Dear Alumni
Thank you for your support of our inaugural edition of the INSEAD alumni magazine. Your reception to the magazine has been wonderful and we are delighted to bring you this edition. In this issue, you will find stories that celebrate INSEAD’s diversity, innovation and alumni engagement. In particular, we hope you enjoy learning about some of the ways that your fellow alumni shape the school’s vibrant intellectual environment.
Through their collaboration with faculty, alums help drive fresh approaches to research and teaching. For example, entrepreneur Michel de Rovira MBA’05D, inspired Marketing Professors Hernan Bruno and Hilke Plassmann to write an award-winning case study about Michel’s thriving culinary venture, Michel et Augustin. Similarly, alumni are adding value in the INSEAD classroom by bringing their knowledge directly to our students. Our story about the contributions of Joost de Haas MBA’86J, and Nicholas Ward MBA’68, illustrates their role in creating a rigorous and relevant course called “Managing Corporate Turnarounds,” in conjunction with Professor Claudia Zeisberger.
Our feature interview on Professor Urs Peyer also highlights teaching innovation. It shows how INSEAD’s longtime strength in simulations brings real world challenges and top practitioners, such as Areva CEO Luc Orsel, into the classroom.
You will hear from Hélène Ploix and Solange Perret, both MBA’68, the very first women to earn an INSEAD MBA. In this edition, they recall their experience on campus and how their business degree contributed to their career success. We highlight how INSEAD is enhancing its diverse culture through a new endowed scholarship for women—a project that will yield remarkable results, with your support.
I hope that these, and the other stories here, will inspire you to remain engaged with your global INSEAD community. Thanks to your feedback, we have compiled a short-list of names for the new publication. These are: Salamander, I AM (INSEAD Alumni Magazine), and Vie. We expect to make the final decision soon.
It was great to see many of you in person during the Alumni Americas Forum in San Francisco this past weekend, 4-5 April. This was the largest alumni forum with 325 alumni and 95 partners taking part in the activities over these two days. I hope you found the programme as inspiring as I did. As always, it was a great pleasure to meet with so many passionate advocates of the school.
I look forward to working with you to continue our partnership that is taking INSEAD to greater and greater heights.
Best regards,
Ilian Mihov
Dean
