Vilnius Business College

In March 2021, the Marius Jakulis Jason Foundation together with its partners acquired the Vilnius Business College (VBK). This higher education institution was chosen due to its many years of experience, high student employability and employer evaluation index, and study programs that are focused to encourage entrepreneurship.

“The MJJ Foundation invests in education, science and knowledge, because I believe that this is the basis for the prosperity of our entire country. And this strategic investment is precisely in higher education. This is the basis that will help in the near future to realize another important ambition of the foundation – to create a leading program for training specialists in the hospitality hotel business,” – says Marius Jakulis Jason, the founder of the foundation that invested in VBK.

Vilnius Business College started its operating in 1989 as one of the first non-state higher colleges. Data show that as many as 92.6% of graduates successfully get a job, establish or develop their own businesses every year since 2013. Some of the graduates continue their studies at national or foreign universities and colleges. From 2013 until now, VBK ranks first in the rankings based on the added value created by graduates and employers’ evaluations.

Back in 2019, investor Marius Jakulis Jason set an ambitious goal – to create an international hospitality business management study program of the highest standards in Lithuania. The Swiss EHL – Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne university, which has been number one in the world for several years in the field of hotel and hospitality management studies, has been chosen as a partner for this purpose. The first and second stages of the project have been implemented – the “International Hospitality Management” study program was developed and accredited on the basis of a higher education institution in Lithuania and the EHL University program.

OUR ROLE IN THIS PROJECT

“Orion Wealth” team has been actively working on the development of the project since the initial idea from the project investor and initiator Marius Jakulis Jason.

In the first stage of the project, the “Orion Wealth” team carried out an analysis of the market and higher education institutions, prepared a business model in Lithuania and contacted top-ranked universities, including EHL University in Switzerland. Representatives of “Orion Wealth” participated in meetings and negotiations regarding the partnership and performed financial forecast calculations together with EHL.

In the second stage of the project, in order to acquire a higher education institution in Lithuania, the “Orion Wealth” team performed the selection of institutions suitable for the acquisition, advised on the structure of the transaction and coordinated the legal and financial audit processes of the chosen college. After the acquisition of the Vilnius Business College, together with the board of the Marius Jakulis Jason Foundation, the management of the college, “Orion Wealth” partners participated in the preparation of the institution’s seven-year operational strategy. To this day “Orion Wealth” continues to provide advice in monitoring the annual performance results.

“In recent years, more and more of investors’ capital is directed specifically to the education sector. Many educational problems and challenges have emerged during the pandemic period. Along with the challenges, there are more and more opportunities for educational institutions to offer more innovative and better adapted educational solutions for the current generation. In the near future we are planning to launch a hospitality management program. Although such studies are often compared with tourism management, in our opinion it’s a much broader program that covers all areas of business, from business structuring to the refinement and implementation of customer service standards,” – says Mindaugas Strėlis, CEO of “Orion Wealth” and member of the MJJ Foundation Board.