By Gavin Mackintosh-
LSE graduate Manuel Schüler (pictured)has been voted 2022’s young role model of the year by a team of academics after being selected for one of the world’s most prestigious graduate fellowships, located at Schwarzman College in Tsinghua University, Beijing.
Manuel, 22, was one of 151 candidates selected from a pool of nearly 3,000 applicants worldwide to be part of the Schwarzman Scholars Class of 2023-24, a one-year fully funded master’s programme.
Schwarzman Scholars bring together a broad and diverse cohort of young and promising leaders from the world who are driven towards a unified mission. Their cohort of global leaders, providing them with a world-class education through interactions with foreign ministers, political leaders, cultural luminaries and entrepreneurs.
Every year, a new class is selected to represent the world’s next generation of leaders — high-calibre individuals with incredible potential who will serve to deepen understanding between China and the rest of the world.
Schuler’s selection was in recognition of his exceptional academic and personal achievements and work to be a positive force for change.
Achievements of this kind at such a young age is one every young person should aim to achieve, and such achievements begin from much earlier in a person’s life.
This publication will be studying the lives of a number of young achievers in order to examine the factors that led to their early successes and ambitions.
Background and financial might often play a role in many cases, but there are many stories of self motivated individuals without the advantage of well of backgrounds who have achieved exploits at a young age.
Manuel will study for a year at Tsinghua University where the core curriculum will focus on leadership, China and global affairs. In addition, he will be provided with a variety of career development opportunities, thereby enabling him to establish a network of professional relationships through internships, mentorship programmes and high-profile speakers.
He graduated this year with a master’s degree in the Political Economy of Europe from LSE’s European Institute, and now works as a consultant at McKinsey & Company.
Among his achievement’s is advisory work with the European Central Bank on innovations in monetary policy and interned with Goldman Sachs, Deloitte, and Bloomberg, advancing digitalization and sustainability.
He is credited with building up South Germany’s first LGBTQ+ youth centre and, at age 18, became Germany’s youngest national-state-theatre director before being elected Hult International Business School’s first black student government President.
Success at such a young age is rare these days, making him an inspiration to youngsters across the Uk who aspire to great heights.
Commenting on being selected for the fellowship, Manuel said: “I’m elated to join my classmates from all around the world in the class of 2023/2024 and am thankful for the opportunity to spend a yer in Beijing.
“I’m very happy to be able to bring a queer and person of colour (POC) perspective to the scholarship as there are still too many barriers for youth from these backgrounds to get access to leading academic and professional institutions. In the end, this award is not for me, it’s for all the people who I have had the pleasure of working with and who have supported me along the way.”
Discussing the benefits of the scholarship, he adds: “With the current world in a polycrisis and with the re-balancing of power in global politics, we are facing the need for a new generation of mediators and diplomats who have a sound cultural understanding of one another to help the global community make steps towards shared prosperity.
“The Schwarzman Scholars programme with its goal to build cultural understanding between young leaders from all hemispheres is a key building bloc for such exchanges. 2022 has reiterated the urgency for economic co-operation and caution.”
Manuel hopes to use the skills gained from the scholarship for a variety of future roles including working for the German diplomatic forces as an economic attaché or returning to McKinsey & Company to build a strategic outlook for the global community.
“Talking at large, I also sometimes daydream of becoming Germany’s first POC Chancellor”, he says. Watch this space!.