The Nigerian Institute Management (NIM) on Wednesday gave out N1.5m cash prize to the winner of 2019 Young Managers’ Competition (YMC).
Prof. Olukunle Iyanda, NIM chairman, made this known at the finals of the competition in Lagos, saying the programme was one of the institute’s contributions to youths development and empowerment.
Represented by Mrs Pat Anabor, Deputy President of NIM, Iyanda, said YMC was an annual competition established in 1974 to encourage practicing young graduate managers between the age of 25 and 40 years.
He said that participation and content quality of the competition was not in doubt as some past winners of the competition had gone on to head some of the nation’s frontline organisations.
According to him, to make the competition truly intellectual and relevant, the institute decided to repackage the modalities for and approach to the competition two years ago.
He said the competition had assumed the toga of a reality show whereby successful candidates, after being duly screened, were grouped in teams, given diverse tasks to undertake and the best team comes top.
“For this year’s competition, a total of 103 young managers (men and women) purchased the application forms out of which 77 participated in an online test.
“Four nominees from corporate members of the institute joined the 15 people that passed the online test.
“The best 11 were then picked after another round of assessment to be part of the final stage of the competition.
“In the last two days, the 11 chosen contestants, broke into four teams, and have been involved in rigorous and demanding tasks leading up to today’s finals,” he said.
Judging by their performance, Iyanda said that one of the contestants, Olalekan Olugbemi, Zonal Manager, DHL Express Services, Abuja, emerged the winner of 2019 YMC.
“The star prize for the winner of this year’s competition is a cash prize of N1.5 million.
“The first, second and third runners up will be rewarded with N800,000, N500,000 and management training at NIM
Headquarters respectively valued at N200,000,” Iyanda said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the first, second, third up and fourth runners up at the competition were Ruth Agbolade, Juliet Erifesi, Michael Nnumolu and John Olaoluwa respectively.
Congratulating the contestants, Mr Tony Fadaka, Registrar of NIM, said that assessment of the competition grand finale was based on the presentation, composure and delivery of the contestants.
Fadaka said the competition was aimed at encouraging young graduate managers endowed with creative and research ability.
He said the aim was also to horn their skills in conducting independent in-depth research into management-related problems with a view to proposing new solutions to them.
