A transformative multi-million-pound gift from Wafic Saïd and the Saïd Foundation is set to bring a new generation of exceptional MBA scholars from around the world to Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. 

Aspiring students will be able to apply for the new Oxford Saïd: Future Leaders’ Scholarship. This is expected to bring the most academically talented students from around the world to take up a place on the Oxford MBA, regardless of background. 

To increase the impact of this highly generous £10 million gift, Mr Saïd has agreed it may form the basis of a time-limited match-funding initiative. Through this, gifts from additional donors to fund Future Leaders’ scholarships will be doubled in value through a 50% match. The School will work with Oxford’s historic Colleges, to maximise the opportunities of Mr Saïd’s generosity – allowing many more outstanding new MBA students to come to the University.

Mr Saïd’s game-changing donation for Future Leaders’ Scholarship could see as many as 50 additional scholars a year come to the School, completely transforming Oxford Saïd’s MBA scholarship provision.

Welcoming the scholarship donation, University of Oxford Vice-Chancellor, Professor Irene Tracey, said: ‘For more than 900 years, the University has been educating future leaders. Thanks to the generosity and vision of Wafic Saïd, even more future leaders will be equipped by our MBA programme with the ability to tackle complex challenges, both local and global. On behalf of the University of Oxford and many future beneficiaries of this scholarship, I wish to extend my heartfelt thanks for this incredible gift.’ 

Thanks to the generosity and vision of Wafic Saïd, even more future leaders will be equipped by our MBA programme with the ability to tackle complex challenges, both local and global.

Vice-Chancellor, Professor Irene Tracey

Wafic Saïd is an international businessman and philanthropist whose benefaction to the University of Oxford in the 1990s made the foundation of the Saïd Business School possible. 

Commenting on his gift, Mr Saïd said: ‘The primary focus of my philanthropy is investing in talent through Higher Education. I am interested in its huge power to transform the life opportunities of individual students; and through them, as its agents of change, organisations, businesses and societies, finding solutions to the world’s problems. I make this gift to the School with this mission in mind. I have been supporting students for more than 30 years and know that outstanding MBA students are the lifeblood of a world-class business school.

I am interested in its huge power to transform the life opportunities of individual students; and through them, as its agents of change, organisations, businesses and societies, finding solutions to the world’s problems.  

Wafic Saïd, Saïd Business School’s founding benefactor

‘It was my purpose in supporting the foundation of the School in the 1990s to make a gift that marked my gratitude for the warm welcome given to me as a young man in the UK by fostering the growth of world-class business education. This gift will strengthen that purpose by ensuring that Saïd Business School will be in the strongest possible position to vie for the brightest minds in the years ahead and welcome many more outstanding students who will benefit from everything the School and the wider University have to offer.  I look forward to seeing the impact of the scholarship on the School and our alumni community.’     

Life-changing experience 

Thanking Mr Saïd for his generosity, Oxford Saïd’s Dean, Professor Soumitra Dutta, added: ‘We are deeply grateful to Mr Wafic Saïd and the Saïd Foundation for making this incredibly generous gift to support the School’s ambition to attract the very best student talent. Through the creation of the prestigious new Oxford Saïd Future Leaders Scholarship, we will be able to attract outstanding graduate students to the MBA at the University of Oxford.  We look forward to welcoming the recipients, to ensuring they have a life-changing experience with us and to tracking the positive impact they go on to have in the world as our alumni.’

The Saïd Foundation is a UK-registered charity founded in 1982 by Mr Wafic and Mrs Rosemary Saïd. The Saïd Foundation’s vision is of a world where people from all backgrounds can realise their full potential. 

Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford is a vibrant and innovative business school, embedded within a 900-year-old world leading university, creating programmes and ideas that have global impact and reach. 

Find out more about Oxford Saïd Future Leaders Scholarships at Saïd Business School.