Mail & Guardian reporter
Massi Delle Donne (27) is the first winner of the Mail & Guardian’s MBA scholarship to the Rotterdam School of Management. He met the academic who facilitated the general management study programme, Professor Wil Foppen, in Cape Town earlier this week.
Foppen was in town to meet several academics and squeeze in some sightseeing. He says the scholarship is a positive development for the university. It may be the foundation from which more scholarships are launched.
The Rotterdam School of Management – part of the graduate school at Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam – has cultivated strong international academic links. It has consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world with its innovative business programmes.
M&G CEO Govin Reddy said the paper welcomed the opportunity to be associated with such a prestigious scholarship.
Donne is experiencing a small case of nerves because of all the last-minute arrangements still to be made, like booking his flight, arranging accommodation in Rotterdam and, of course, the crash Dutch language course before the MBA course starts in a couple of months’ time.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity of a life- time. I don’t think I could have done it alone,” he says.
Delle Donne, a BSc (actuarial studies) graduate from the University of Cape Town, has been working at Momentum as an assistant to the executive director.
Delle Donne says he would like to use his time at Rotterdam University to explore broader financial services, like e- commerce. He says there are many opportunities to reduce the cost of banking in South Africa, for example, by using the Internet to arrange for employers to deduct policy costs off a worker’s salary through e-commerce.
And then there is the excitement of exploring a new town in a new country and continent.