London Business School has reached a major milestone in its partnership with the Laidlaw Foundation, welcoming its 100th Laidlaw Scholar to campus. The achievement marks nearly a decade of collaboration aimed at developing the next generation of responsible, inclusive business leaders.Established to support high-potential women in business education,the Laidlaw Scholarships at LBS have grown in scope and impact,helping to remove financial barriers while fostering a diverse,globally minded community. As the School celebrates its 100th scholar, faculty, alumni and students are reflecting on how the program has shaped careers, strengthened networks and advanced LBS’s commitment to leadership grounded in integrity and social impact.
Evolution of the Laidlaw Scholarship at London Business School and its Impact on Global Leadership
What began as a bold experiment in values-driven education has steadily matured into a defining feature of the School’s leadership ecosystem.Early cohorts focused primarily on funding gifted individuals with strong academic credentials, but the programme has since expanded to prioritise ethical decision-making, inclusive leadership, and impact beyond profit. Scholars now engage with a structured pathway that blends academic rigor with experiential learning, including immersive projects, global treks and mentorship from senior executives. Over time, these elements have created a distinctive leadership pipeline that extends far beyond the classroom, reinforcing the School’s position as a hub for responsible, globally minded talent.
Today, the scholarship is a catalyst for a new generation of leaders who shape change across borders and sectors. Scholars are encouraged to commit to concrete outcomes,such as:
- Designing solutions to real-world challenges in emerging and developed markets
- Leading cross-cultural teams in high-stakes,time-pressured environments
- Scaling social impact ventures that align commercial success with societal benefit
- Building networks that connect business,policy and non-profit spheres
| Milestone | Focus | Global Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Early cohorts | Academic excellence | Strong analytical leaders |
| Programme expansion | Values & ethics | Purpose-driven decision-makers |
| 100th scholar | Scale & diversity | Worldwide leadership network |
Profile of the 100th Laidlaw Scholar and the Strategic Value of Their Research Focus
Our milestone scholar,Amara Patel (MiM2026),embodies the global,impact-driven mindset at the heart of the Laidlaw programme. With a background in computational economics and social policy, Amara is investigating how AI-powered credit scoring can be redesigned to expand fair access to finance for underbanked entrepreneurs in emerging markets. Her project builds a prototype framework that blends alternative data, transparent algorithms and human oversight, tested in collaboration with a microfinance partner in East Africa. Grounded in rigorous quantitative analysis and field interviews with borrowers, her research examines not only predictive accuracy, but also bias, consent and long-term financial resilience.
By aligning inclusive finance with responsible technology, Amara’s work delivers clear strategic value for businesses and policy-makers navigating rapidly digitising economies. The project intersects with several priority themes for the School and its corporate partners:
- Innovation: Demonstrating new models for low-cost, data-driven credit assessment.
- Risk Management: Providing tools to identify and mitigate algorithmic bias in lending decisions.
- Growth Markets: Opening scalable pathways to serve high-potential but overlooked customer segments.
- Leadership Growth: Offering a live case study in ethical decision-making for future executives.
| Focus Area | Strategic Benefit |
|---|---|
| AI in microfinance | New revenue streams in frontier markets |
| Ethical data use | Stronger trust and brand resilience |
| Impact metrics | Clear linkage between profit and inclusion |
How Laidlaw Scholars Transform LBS and Their Home Communities Through Evidence Based Initiatives
Armed with rigorous research skills and a mandate to challenge the status quo, Laidlaw Scholars weave academic insight directly into the fabric of campus life. From designing behavioural experiments that reshape how students collaborate, to creating data dashboards that track inclusion and wellbeing, their initiatives become live pilots for broader institutional change. Many projects evolve into long-term partnerships with LBS centres and faculty, ensuring that evidence, not intuition, drives decisions around curriculum innovation, leadership development and student support.
That same evidence-based mindset extends well beyond Regent’s Park. Scholars return to their home communities applying tested frameworks, not one-off interventions, to issues such as youth unemployment, financial literacy and access to education. They prototype solutions locally, measure impact rigorously and then refine or scale. Key areas of transformation frequently enough include:
- Education access: Data-informed mentoring schemes and scholarship advocacy.
- Entrepreneurship: Micro-initiatives that track job creation and income uplift.
- Civic engagement: Community programmes benchmarked with clear impact metrics.
| Focus Area | Example Initiative | Measured Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Campus Inclusion | Bias-aware team formation tool | +18% in diverse group projects |
| Community Skills | Financial literacy bootcamps | 25% rise in budgeting confidence |
| Youth Leadership | Peer-led mentoring networks | Higher school completion rates |
Recommendations for Maximising the Laidlaw Network to Support Future Inclusive and Ethical Leaders
To translate this expanding community into a catalyst for inclusive and ethical leadership, the Laidlaw network should be treated as a living laboratory rather than a static alumni list. Scholars, supervisors and industry partners can co-create micro-initiatives that test new models of responsible decision-making, from cross-cohort ethical dilemma labs to peer-led clinics on inclusive product design.Curated digital spaces, such as moderated Slack channels or private forums, can surface diverse perspectives from across geographies, allowing emerging leaders to stress-test ideas with those who challenge their assumptions rather than simply echo them. Embedding structured reflection – brief, evidence-based debriefs after projects, internships or fieldwork – will help ensure that learnings about power, privilege and impact are captured and shared across intakes.
Maximising this network also means designing touchpoints that make ethical and inclusive practice a default, not an exception.Regularly scheduled thematic clusters – for example, around climate justice, gender equity in finance, or AI governance – can connect scholars to mentors and peers working on similar frontiers, while spotlighting tangible role models who have translated Laidlaw values into boardroom decisions and community outcomes. To support this, LBS can deploy a simple but strategic architecture of engagement:
- Mentor circles that pair senior alumni with small, diverse scholar groups.
- Impact sprints where mixed cohorts prototype solutions for real-world inclusion challenges.
- Story archives capturing case studies of ethical leadership under pressure.
- Global peer exchanges linking LBS scholars with Laidlaw peers at partner institutions.
| Network Feature | Primary Purpose | Inclusive Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Mentor Circles | Long-term guidance | Broader access to social capital |
| Impact Sprints | Rapid problem-solving | Co-created, community-informed solutions |
| Global Exchanges | Cross-cultural learning | Reduced bias, stronger cultural fluency |
| Story Archives | Shared experience base | Visible, diverse leadership role models |
The Conclusion
As London Business School marks the milestone of its 100th Laidlaw Scholar, the programme’s impact is becoming increasingly clear: a growing network of students equipped not only with academic excellence, but with the mindset and skills to lead with purpose.
In the years ahead, this cohort – and those that follow – will test new ideas, challenge established thinking and help shape more inclusive, responsible organisations around the world. For LBS, the 100th scholar is less a conclusion than a turning point, underscoring the School’s commitment to investing in the next generation of leaders and signalling that its partnership with the Laidlaw Foundation is only gaining momentum.
