City Bank being the platinum sponsor for Bangladeshi female mountaineer Wasfia Nazreen's 2012 Everest Expedition held the flag-off ceremony yesterday at its head office marking the commencement of her journey to the summit. Wasfia leaves the country on Sunday the 11th of March. She is set to traverse the mountain from its South Side, the classic route taken by Sir Edmund Hillary and considered more challenging than the other routes.

Wasfia Nazreen has taken up the challenge of climbing the highest mountain peaks of each of the seven continents in celebration of the 40 years of independence and women's progress of the country under the aptly named pioneering campaign "Bangladesh on Seven Summits". This is the first time a Bangladeshi has taken up such a challenge. She has already made it to the summits of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest peak of the African continent on 2nd October 2011; and Aconcagua, the highest peak of South American Andes mountains (also the highest point outside Asia) on 16th December 2011, the 40th Victory day of Bangladesh.

City Bank is the Platinum Sponsor for Wasfia's Everest push while Renata Limited and Kazi Farms are both Gold Sponsors.

Rubel Aziz, City Bank's Chairman, handed over a flag of Bangladesh to Wasfia at the ceremony, which is meant to be carried to the summit by her. Others present were K Mahamood Sattar, City Bank's Managing Director & CEO, Sohail R.K. Hussain and Faruq M. Ahmed, Additional Managing Directors of City Bank, Mashrur Arefin, Deputy Managing Director & Chief Communications Officer of City Bank, and Sonia Bashir Kabir, Trustee of "Bangladesh on Seven Summits Foundation", Munize Manzur, Trustee of the same Foundation, a numbe of prominent civil society members and many other personalities from both print and electronic media.