AIESEC Romania 30 History Book | 30 Years Anniversary

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1

Message from AIESEC in Romania President 19.20 | 1

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Message from AIESEC Alumni Romania Association | 2

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1990-1995 Timeline | 3-5

4 1995-2000 Timeline | 6-10 6

2000-2005 Timeline | 11-14

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2005-2010 Timeline | 15-18

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2010-2015 Timeline | 19-21

9 2015-2020 Timeline | 22-27 10 Awards | 28 11 AIESEC in Romania Exchange Evolution | 29 12 Message from AIESEC in Romania President 20.21 | 30

Message from AIESEC in Romania Dear reader, for 30 years now, AIESEC in Romania has been the platform that provides youth with the right tools to develop their leadership potential. This journey has been one of many successes and learnings and through our history book we celebrate the efforts of many generations that have impacted thousands of people from different backgrounds and nationalities.

During the 30th year from our creation, we are facing, as the rest of the world, our biggest challenge so far, that of a global pandemic. Now, more than ever, we believe that leadership is the fundamental solution, as the world needs value-driven young leaders ready to take the leap through times of uncertainty and shape a better future.

This history book is here to remind us of our past and the responsibility that we have to honor the legacy of this organization by not allowing ourselves to settle for anything less than excellence.

As AIESECers, we have this innate ability to ďŹ nd opportunities where others see problems, and this is what keeps us going, enabling us to create new kinds of experiences to engage and develop every young person in the world.

Konstantinos Iliopoulos President 19.20

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Message from AIESEC Alumni Romania Association AIESEC has been for me a mind-opening and life-changing journey. It enabled me to develop my first project management and team working skills, as well as my first leadership skills. This journey has also taught me about the beauty and the value of diversity and showed me the world as a global village.

Many of my friends and business partners are people whom I initially met in AIESEC or through AIESEC. I am so lucky to be part of a very active group of former AIESEC Presidents from my generation (1998-1999), from all around the globe, which is gathering regularly every two years, in a different part of the world, with families and kids. Some of us are also running businesses together. This is a life-time bond and friendship, across the oceans and continents. In fact this is exactly what AIESEC is meant to build.

During my student times AIESEC in Romania was a pioneering NGO in the social landscape of the 90s, it was a genuine bridge between students and business environment. In time it changed towards a more social impact and voluntary international youth exchange organization. Nevertheless AIESEC has always aimed to raise intercultural understanding, to activate leadership and to grow change agents.

Mihai Moghior President

Most of these change agents are the Alumni of the association. Part of them started to unite under one umbrella in 2019, by founding the AIESEC Alumni Romania association (affiliated to the global Alumni network), in order to connect, to collaborate and to contribute by supporting AIESEC youth and giving back to society.

Once an AIESEC-er, always an AIESEC-er!

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AIESEC in Romania was founded in 1990, after the Romanian Revolution thanks to Mr. Wolfgang Klaar. While he was part of AIESEC in Austria and responsible for the development of other European entities, he decided to take the ďŹ rst steps towards opening AIESEC in Romania.

Coming to Bucharest, he started to promote the organization as a concept in ASE (The Bucharest University of Economic Studies), together with the president of AIESEC in Austria, an exchange participant from the USA and a classmate of his who happened to be Romanian.

Nevertheless, Mr. Klaar took the responsibility of putting the stepping stones and closely tracking the progress of AIESEC in Romania until 1993, when AIESEC in Romania gained the status of probationary member at the International Congress.

From the beginning of 1990 until the middle of 1993, he traveled monthly from Vienna to Bucharest in order to support the development of the organization and evaluate the progress.

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The communication was ensured through Telex, technology existing before the fax and owned by the university. The universities allowed only 1 document per week to be transmitted through this technology.

Since the first days of 1990, young ambitious people were attracted to leadership development and put the basis of the organization.

In the first days, AIESECers tried to define what was important for the youth and the students in Romania, to educate themselves and gain skills that would benefit the organization and the stakeholders involved in the projects that were slowly developing.

What AIESEC in Romania did since the very beginning was to set high standards when it comes to the membership of the organization, therefore dedicated people would join and actually bring an impact through their actions.

The selection process was one of the biggest differentiators for AIESEC in Romania at that time, when compared to other student/youth organizations that were slowly emerging. AIESEC in Romania was challenged by the lack of both technological and educational resources available at the time.

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The first 2 exchange opportunities were delivered in 1993: one young Romanian went abroad and one young person from another country came to Romania. In the first years, the local chapters were not even benefitting from an office, most of them had to improvise in university halls and to ensure the proper governance of their activities in this way.

The first partnership with companies and public institutions were created in order to ensure the credibility and the visibility of AIESEC in Romania.

The Local Chapters that started their activity in this period are: Bucharest**, Timișoara, Constanța, Craiova, Brașov, Cluj-Napoca and Iași. ** Bucharest became a local chapter legally separate from the national committee in 1996, but their foundation and infrastructure of the local chapter contributed to the organization since 1990.

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AIESEC in Romania was implementing the GTP (Global Theme Program) “Learning and Acting for a Shared Future” – an international direction which was based on 5 Focus Areas to address, to generate solutions to the issues that the society was facing), a fact that was enforced by changing the internal HR structures, moving from having responsible people for projects to having responsible people for programs.

AIESEC in Romania played an important role in connecting the youth with the private sector which was starting to increase in the country.

More and more multinationals were establishing branches in the country and were looking for top-talent, therefore AIESEC in Romania acted as a bridge between the two, as this bridge was bringing added value to both parties.

Events, workshops, job fairs (Career Days), seminars and training were organized by companies for young people so that they would have a deeper understanding of the workforce and gain skills that would prepare them for their future careers.

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At the same time, AIESEC in Romania capitalized on the skilled membership AIESEC had (both in the country and from countries abroad), so that AIESEC was also offering training and workshops to employees of the partner organizations (NGSs or companies). The main added value of AIESEC in Romania for its members was the development of project management and people management skills through practical experiences, as well as opening the minds for new experiences and cultural diversity.

A lot of regional and national conferences were happening, some of which had in the organizational committee exchange participants.

In 1995 the European Congress was held in Romania, being the ďŹ rst large international conference held in Romania, which made the membership more and more eager to focus on exchange and also positioned the entity really well in the global network.

Even though exchanges were still difďŹ cult to implement, AIESEC in Romania was focusing its investments into technical and IT equipment, both at national and local level, things that facilitated the matching process for the exchange participants.

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The National Sponsors Group was established, meaning that the partnerships with companies were long-lasting, some contracts being signed as long as for 5 years.

Local branches in Galati and Oradea were officially opened.

AIESEC in Romania became more visible in the global plenary and the International Office visited us multiple times per year.

In 1997, when Romania was taking steps towards adhering to the European Union, AIESEC in Romania played an important part in organizing the project EUROBUS. A bus travelled to multiple cities in non-EU countries at the time with the purpose of promoting the benefits of the EU and teaching youth about it. It stopped in multiple university centers, such as Timișoara, Iași, Cluj, Bucharest.

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The first global online platform for matching trainees with opportunities “Insight” was launched at IC’ 97 in Atlanta, GA, USA. AIESEC in Romania was one of the first adopters worldwide, due to high IT skill and training available here. Up until that point, a floppy disk with the forms was sent every 2 months by the countries to AIESEC International, by post, to be loaded into the global database. After that the unmatched forms (job contracts and CVs) were brought in international conferences by the representatives of each entity, on paper, to be matched manually.

During this period, membership criteria for local branches were introduced, in order to foster alignment in actions and objectives. Our outgoing programs that sent Romanian young people abroad were easier to be implemented than the incoming programs, due to the eagerness of youth to take on international experiences.

Even though we were facilitating more outgoing experiences than incoming ones, there was a ratio based on which entities had to run exchanges programs, to ensure balance between incoming and outgoing.

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The Black Sea Youth Development Program was a regional exchange program run by AIESEC in Romania with the other countries around the Black Sea. For being an active part in this program, in 1999 AIESEC in Romania received their first global award for the best international cooperation, together with the other entities involved.

At the time, AIESEC entities were split into multiple regions. Europe had 4 sub-regions: Meds (Mediterraneans), Be-Ne-Brits, Nordics and WEAST (from West to East). Romania was part of the latter, together with other 12 countries (Austria, Germany, Switzerland, plus all Central and Eastern-European countries). Regional conferences were frequent.

In 1999 AIESEC in Romania reached a milestone, as for the first time there was an international member in the National Board, from Mexico.

This brought many changes, as conferences started to be delivered in English.

The Local Chapters that started their activity in this period are: Galați, Oradea and Sibiu.

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During this period, the focus was shifted more towards exchange in the entity, as AIESEC in Romania was also acting accordingly to the 2005 AIESEC International mid-term ambition. This shift was the effort of multiple generations within this period.

Apart from the focus of growing on exchange areas, there was also the concept of the “full AIESEC experience”, which meant that a person was taking an exchange opportunity as well as becoming a member of AIESEC. Converting AIESEC members into exchange participants and vice-versa was a big focus, as this strategy was truly transforming young people into change-makers.

The generations started to involve more the Alumni Community that was forming through different kinds of events, such as the Hall of Fame, firstly launched in 2002, an event during which Alumni were recognized for their contribution towards the organization and the society as well, after their AIESEC experience ended.

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The Board of Advisors for the national and local boards was also playing an important role in the development of the people in the boards.

Besides exchanges, CEEDer-ships were happening, AIESEC members were traveling to different AIESEC entities for a determined period of time to share knowledge and good case practices, all with the purpose of improving the processes implemented and facilitation of better leadership experiences to all stakeholders involved.

Internal processes were upgraded and improved through the help of the entity’s partners. Hence, a long-term planning system was introduced that offered a more strategic perspective to all local branches. The business OGSM system (objectives, goals, strategies, measures) was introduced for planning.

During this period, the ďŹ rst National Director of Local Chapter Development was introduced. Clusters, tiers and development groups were created as systems to rank the local chapters and offer clarity to the national board on what are the needs of each chapter and what kind of support they needed.

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All these changes fostered the collaboration between local branches as well.

The concept of PBox was introduced, which consisted of shorter exchanges (2-3 months), different from the 8 months -1.5 years, the usual average period for 1 exchange.

The 15th anniversary of AIESEC in Romania was held at the Palace of Parliament.

In 2002, Adriana Selage became the ďŹ rst Romanian AIESECer to become part of the Global Board of AIESEC International.

International, as well as national task forces were being organized in order for local chapters to collaborate together, grow and act as a body.

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During this period, in 2003, Juan Cajiao was an international volunteer in the local chapter Cluj Napoca. Not having been an AIESEC member before, Juan integrated in the LC, prolonged his initial internship and became an active member of the local chapter.

Upon his return to Costa Rica, he became a member of the national board and upscaled his experience in AIESEC until he became President of AIESEC International in 2008.

“I think what makes it unique is how my internship and what I was living with the LC created a synergy that shaped a lot of what I am today. My internship in Operations Management was down to Earth. It had a direct impact on the bottom line of the company. It affected people’s jobs and lives. On the other hand, AIESEC was a playground of entrepreneurial initiatives. Not even the sky was the limit.”

- Juan Cajiao, AIESEC Global President 2008-2009 The local chapter that started its activity during this period is Pitesti.

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This period was focused a lot on the external environment and towards the membership. This required a lot more effort given the fact that AIESEC in Romania was switching to conducting exchange related activities and less activities that didn’t involve exchange.

The challenge was adjusting the way of selling our programs now with this focus, because the partner companies were used to a different reality of AIESEC. The focus on the external environment also shaped the projects AIESEC in Romania was delivering, as all of them were based on issues present in the Romanian society.

The concept was coming as a global direction. Corporate Social Responsibility was a stronger concept in Romania and AIESEC capitalized on it, in order to improve its projects and establish long-term partnerships. Companies considered the sponsorships offered for different initiatives a competitive advantage and wanted to get involved in the creation of initiatives that positioned them well on the market and in front of the young people. The concept of the full AIESEC experience was still present in the ďŹ rst years.

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Based on the framework created in the previous years for how to found and develop a local chapter, AIESEC in Romania took the responsibility of opening AIESEC in Moldova. This initiative was conducted by the national Board together with the local chapter in Iasi.

In the first years, AIESEC in Romania was excelling when it comes to HR processes, due to the focus on people’s development, through learning & development programs, tools of ensuring the retention of the membership.

PBox was becoming a more important part of the entity’s activity, hence the introduction of a responsible of this programme at national level.

A reward and recognition system was created for the Alumni community as well, leadership and entrepreneurial awards were given to Alumni who brought an impact into the society.

In 2007 AIESEC in Romania reached another milestone, as for the first time a Romanian AIESECer became the President of AIESEC International, the highest position an AIESECer can acquire.

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In 2007 Romania became a member of the European Union, which opened a lot of doors for the activities AIESEC in Romania was delivering, having the opportunity to apply for the Leonardo da Vinci funds with the projects that were being delivered.

During this period, AIESEC in Romania adopted a bottom-up strategy, involving the members and the Team Leaders in the co-creation of strategies and initiatives together with the Executive Boards.

AIESEC in Romania was very popular among the youth in Romania, as the organization was present in the media a lot (newspapers, radio stations, television) and the relations with the local and national authorities were very closed, hence the presence of the Ministry of Education as speaker of a local conference.

Recruitments for members and exchange participants were done twice a year and future exchanges participants had to compulsively participate in preparation conferences before starting their experiences abroad.

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At the end of this period, after-schools and non-formal education programs were becoming a trend in Romania, which facilitated the process of implementing educational projects with exchange participants.

AIESEC in Romania started having nationally-aligned projects, such as GROW, a project developed and implemented together with the School of Values (Č˜coala de Valori), a strategy that brought a lot of results.

By the end of this period, non-exchange activities became close to non-existent, as all the focus was put on exchanges.

A challenge AIESEC in Romania had to face internally was the Supply & Demand timeline, as starting from the global level, the focus was shifted from corporate exchange delivery to volunteering exchanges.

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Once with the celebration of 20 years of AIESEC in Romania, the National Planning Seminar, one of the biggest national conferences organized by AIESEC in Romania was rebranded as RYLF (Romanian Youth Leadership Forum), as a strategic PR and financial shift that helped the entity gain more funds for this event. RYLF is a conference that is happening till the present day (It has been organized every year from 2010 to 2016 and it was reintroduced in 2019).

Hence the growth of the volunteering programs, a lot of focus was put on the financial sustainability of the organization, because these programs were more difficult to sustain financially.

There was a big growth in the number of non-profit and student organizations in the country, fact that challenged AIESEC in Romania to step up its game and find new ways of promoting itself on the market and also retaining its membership.

Instead of seeing this as a threat, the organization took 2 main directions: on one hand, improving the internal processes and offering better experiences to the membership and on the other hand, creating partnerships with similar, like-minded organizations in order to be able to bring an even bigger impact.

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Given the 2015 global mid-term ambition, AIESEC focused a lot on performance and growing its programs. Outgoing programmes were starting to be recognized as an internship opportunity and accredited by universities. AIESEC scholarships were being raised for more people with limited ďŹ nancial resources to be able to experience cross-cultural leadership experiences.

The Board of Advisors of the national board was composed of Alumni as well as of corporate partners the organization had, which offered an external perspective and ensured that AIESEC was capitalizing fully on the trends of that time.

Collaboration between local chapters was fostered through SOLs (schimburi de oameni intre locale = people exchanges between LCs), in order for the membersh to learn from each other and capitalize on the GCP(good case practice) different local chapters had. In order to maintain a good national – local relationship, as well as offering the needed support to the local committees, the national boards did RoadShows (physical local chapters visits).

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A strategy to drive the sales culture were the Bootcamps, practical short conferences organized together with companies, which became a good case practice in the global network.

Events in AIESEC Romania represented a highly important part of the organization’s culture. Each year, we would organize 3 big national conferences: Rock Me, RYLF, SprinCO. Other 2 events worth mentioning are Leadership Talks and Career After University. Leadership Talks was an event open for everyone who wanted to get inspiration from motivational speakers, leaders and successful people from various domains.

Career After University, as the name states, was an event which brought together AIESECers and leaders from companies. The participants would learn valuable information about Romanian workforce, how to make a proper CV and apply for the jobs they wished.

The local chapters that started their activity in this period were Arad and Suceava.

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Driven by the mid-term ambition AIESEC 2020, AIESEC in Romania strove to deliver more and better exchanges every year. In 2016 AIESEC in Romania reached the milestone of delivering over 1000 exchanges in one year.

Once with the disruptive growth of the number of exchanges, multiple structures (for ethics, legislation and membership criteria) were introduced at the national level in order to ensure the quality of delivery. This was a strategy that aimed to also prove that quantity and quality are not at different poles and that the organization does not need to choose between them.

New ďŹ nancial measures were implemented as well in order to ensure the sustainability of the organization. Disruptive growth brought to surface the importance of fostering credibility in front of the organization’s partners and authorities.

Meetings have been held with the Ministry of Internal and Foreign Affairs, ensuring that the visa process of exchange participants from non-EU countries was not facing many issues.

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In 2016 the marketing areas were closed at local level for enhancing the alignment of the AIESEC brand at national level, a strategy that involved a lot of change management methods. Over 80 accounts and channels were centralized at national level.

Even though the concept of the full AIESEC experience was no longer present, the membership was encouraged to take on exchange experiences, especially before joining the local executive boards. The members going in exchange were now called iXPs. The partnership with Erasmus started in 2016 as well, which helped AIESEC in Romania upscale its outgoing programmes.

The new global internships programme came as a solution for the start-up community in the country, a programme that aimed to help start-ups and small enterprises avoid bankruptcy in their ďŹ rst years through the new perspective of international young people that were coming to be interns.

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2015-2020

The ďŹ nancial and human resources areas took on a more strategic role in the operational processes, as standards had to be implemented for both.

The concept of macro-projects was introduced and implemented across generations, a product packaging strategy for the corporate programmes.

In 2018 AIESEC in Romania had the opportunity of hosting the International Presidents Meeting, event that gained the High Patronage of the President of Romania and improved the government relations.

After receiving the Global Excellence Award in IPM, the award was given to the President himself, in an event at the Cotroceni Palace where representatives of AIESEC in Romania were invited to participate.

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In 2018 the ChangeMakers’ Factory was launched, a long-term vision for AIESEC in Romania that encompassed all the opportunities AIESEC has to offer to a person since kindergarten until he/she becomes an adult. Curriculums for the incoming volunteering projects were created together with the whole network in the National Congress and then recived feedback from the partner organizations.

The curriculum helped the international volunteers deliver more impactful leadership experiences to the participants of the projects. The National Delivery Fund was also created, where money was put aside out of every exchange delivered in order to improve the experiences of the customers and make the organization more customer-centric.

Multiple initiatives were implemented that put the whole membership to work together for 1 or more days for one single purpose, with the aim of connecting the members and making AIESEC in Romania act as one, despite the differences in the local chapters.

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In 2019 the focus was put on behavioral change management, therefore making the membership take more initiative and ownership over their experience, but also change management in terms of how the programs AIESEC delivers are being run, especially the ones that bring internationals in Romania.

The main purpose was to make the programs sustainable long-term.

There was a growth in terms of digital presence, aimed to attract and retain customers, as well as partners through our digital channels.

Another strong message that was transmitted through AIESEC during this period was the part of external relevance, the membership being challenged to relate everything that it does to the external environment, so that AIESEC in Romania becomes fully part of the community in Romania.

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The ďŹ rst months of 2020 were not an easy year for AIESEC in Romania, as it has not been for many organizations all over the world. Despite the challenges it faced, AIESEC in Romania adapted fast to the current situation and made sure that its membership does not forget the core and the purpose of AIESEC.

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Graph representing the number of Realized experiences delivered by AIESEC in Romania.

Before the year 1999, there is no data available, but there were 20 exchange experiences delivered per year on average.

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Message from AIESEC in Romania President 20.21 Deciding to join a youth organization in my university years and ďŹ nding myself in the recruitment process for AIESEC was probably one of the best things that happened to me. Since the moment I joined, almost 4 years ago, AIESEC has been the place that challenged me the most, offered me the possibility to grow and develop not only myself, but also the ones around me. And I believe that growing as an individual together with other people who are working for the same big purpose and are driven by the same vision every day is a very beautiful thing.

In these times, I believe that AIESEC is relevant more than ever and I am proud to be part of the generation that gets the chance to shape the future of the organization in Romania and also at a global level. I believe that now we need AIESEC, more than ever, and we are connected to the core purpose of the organization in everything we do.

If there is one thing I wish to see in AIESEC many years from now on is the determination and the energy in the people that are moving the organization further, for a better future. We need to remember that one of the most powerful things that we can do, as AIESECers, is to lead the way for the people we are sharing this experience with.

Ruxandra Popescu President 20.21

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