How a unique and fully-funded scholarship in China is forging success for future leaders worldwide

Schwarzman Scholars is a highly selective, one-year master’s degree programme in Beijing designed to prepare the next generation of global leaders.

It was founded by American financier and philanthropist Stephen A. Schwarzman, CEO and co-founder of investment and advisory firm Blackstone. He established Schwarzman Scholars in 2013 with the belief that the success of future leaders depends increasingly on an understanding of China’s role in global trends.

Each year 150 young leaders are selected to study in this fully-funded master’s program at Schwarzman College, at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, one of China’s oldest and most prestigious institutions. Tsinghua University is the alma mater of the country’s most influential leaders, including current and former president, Xi Jinping and Hu Jintao.

The programme’s international advisory board features political heavyweights, from former prime ministers to Nobel Prize winners.

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How does it work?

The fully funded programme, which focuses on leadership, China, and global affairs, seeks out young leaders and helps them develop their skill sets in order to propel them professionally.

Each student selected receives a generous stipend and lives in Beijing for a year of study and cultural immersion, attending lectures, travelling in the region, and developing a better understanding of China.

“The programme is discipline agnostic. I studied with doctors, opera singers, start-up founders, disaster relief specialists, politicians, statisticians, computer scientists, air force pilots, and secondary schoolteachers.”

“Not only is the cohort from every walk of life and from so many corners of the earth, they are people who have done, and go on to do internationally focused work.”

Schwarzman Scholars provides them with the skills, professional network, and opportunities to put them on a fast-track to success.

There are three requirements to apply. Candidates are required to be under 28 years of age, be proficient in English and hold an undergraduate degree. The selection team evaluates applicants based on leadership ability, personal integrity and intellectual ability.

Structuring career paths with expertise on the ground in China

Julia Zupko is director of global alumni network and professional development at Schwarzman Scholars, and has been a senior leader of the programme since 2017.

As head of professional development, Zupko’s work spans all aspects of career development, from helping scholars to discover their ‘why’ to working with them to improve their job search and interview skills, the ‘how’.

It’s a holistic, bespoke approach to career development that starts eight months before students join the programme.

“We start with thinking about their intentions for their year in China, how they want to spend that time, and what their ambitions for it are,” she explains.

The diversity of each cohort means some will join the workforce, while others will continue their education, going on to law school or medical school, or to undertake a PhD, she says. Others may be undertaking military service.

She helps each scholar map out a future path through what she terms the “jungle gym” of non-linear career trajectories, which might see them move forward, backwards and sideways, in order to best achieve their individual goals.

The support she provides continues long after Scholars leave the programme, as alumni are provided ample opportunities to engage with one another throughout their career, already bonded by the “unifying experience” of their year in China, she says.

Too often our life choices come about in an unstructured process, Zupko points out. “Here they can take that time out, step back and away, to evaluate their goals and their decision-making process,” she says.

“In the career development team, we don’t think about it in terms of first job or last job but about the journey of experience they have as they shape the future of global affairs.”

What’s it like?

Dubliner Sarah Mortell successfully secured a place in 2018, and was one of 142 Schwarzman Scholars shortlisted from over 4,000 applicants that year. While in Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University she studied management science, in a cohort that included students from 39 countries.

While there she conducted research for the United Nations which focused on the integration of sustainable development goals into the business practices of multinational companies in China, United States and Ireland.

It’s an experience she would never have imagined after graduating from St Joseph’s College in Lucan, where she completed her Leaving Cert in 2011.

She went on to study business, economic and social sciences (BESS) at Trinity College Dublin, and served aspresident of its debating society.

After college she worked for Web Summit. “I was there for two and a half years and I got to travel a lot and collaborate with some of the smartest people I’ve ever worked with,” she says.

It was during this time she became particularly interested in China, both its role now and into the future. “Through all the conversations I had I found that very few people had actually been there or understood its rich history and cultural philosophy,” she explains.

When a roommate told her about the Schwarzman Scholars programme, she applied. “It looked like the best place to go for a deep dive of China,” she says.

“It’s a really immersive experience. You get both the academic piece and the opportunity to travel around. I went to 14 different cities while there. I got to study Chinese history and philosophy as well as the language with MBA-like courses baked in, with courses in leadership and public policy.”

Being a Schwarzman Scholar took Mortell’s network to another level.

“While I was there people like former United States Secretaries of State, Madeleine Albright and John Kerry and former director of the CIA, David Petraeus came through. I watched the Australian elections with Kevin Rudd,” she recalls of that country’s former prime minister and current ambassador of Australia to the United Nations.

“That proximity to success in public service was very inspiring. These people stayed and gave us time and meaningful conversations,” she says.

How do you get in?

Applying to become a Schwarzman Scholar involves writing an essay, a personal statement, and requires references from three different people.

Mortell obtained references from the former provost of TCD, Patrick Prendergast, as well as from Bill Owens, executive producer of US TV show 60 Minutes, whom she had met through her work at Web Summit, and Kris Balderston, a former adviser to Hillary Clinton who mentored her while she was interning in Washington. Bill and Kris continue to mentor her to this day.

She is a firm believer in the power of networking and not just to enhance career opportunities. “When you consider all the big and complex issues, it is people that drive change,” she explains.

Once shortlisted, she was invited to a panel interview at a hotel in London, followed by lunch with interviewers, which in her case included founding trustee Stephen Schwarzman and Professor Ngaire Woods, founding dean of the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford, UK.

“These are all incredible people at the top of their game and their aim is to pull the best out of you” she points out.

“It is not your background but rather your character that is important to them. They are looking for evidence that you are passionate and curious, that you have ambition and drive and that you want to do something with the opportunities you have been given. The result is that it brings together a kaleidoscope of interesting and diverse people,” she says

Her classmates came from around the world and have remained friends since they graduated. Indeed, part of the strength of the programme is ongoing access to an alumni network that spans the globe and is always willing to help out a fellow scholar.

“I call them my horizontal board of advisers because at every point in my career I seek advice from them,” says Mortell.

“For Chinese New Year this year 40 of us got together for dinner in Boston. It’s part of that evergreen commitment Schwarzman has to the success of its scholars and it’s incredible to feel that network so actively moving to be supportive around you.”

How has it impacted her career?

Directly after finishing the Schwarzman programme, Mortell moved to London to work with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which included work to help the Grenfell community rebuild after its tragic fire by, in her case, managing digital programmes from digital literacy to broadband access.

She then became chief of staff to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web.

She has since moved to the USA where she is undertaking a master’s degree in public administration, concentrating in AI and emerging technologies policy and governance, at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

So what’s next?

“At this stage I’ve lived in London, Beijing and Washington DC and spent time learning from the best minds. Politics and policy will always be my bread and butter so when I do parlay my way back home, it will be wonderful to contribute to Ireland in a way that matters,” she says.

“The draw of public service is something the Schwarzman programme definitely emphasises and the more I learn, the more my guiding principles and values focus on it.”

Right now is a good time for others to consider the Schwarzman Scholars programme too, she suggests.

“The way the world has changed, becoming more polarised and insular, underscores the importance of the programme. It brings together people from so many cultures and there is no substitute to learning about other people’s culture than directly from them, against a backdrop of community,” she explains.

“And having international friends after it keeps you plugged into different perspectives that you otherwise mightn’t have. The Schwarzman programme has changed the trajectory of my life.”

Applications for the Schwarzman Scholars class of 2025-2026 are now open. Click here for further information