SMU Lee Kong Chian School of Business Distinguished Term Professor of Strategic Management and Management Education and Director of the Academic Strategy and Consulting Unit Howard Thomas will be part of a team that provides academic leadership for a new two-year social and financial inclusion programme that would catalyse research on social entrepreneurship, innovation and financial inclusion. SMU is partnering payment company MasterCard for the programme, which includes an annual forum, a seminar series, funding towards student projects, as well as the establishment of the MasterCard Professorship of Social Entrepreneurship and Financial Inclusion. Research undertaken will be presented at an annual MasterCard–SMU Forum on social inclusion and economic value creation, the first of which will be held in mid-2016. MasterCard said that SMU students stand to benefit as they will be able to tap on MasterCard’s funding and support towards their student consulting projects on social and financial inclusion in select Asia Pacific countries. Over the last five years, MasterCard has supported 13 postgraduate students in the SMU MBA programme as part of the MasterCard MBA Scholarships for Women.