Two University of Georgia students in the Georgia Full-Time MBA program will have their tuition paid for thanks to a generous gift from a former financier seeking to promote diversity and offer financial support to qualified MBA candidates.

Robert Pozen, a former president and vice chairman of Fidelity Investments and faculty member at the MIT Sloan School of Management, will sponsor the pair of minority students from the state of Georgia with the goal they become future business leaders in the state. UGA’s Pozen Scholars join a host of students from Southeastern Conference universities where Pozen has set up a similar scholarship, including Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama.

Opportunities for diverse students play an integral role at the Terry College, and the addition of the Pozen Scholars program only bolsters the initiatives the college has already in place.

“The Terry College of Business is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive learning environment for all its students, and the two MBA Pozen Scholars will greatly benefit from the investment this gift has made in their professional development,” said Santanu Chatterjee, associate dean for diversity, international and master’s programs at the Terry College of Business and director of the Full-Time MBA and Master of Science in Business Analytics. “We are grateful for the support from this initiative.”

For Pozen, who is active in business and academia and the author of multiple books, his demonstrated commitment to diverse student bodies on flagship campuses can prove a boon for the states they represent.

“I am very pleased to fund these two scholarships for diverse students in the Terry MBA program,” Pozen said. “These in-state students will hopefully become future business leaders in Georgia.”

Pozen, a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, received accolades for his 2012 book “Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours” and recently released “Remote Inc.: How to Thrive at Work … Wherever You Are.” While he was president of Fidelity Management & Research, the company’s assets increased from $500 billion to $900 billion.

He remains a frequent contributor for the Financial Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Harvard Business Review. He serves as chairman of the Leadership Council of the Tax Policy Center, chairman of the Advisory Board of Agility (an outsourced CIO), trustee of the IFRS Foundation (international accounting), and member of the Council on Foreign Relations.