ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Tupperware Brands Corporation (NYSE:TUP) announced the Orlando arrival of Dr. Rumpa Chakraborty, the third scholar selected to participate in Global Links, a cross-cultural exchange program. Developed with the support of U.S. Secretary of State’s Office of Global Women’s Issues and co-founders Rollins College and Tupperware Brands, Global Links expands women’s entrepreneurship opportunities in developing and post-conflict countries. Dr. Rumpa Chakraborty, a professor of finance and accounting at Shri Shikshayatan College in Kolkata, is the second Global Links scholar from India.
Global Links espouses the values of women’s economic empowerment and social change held by Tupperware Brands. From January through May, Dr. Chakraborty will spend five months in the United States. She will receive ongoing academic and social-entrepreneurship training and participate in business classes at the Rollins College Social Entrepreneurship and Business Department and Crummer Graduate School of Business, in addition to a hands-on externship focused on business fundamentals at Tupperware Brands global headquarters in Orlando. After this immersion experience, Dr. Chakraborty will return to Kolkata to introduce social entrepreneurship concepts to her students. She will also develop a community service project for students that includes mentoring women in the local community on various business skills needed to maintain successful enterprises.
Dr. Chakraborty has been teaching at Shri Shikshayatan College, a liberal arts women’s college, since 1999. She is the faculty coordinator of the college’s entrepreneurship program, and mentors students interested in pursuing entrepreneurship as a career. In addition, Dr. Chakraborty teaches finance, business management and accounting and offers career development workshops and seminars. She completed her undergraduate, graduate and doctoral studies at the University of Calcutta.
“I am thrilled to have been selected to participate in Global Links,” said Dr. Chakraborty. “I am grateful for the opportunity to enrich my knowledge of entrepreneurship and women’s economic empowerment. Most of all, through Global Links, I look forward to helping my students work with real-life entrepreneurs in India, especially those from underprivileged communities and rural areas.”
In 2015, Dr. Sharmistha Banerjee, a professor of Business Management at the University of Calcutta, was selected as the first Global Links scholar from India. Since her return to Kolkata, Dr. Banerjee has held nine workshops where more than 400 students and 50 faculty members have been engaged in social entrepreneurship seminars. Global Links not only teaches these students business fundamentals, it inspires them to work on business projects that give back to their community. Dr. Chakraborty’s appointment as the third Global Links scholar, through the “learn and return” model, will help further entrepreneurial opportunities for women in India.
After a successful 2012 pilot in Iraq, the program expanded to India - a country with only 35% female participation in the job market, despite it being the 10th largest economy with respect to GDP. Women in India continue to face many cultural, societal and educational barriers to labor force entry and economic empowerment.
“Tupperware Brands has long believed in the business value of empowering women,” said Rick Goings, Tupperware Brands Corporation Chairman and CEO. “For more than 70 years, we have provided women with opportunities to grow as entrepreneurs and business leaders. Global Links takes this effort a step further, connecting scholars across cultures to disseminate best practices in entrepreneurship to communities in developing countries.”
Grant Cornwell, Rollins College President, says: “Each year, the Global Links scholar brings a unique perspective to our classrooms, strengthening our understanding of entrepreneurship around the world today. Our faculty, staff and students look forward to partnering with Dr. Chakraborty this semester, and we are grateful for our partnership with Tupperware Brands on the Global Links program as it reinforces our commitment to higher education and life-long learning.”
About Tupperware Brands Corporation
Through an independent sales force of 3.1 million, Tupperware Brands Corporation is the leading global marketer of innovative, premium products across multiple brands utilizing social selling. Product brands and categories include design-centric preparation, storage and serving solutions for the kitchen and home through the Tupperware brand and beauty and personal care products through the Avroy Shlain, BeautiControl, Fuller, NaturCare, Nutrimetics, and Nuvo brands.
About Rollins College
Located in Orlando in the community of Winter Park, Rollins College is Florida’s oldest recognized college. For more than 20 years, U.S. News & World Report has ranked Rollins among the top two regional universities in the South. As part of its mission to educate students for global citizenship and responsible leadership, Rollins offers full-time undergraduate programs, undergraduate and graduate degree programs through its evening program at the Hamilton Holt School and graduate business degree programs through its Crummer Graduate School of Business, which has been ranked a top MBA program by Forbes and Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Rollins serves approximately 3,300 degree-seeking students annually. For more information, visit www.rollins.edu. “Like” Rollins on Facebook and follow on Twitter @RollinsCollege.
