NUS Business School launches S$750,000 global trade scholarship
NUS Business School has announced the Global Trade Leaders Scholarship, a S$750,000 programme established in partnership with the Hinrich Foundation and Shanghai Baolong Automotive Corporation. Running from 2027 to 2029, the scholarship will award up to S$50,000 per year to five MBA students, covering tuition fees for candidates working in, or seeking careers within, global trade.
The scholarship is open to both full-time and part-time MBA students at NUS. Recipients will gain membership of the Hinrich Foundation Alumni Association, a network spanning 30 countries and 65 cities, giving them access to peers and practitioners across international trade routes.
The partnership
The three-way collaboration draws on relationships that pre-date the formal scholarship arrangement. Shanghai Baolong Automotive Chairman and President Charles Zhang graduated from the NUS Executive MBA (Chinese) programme in 2007; more than a dozen Baolong executives have since completed the same qualification. In 2025, Baolong established an endowed bursary for financially needy NUS Business School undergraduates, making the trade scholarship a second plank of the company's education commitment.
The Hinrich Foundation connection runs deeper still. Dr Merle A. Hinrich founded Global Sources, a trade platform that Baolong used during its early internationalisation drive to reach overseas buyers. Dr Hinrich subsequently established the Hinrich Foundation in 2012 as an independent philanthropic body focused on research and education in sustainable global trade.
Dr Hinrich said the partnership recognises that trade "is not simply about the movement of goods and capital, but about building relationships, creating shared value and strengthening prosperity across economies."
Market context
The scholarship lands at a moment when demand for trade-literate business leaders is being reshaped by a combination of geopolitical fragmentation and the accelerating use of AI in supply-chain analytics. NUS Business School Dean Teo Chung Piaw noted that as AI changes how companies analyse information and make decisions, leaders must be able to "ask the right questions, weigh competing considerations and exercise sound judgement" rather than simply process data outputs.
That framing is significant in a Singapore context. The city-state positions itself as a neutral trade and logistics hub at a time when US-China tensions are pushing multinationals to reconfigure supply chains through so-called "friendshoring" and "China-plus-one" manufacturing strategies. Business schools across the Asia-Pacific region are competing to attract MBA talent with dual fluency in technology and international commerce, and scholarship programmes backed by corporate endowments have become a common mechanism for doing so.
The Global Trade Leaders Scholarship does not specify a technology or sector focus beyond general trade competencies, leaving curriculum content open to interpretation. Prospective applicants and employers will be watching for how NUS structures the experiential components, particularly whether Hinrich Foundation research projects or Baolong's operational footprint provide live case-study material.
The formal gift signing ceremony took place on 28 October 2026 in Singapore, followed by a fireside conversation with Dr Hinrich and Mr Zhang on their respective international business careers. No application timeline or selection criteria were disclosed in the announcement.