Sitting with Faculty Dr. Sébastien Fernandez

Tell us a bit about yourself

By profession, I majored in psychology at the University of Lausanne, and I have been an associate professor at EHL for ten years now. I am swiss, but I have a double nationality of Spanish, but I don't speak the language too well. I was born and raised in Lausanne and am currently 58 years old, married, and have two beautiful children. In terms of hobbies or sports that I enjoy, I have a real passion for anything related to research, ranging from looking at previous research and reading a lot. In terms of sports, I enjoy playing anything that involves a racket, for example, table tennis, tennis, squash, and badminton.

You recently traveled to Campus Singapore and Passugg, What was the purpose behind the visit and how was the Campus compared to expectation?

My journey to Campus Singapore and Passugg was to deliver a similar course that I am teaching in Bosc 6 of people analytics transformed as a short course for my visit. We usually had a more straightforward version because it was different for executives and managers to come for a week, so it was only a two-day condensed yet very concentrated course. My impression of the campuses is that I was glad to see different environments even with the same brandings, EHL. But at the same time, regardless of the same company and the school's name, all campuses gave out a different atmosphere and environment; in other words each Campus had a distinct yet unique identity. In Campus Singapore, I liked how it was small and compact. It seemed like I was entering into a small chalet in the mountains in Switzerland! But what grabbed my attention was that everyone on the Campus knew each other. It gives you the impression of the value, family. As in EHL Lausanne, we are still a family but all divided into four intakes. The profiles in every Campus were very different; for example, people in my lectures in Singapore and Passugg were much older and experienced than Campus Lausanne. If I were to give the lectures, the students in Singapore and Passugg wanted to connect more based on their experiences, whereas in Campus Lausanne, students were more eager to learn more about the topic I have mentioned.

I had the pleasure to meet Mr. Signorell, I have had a meeting with him for 4-5 hours, but we only had a chance to explore 10% of what we plan to bring. Even if we have different backgrounds and profiles, our objectives and trajectories are pretty similar; Since he studied at EHL and worked in the swiss army. We have the same procedures, but we have a different order; I had a background in psychology and started my earlier career in the swiss army as a psychologist, whereas Mr. Signorell started his career as an EHL student. We know the same places but for different reasons. We are still in connection for collaboration, and we would like to bring him into the classroom and still debating if it's better to bring him for HBP or for people analytics. Mr. Signorell has the two hats, meaning that he can link his current profession to the hotelier mindset and have the capability of thinking like a psychologist. Having the perspective of someone who has a long carried mindset of a hotelier could be insightful. We have not decided on which format to carry out the collaboration, but something for sure is that it could be fascinating not only for myself and Mr. Signorell but also for the students who are joining for the lecture. He has a lot of anecdotes and examples. He asked me to send him my class slides, and he wants to get inspired by what I am teaching so that he can bring the necessary assets to optimize the ongoing curriculum. He was also volunteering to sit in the classroom as an auditor to experience the class's curriculum. I hope that it could be a midterm and long term collaboration. He could speak about some projects that he conducted in the context of the swiss army that shows precise data and how the data have been used to make decisions—for example, picking people that can be optimized in a specific area or a profession in the military. How the army can change people's personality, I am afraid that students might not be of interest as on the contrary, this is very interesting for me. After the potential collaborations, I hope that the students could walk out of the classroom with the impression that psychology as a whole is vital. I hope that this course, in general, could help students modify their decision-making process, and I believe that if students can do so in the future, that is enough success for me as a professor. I hope that the students after the potential collaborations, could walk out the classroom with an impression that psychology as a whole is very important. I hope that this course in general could help students modify in their decision making process and I believe that if students are able to do so in the future, that is enough success for me as a professor.