Graduation ceremony for 19 communication professionals - EMScom awards the best consulting project with the Burson-Marsteller Award for Academic Excellence and the best overall average grade with the SPRI Award

Lugano, November 16, 2013 - Nineteen communications professionals received their diplomas on the 16th November 2013, graduating from the Executive Master of Science in Communications Management within the Faculty of Communication Sciences at USI Università della Svizzera italiana.

A global leader in this field, the EMScom program prepares professionals in developing new perspectives in key communication management areas which will contribute to their organizations’ corporate strategy.The program is enriched  by including consulting projects carried out for real clients. These projects are developed and delivered to the client by a team. This year the beneficiaries were: KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), Nigeria Customs Service (Nigeria), Novartis (Switzerland) and Vattenfall (Sweden), the latest also headquartered in Sweden.

After receiving the diplomas by the Dean of the Faculty of Communication Sciences of USI, Professor Lorenzo Cantoni and the EMScom Academic Director, Professor Francesco Lurati, the graduates have received three important acknowledgments: : the Burson-Marsteller Award for Academic Excellence, the SPRI Award and the swissnex Award.

Burson- Marsteller Award for Academic Excellence
The team receiving the highest grade is awarded with the Burson-Marsteller Award for academic excellence. Matthias Graf, CEO of Burson-Marsteller Switzerland, presented the award, endowed with 10,000 Swiss Francs, to the members of the “Nigeria Customs Service” (NCS) consulting project. The task was to develop an effective reputation management  tool for the customs service,  allowing for the first time significant data gathering within their stakeholders and therefore identifying a number of interventions aiming at the improvement of the processes of this important institution. This project brings a very valuable contribution to the reforms currently happening in Nigeria with the purpose of the modernization of their customs. Adewale Adeniyi (Nigeria), Lukas Baumgartner (Switzerland), Katja Linssen(Germany) and Már Másson (Iceland) delivered a work that was clearly outstanding: the findings were presented in a thorough manner and were clearly supported by the data collected.

SPRI Award
The SPRI Award for the best grade average encompassing the entire program was granted to Már Másson (Íslandsbanki) by Peter Eberhard, President of SPRI.

Swissnex Award
The swissnex Award for the best positioning paper written within the framework of the session held at the Singapore Management University was granted to Martin Rüst (Swissmilk). Based in Swiss embassies around the world, swissnex is an initiative of the Swiss Government aiming at strengthening Switzerland’s leadership as a world-class location for science, education, and innovation.

Pictures
Photos of the graduation ceremony will be available for download at the following link after the event at 18.30 hrs. See link: http://on.fb.me/1bmCGiu

List of graduates with respective position, company, nationality and country of residence

About EMScom
The USI Università della Svizzera italiana is part of the Swiss public university system. Founded in 1996, it is distinctive in the Swiss university landscape because of the originality of its degree curricula and the high percentage of international students. USI comprises four main faculties: Economics, Communication Sciences, and Informatics in Lugano, and the school of Architecture in Mendrisio. USI offers a range of executive programs, among those the Executive Master of Science in Communications Management (EMScom).

As a global leader in its field, the EMScom program prepares professionals in developing new perspectives in key communication management areas. Based in Lugano, the EMScom is an intensive part-time program with eight residential sessions spread across twenty months. To reinforce degree candidates’ international perspective, USI Università della Svizzera italiana cooperates with two renowned business schools: the UCLA Anderson School of Management (Los Angeles) and Singapore Management University (SMU) giving participants a unique opportunity to study side by side with Asian peers.

 For more information please visit the websites: www.usi.ch or www.emscom.usi.ch

Contact
USI Università della Svizzera italiana
Regina Pinna-Marfurt
Managing Director EMScom
Phone +41 58 666 42 08
[email protected]
www.emscom.usi.ch