Maxine is not one to embrace the limelight. In fact, often, she appears to be fleeing the limelight. Her authenticity, broad intellect, and eagerness to push for excellence makes everyone want to work with her. Her intellectual interests span Asante artefacts, Russian literature, the science of human disasters, and many more. It has molded her into an imaginative young woman eager to shape the world into a better place.
She founded a fashion business in her first year and has supported others to, amongst others, launch initiatives in agriculture, publishing and higher education. On campus, she has been a constant and creative presence whenever something worthy needed to be done. As examples, she was curation lead for Tedx Ashesi and a research intern for the Design Lab on a mental health project.
Maxine has been an excellent representative of Ashesi on various platforms. In June this year, amidst the hustle of final year workload, she accepted to speak at the Pan-African Students Summit in Accra. She is a Melton Foundation fellow who works with other fellows to promote the ethos of global citizenship on our campus. Late last year, she was one of the few students chosen to work with MBA students from Harvard to provide business advisory services to Ghanaian ventures
Internationally, she was part of the student team that launched the Global Commons, an online student-led publication sponsored by the Open Society University Network, a partnership of over 40 institutions across the world that champion the liberal arts and civic engagement. In the summer of 2023, she participated in the workshop on public finance and economic analysis at Bard College in New York before a two-month stint with the global operations office of Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Cheshire West and Chester, the United Kingdom.
As Vice Chairperson of the Judicial and Electoral Committee, she was a widely admired champion of integrity on campus: designing and driving programming that educated students about our values and being an unimpeachable embodiment of those values. At Ashesi, we have a special regard for Lao Tzu’s words: “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” We cannot find many who represent Lao tzu’s words better than Maxine.
In honor of her expansive and restless intellect; her powerful representation of Ashesi from the streets of Accra to classrooms in America and boardrooms in England; and for a heart that looks out for community: we present this award to Maxine Victoria Nana Ekua Twumwaa Brenya.
