactful LGBTQ+ community leaders have been awarded Reaching Out MBA (ROMBA) fellowships at Saïd Business School.

Roni Belenki and Sanoma Jean will be the first recipients of ROMBA fellowships at Oxford Saïd and will join the 2021 MBA cohort.

The inaugural fellowships are available through a partnership between the School and Reaching Out MBA, a unique global network for LGBTQ+ MBA students. The fellowships award £20,000 to each recipient.

The ROMBA fellowships promote the empowerment and representation of LGBTQ+ students at the School and as future leaders. 

Roscoe Hastings, our former Director of Academic Services, wrote about its wider context and the importance of the month. 
 
‘It can be very easy for us to assume that the fight for equality and "rights" for LGBT+ people is "done" and, therefore, lead to the question of "what is the point" for History Month, International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia Intersex-phobia and Transphobia (17 May) and LGBT+ Pride events that take place across the country (Oxford’s is on 4 June).

There still remain many legal protections to be secured, and increasingly the fight is to maintain and preserve many of the already hard-won protections for the long-term.

We need visible and active events like LGBT+ History month to ensure we highlight and focus on marginalised communities. I am very privileged to be a white, cis-gendered gay man. For me, the arc of the moral universe has bent enormously in my lifetime. For many within my community – trans, asexual, intersex, people of colour – the fight continues. Allies and those in the LGBT+ community who have privilege must step up, act, call out injustice, and stand shoulder to shoulder as one community.’