3/10 Rotterdam - Student Board Newsletter

m

NEWSLETTER Rotterdam Meeting December 2010

CEMS – THE GLOBAL ALLIANCE IN MANAGEMENT EDUCATION

SB Meeting

A word from the SB President Dear CEMSies, The New Year has finally set in and we leave a long and fruitful 2010 behind us. Happy New Year!

Let me first introduce this year by quickly looking back and giving thanks to the Student Board (SB) of 2010, led by former President Mr. Thomas R. Smith and Vice President Mr. Tom Zacharski. With Rotterdam ended a year of endeavours aimed at growing student involvement in the success of the CEMS Alliance, and I do not hesitate to say that this was perfectly accomplished. The leadership of the Student Board was in Rotterdam passed to myself and my Vice President Mr. Fredrik Ahlberg, and we look forward to filling the big shoes of Thomas and Tom in the year to come.

The last SB meeting of 2010 was held in Rotterdam in conjunction with the CEMS Annual Events. Since our last newsletter on the Istanbul meeting in September, the Student Board has taken their work another step forward.

MIM Affairs finalised the analytical part of the Internship, Skill Seminar and Cross-Cultural Management projects with three comprehensive reports which were submitted to CEMS Coordinators and Academic Directors. CEMS Social Responsibility leaped forward by finalising the Schools for Africa project with the handover of the funds raised to Unicef. Moreover, the ratification of Social Partners Fairtrade Labelling Organization and CARE International opened the doors to a new, exciting cooperation between the Student Board and NGOs. Student Relations published the latest newsletter, distributed merchandising at the Career Forum in Budapest, and began planning exciting projects which we will see take shape in 2011. Finally, the SB meeting closed with the CEMS Club Conference, hosted by the CEMS Club Support team. In addition to all of this, we continued to discuss the important issues of CEMS branding and career services, in which students’ opinions continue to be heard and appreciated.

We’re all excited about 2011, which will hopefully be a year in which we’ll be more visible to the students we represent, and a year to bring more equal and better opportunities to CEMS students in the interaction with the other stakeholders of the Alliance. We hope you find this update interesting.

Enjoy the newsletter!

Marco Proto President CEMS Student Board

Any comment or suggestion concerning the newsletter? Please do not hesitate to contact miriam.scharmach@cemsmail.org

1

Who’s your rep’?

AALTO Natalia Velikodnaya

NHH

Student Board Executive Team:

CBS

Fredrik Ahlberg

NOVA Carlota Cabral

Marco Proto &Fredrik Ahlberg

CUB

Kornelia Bodnar

NUS

Say Gui Deng

EAESP Álvaro Lenza

RSM

Janhavi Paranjape

EGADE Jose Cruz

SGH

Maciej Sewerski

ESADE Nienke Vonsee

SSE

Markus Thomas

GSOM Evgenia Popova

UB

David Hmaidi

HEC

Youssef Iraqui

UCD

Marco van de Beek

HSG

Andri Hinnen

UoC

Miriam Scharmach

IVEY

Hannes Klaeger

USYD Wei-Chieh Chuang

KOC

Melis Zipkinkurt

VSE

Robert Gnauck

LSE

Cleo Biron

WU

Tobias Rauscher

LSM

Nicola Romano

WHAT’S NEXT? V4 Conference hosted in Warsaw, 24-27 February “Competitiveness in Central Europe” (http://www.cems.org/eventsservices/student-alumni/v4).

Marenostrum hosted in Lisbon, 10-12 March “Development Through Business: A Mirage or a Reality?”

Finn Harung

CEMS Alumni Association- CAA Dear Students,

(http://www.cems.org/eventsservices/student-alumni/marenostrum).

We are delighted to have the opportunity to introduce the CEMS Alumni Association to you.

Nordic Forum

Founded in 1993, the CEMS Alumni Association (CAA) is a strong social network but also an increasingly valuable professional platform. It enables CEMS graduates to continue to enjoy the international and multicultural experience that they will have experienced with CEMS.

hosted in Copenhagen, 16-19 March (http://www.cems.org/eventsservices/student-alumni/nordic-forum).

Sincere thanks are given to our leaving SB members: Andri Hinnen Student Relations

Kornelia Bodnar Student Relations

Maciej Sewerski Club Support

Natalia Velikodnaya Club Support

Nicola Romano Club Support

Thomas Smith President

Tom Zacharski Vice President

During the Annual Event in Rotterdam the election of the new Executive Committee of the CAA took place, and we had the honour to be appointed to the following roles: Alberto Frisiero (President), Torsten Röwekamp (Vice President), Nicola Spano (Treasurer), Blandine Avot (Secretary General).

We have set a challenging programme with the goal of guaranteeing a sustainable growth of the CEMS Community.

Our main objectives are:  

Boost the Career Service Strengthen the CEMS networking in order to increase the awareness of CEMS globally  Support the CEMS community and all the stakeholders (Students, Alumni, Corporate Partners, Academic Members, Head Office), by enriching the CEMS curriculum via our working experience.

Our intention is to increase the possibility of contacts and sharing of experiences between students and alumni, as key drivers for the future of the CEMS community, and we count on you to be successful on this.

It does not matter where your career or your private life will lead you.

Wherever you are, you will find Alumni glad to support you with their experience. Don’t wait for your graduation, start seizing your future now!

The CAA is waiting for you!

Your CAA EC team:

Blandine, Alberto, Nicola and Torsten

2

Student Board Update on CSR Activities GVS - The Global Values Statement saw its first appearance at this year’s graduation ceremony in Rotterdam. The GVS highlights CEMS’ core values of humility, integrity and diversity. By signing the GVS, new graduates pledge to uphold and carry forth these values in their personal and professional lives. The GVS encountered a 98% success rate with respect to signatures attained on stage in Rotterdam.

corporate and social partners on a business project that has a sustainable social impact. Challenges foreseen are to get corporate partners to commit to such initiatives more than a simple CSR movement.

Muhammad Yunus Event - The Rotterdam Annual event was honoured to host Muhammad Yunus in a day of events revolving around “Social Business and New Capitalism”. The CEMS Social Responsibility team, along with a handful of motivated CEMS students and Alumni organised the morning student semi-interactive session with Professor Yunus. Together they came up with, and elicited feedback from Professor Yunus on how to best mobilise students within the community and raise awareness in about Social Business.

Online CEMS Social Platform - An Online CEMS Social Platform is in the process of being designed and launched. It will be accessed through the CEMS.org website and will be a place where anyone from the CEMS community can post their social business ideas and ideas of business initiatives which have social impact. This platform is a place where social entrepreneurs can request help and support from the rest of the CEMS community.

Likewise, for those in the community that do not have ideas of their own, but wish to get further involved with a positive social impact, they can log on and choose to help their peers.

Accredited Social Business Projects - The idea of offering an increased number of accredited social business projects was discussed with much enthusiasm during the annual event. These projects would be held in the same way as traditional business projects.

However, their focus would be on a social business initiative (by Professor Yunus´ definition) or a business initiative which has social impact. The pivotal aspect of this idea would be to have students work alongside

Social Ambassadors - Within the CEMS community, the CEMS Social Responsibility team have taken active steps towards building a more sustainable society for our future. The Social Ambassador initiative is a project that enables stakeholders in the CEMS community to become agents of positive change and to act as a think-tank in providing initial social business ideas to start-off the Online CEMS Social Business Platform, talked about above.

.

Social Ambassadors can be current students, alumni, academic staff, corporate representatives and anyone else within the CEMS alliance. As a Social Ambassador, you will have opportunities to initiate and mentor social business ideas, run skill seminars, increase awareness of social responsibility in your proximate CEMS community and work with the CEMS Social Responsibility team on global-level initiatives. If this sounds like you, please contact the CEMS Social Responsibility team or Peter on wei-chieh.chuang@cemsmail.org for further information about the role.

The Global Values Statement As a lifelong member of the CEMS community, I hereby commit to uphold and be guided by the following principles:   

3

The pursuit of excellence with the highest standards of integrity, humility, and ethical conduct.

Professional responsibility and accountability in relation to society and the environment Drawing upon the value of cultural diversity with respect and empathy

My decisions and actions, both now and in the future, will reflect this Commitment to Global Citizenship that I make here today.

CEMS Club Warsaw

CEMS Club Support – Project report Mission: Provide support and guidance to CEMS Clubs throughout the Alliance in order to enhance the CEMS experience for students.

Projects of the Team thus aim to encompass all possible dimensions of CEMS Clubs’ activities.

Five members are currently working in the team plus two former members that ended their SB time in Rotterdam.

The meeting in Rotterdam had a twofold task for the CEMS Club Support team. First of all, our responsibility was to hold the CEMS Club Conference – one of the major activities we do to support Clubs.

Secondly, we had to revise and sum up all completed projects and decide on the new ones.

CEMS Club Conference CEMS Club Conference is a special annual event organised for Presidents of all CEMS Clubs. The main purpose of the conference is to facilitate exchange of best practices among Clubs and encourage global networking. This year saw the highest ever attendance rate for the event. More than 20 representatives from various schools of the CEMS Alliance joined the conference. Over one and a half days these delegates participated in discussions on the most urgent issues. These included: handing over of CEMS Clubs, alumni involvement and collaboration with Corporate Partners. Participants also shared Clubs’ best practices and news on Regional events (including the upcoming MARENOSTRUM, V4 Conference and LOUROPA Forum).

Together with activities prepared by the CCS Team, the conference had several honoured speakers.

Charlotte Saldanha (NOVA) gave a useful seminar on the role of the Academic Coordinator in the life of CEMS Clubs. Stefano Gnes and Denisa Zichackova (Head Office) provided an update on Corporate Partners (CP) and discussed most recent CP-related issues. We believe these were valuable insights that Club Presidents could bring back to their Clubs.

Team Projects: During the meeting in Rotterdam CEMS Club Support Team finalised several projects. Among others, the procedure for selecting the best Club in the CEMS Club Awards was settled and first implemented.

CEMSshare online communication platform for CEMS Clubs was revised and reorganised. Also Corporate Partners and Stakeholder Packages (as guidelines for cooperation with various CEMS stakeholders) were distributed to the Conference participants.

As for other tasks, the Team will be working on the following: Start-up toolkit – a package with materials necessary to establish a CEMS Club. Given the forthcoming expansion of the CEMS Alliance, more CEMS Clubs will be created soon and our mission is to help them to grow faster and easier with the help of already accumulated global experience.

Support of Regional Events - has always been and will continue to be the responsibility of the Team.

That means that we will carry on providing support and help for various events organised by Clubs.

Alumni package – a set of material explaining the essence of mutually beneficial collaboration with CEMS alumni. Alumni mentorship programmes (which already exist in several schools) were also discussed as a possible best practice for integrating alumni and students.

Handover of CEMS Clubs – a new project of the CCS Team aimed at solving one of the most difficult issues for the Clubs: how to pass responsibilities and experience from former to new Club members. We will accumulate existing best practices of handing over and offer guidelines and templates to facilitate inner knowledge management to the Clubs.

(CCS Team-leader: evgenia.popova@cemsmail.org)

We would like to note the great enthusiasm of the Clubs’ Presidents who were very active during the event. They showed passion and an ability to drive positive changes in their local communities and, more importantly, in the global Alliance in general.

4

MIM Affairs Projects Mission: The MIM Affairs Team seeks to improve the CEMS MIM programme quality and learning experience by providing a link between students and other stakeholders.

The MIM Affairs team has undergone significant personnel changes since the last Student Board meeting in Rotterdam. As our former team leader Fredrik Ahlberg (CBS) was chosen to serve as Vice President of the Student Board for 2011 the team is now lead by Youssef Iraqui (HEC) and Markus Thomas (SSE). We are very happy to welcome Alvaro Lenza (FGV) and Nienke VonsĂŠe (ESADE) into our ranks!

For the coming months we have identified four projects that in our eyes represent excellent opportunities to further improve the CEMS MIM experience. The majority of these projects focus on the provision of structures and efficient processes in the faculty-student and faculty-student board interaction.

1) Support for the Language Task Force: Given the variety of students in the MIM programme the question for a fair and necessary degree of language education arises almost automatically. Together with a dedicated team at the Head Office we are assessing the suitability of the language education, examination procedures and content currently incorporated into the programme for future employment and career progression. To gain a structured overview of the topic, we will compare opinions from recent graduates and current students on the matter.

2) Structured Feedback Processes: Following up on projects completed before the Rotterdam meeting, this work stream is aimed at implementing a structured feedback process for the Skill Seminar Project, the CCM Monitoring Project, and the Internship Review. We believe that a template guide and timely coordinated feedback process on the individual school level will help the understanding and diffusion of the presented reports and fast-track the incorporation of feedback into future actions. The Internship Review in particular offers promising opportunities for the integration of alumni and co-student experience via the new cems.org website.

3) Peer Reviews: The MIM Affairs team is assisting the Head Office in the peer reviews of 5 academic partners until the end of June. Our responsibility lies in gathering student opinions from the respective schools and identifying issues and strong points that the official review team can focus on in its efforts.

4) Course Portfolio Mapping Support: Based on a previous project, we are developing an Excel-based tool that is intended to help Academic Directors in designing their course portfolios. The underlying rationale is that an increased visibility of the course portfolio not only aids the planning process but also helps to communicate the special character the individual academic partners stress in their educational offer to students. A thorough use of the tool will enable Academic Directors to identify courses in which student preferences have clustered in the past, suggesting possible additions to the CEMS core portfolio. In the same way, under-represented fields of management education can be identified.

(MIM Affairs Team-leader: markus.thomas@cemsmail.org & youssef.iraqui@cemsmail.org)

All projects rely intensely on a fruitful cooperation with the very supportive staff at the CEMS Head Office. We would like to thank everybody in the Head Office and all our counterparts in the schools for their vital input and see a closer integration of Student Board activities with the entire CEMS staff worldwide as one of our main goals for the coming months!

5

Student Relations Team The Student Relations team aims to improve communication, raise awareness and enhance relations among students, alumni and corporate partners by managing projects affecting stakeholders on a global level.

Some projects are rolled out globally and have been around for many years whereas others involve totally new ideas that need all our creativity and attention to grow to maturity.

A good example of a well established – and well perceived – project is the CEMS Online Store.

Students can buy CEMS branded goods, clothes and personalised business cards. Student Relations takes care of the challenging task of the promotion, shipment, distribution of the goods and tracks the whole process. The autumn sales term went extremely well and we’re currently considering opening the store in spring.

In the past year, a lot of work has been done on the Travel Reports. We try to provide students with information and first-hand experiences regarding exchange locations to help the students in their search and preferences for their term abroad.

Ensuring that everything goes well and all stakeholders are aligned requires motivation and dedication but with the project reaching an advanced state, it seems that our commitment will pay off. Check out the Travel Reports on the new cems.org soon!

In a joint effort between the CEMS Social Responsibility and Student Relations Team, a Social Business Competition will be set up. We are currently working really hard behind the scenes to design and provide a platform and structure where social business ideas can be shared. By doing so, the initiative taker can seek help from stakeholders in the alliance to help realising the social initiative.

This can be done in various ways, for example by seeking help from someone in the alliance with excellent accounting or online media skills.

Although the idea is still very much in development, many students have shown interest and social ambassadors have been nominated to boost the momentum. At years’ end a commission will award the best social business idea.

The CEMS Magazine, a bi-annual publication, features articles about the current state of the alliance and its members. Also, after every Student Board meeting, Student Relations provides a Newsletter which discusses the content of the meeting, its main outcomes and achievements. This proves to be a great tool to update stakeholders about the work of the Student Board and since you are reading it now, we hope you enjoy the work the whole Student Board put into it.

Another essential element of the Student Relations team relates to Knowledge Management. As such, the team supervises and maintains the Student Board forum, a place where all members debate about the current state of projects, new initiatives, best practices and board meetings. The forthcoming Student forum on cems.org will be part of this and it will be open to all students. We look forward to your comments and input.

In terms of communication, CEMS is active on various online platforms such as facebook, twitter and flickr.

The usage of online media is however not always up to date or up to the standards CEMS upholds. As such, we have launched an initiative to re-energize the use of social media. Check your facebook soon for more the results. We hope you’ll like the more informative and professional approach.

The alumni network is a vital element of the CEMS Alliance. The Student Board, and more specifically, Student Relations are in close contact with the new Alumni Association Executive Committee to find ways to enhance relations so that both students and alumni benefit. The preliminary results can be found in this newsletter, with a section from the new Executive Committee!

During the Rotterdam meeting, the Student Relations team said goodbye to some outgoing members and we are very grateful for the time they invested to bring the team to such a professional level. Also, new and equally motivated people have joined the team.

The combination of experienced and new members gives Student Relations a unique edge to take on the challenges of the coming year.

(SR Team-leader: marinus.vandebeek@cemsmail.org)

6

The 2010 CEMS Annual Events –

the alliance goes from strength to strength Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) was the host of the 22nd CEMS Annual Events, on 2nd-4th December. The highlight of a rich programme saw the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus (the Bangladeshi economist and founder of Grameen Bank) appear as keynote speaker on Friday 3rd for a series of debates with CEMS students, alumni, academics and corporate partners. He was also awarded honorary membership of the CEMS alliance by the highest governing body, the Strategic Board.

The appearance of such an active supporter of social business represented a major rubber-stamping of three new CSR initiatives within CEMS: the recent signing of the Principles for Responsible Management Education, the induction of the inaugural Social Partners and the implementation of the student-driven Global Values Statement.

In addition to all the above, a number of nominations were confirmed during the Friday and Saturday events.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Bieger (President of the University of St. Gallen) was unanimously elected by the Deans and Rectors of CEMS member schools and senior representatives of CEMS Corporate Partners.

He replaces Prof. Bernard Ramanantsoa (Dean, HEC Paris), who completed his second two-year mandate as Chairman at the Rotterdam event.

Keio University, Japan was ratified as a full member school, meaning that the school will become the 25th academic member to deliver the CEMS MIM in 2011-12. Keio bring with them four new Corporate Partners from Japan: the soya giants Kikkoman Corporation, the optical and pharmaceutical manufacturers Kowa Company Ltd., the convenience store franchise Lawson, Inc. and the financial services and investment bank Nomura Securities Co. Ltd. Also ratified as corporate partners were Arla Foods, Barilla, EF Education First, Google, HSBC, SABMiller plc and Schneider Electric. This brought the total number of CEMS Corporate Partners to a record 69, with 2010 having been a record year in terms of Corporate Partner recruitment (13 in all).

CEMS also welcomed its first ever Social Partners, the NGOs CARE International and Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International. Their role will be identical in scope to that of Corporate Partners, ranging from selection of students onto the programme and a role in governance through to curriculum delivery, internships and recruitment opportunities.

Finally, 450 of the 610 graduating CEMS students received their CEMS MIM diploma on stage on Saturday 4th. They join the 6,000-strong CEMS Alumni Association network, which is now led by a new team comprising: Alberto Frisiero (CEMS 2003), Torsten Roewekamp (CEMS 2003), Blandine Avot (CEMS 2007) and Nicola Spano (CEMS 2002).

The graduation ceremony carried an extra flavour this time around as it also comprised the inaugural signing of the CEMS Global Values Statement. Of the students who were on stage to collect their CEMS MIM diploma a hugely impressive 98% went on to sign the Statement.

Visit the 2010 Annual Events website (www.cemsevent.com) & the “Events & Services” section of www.cems.org for photo and video coverage.

7

Kevin Titman CEMS Communications Manager

AALTO Natalia Velikodnaya

NOVA Carlota Cabral

CBS

Fredrik Ahlberg

NUS

Jia Jun Zhang

CUB

Kornelia Bodnar

RSM

Tanmayi Gummaraju

EAESP Eduardo Caimbro

SGH

Maciej Sewerski

EGADE Jose Cruz

SSE

Filip Goldmann

ESADE Ludovic Manjot

UB

Marina Marchese

GSOM Evgenia Popova

UCD

Gwilym Williams

HEC

Youssef Iraqui

UoC

Miriam Olivia Scharmach

HSG

Andri Hinnen

USYD

Wei-Chieh Chuang

Ivey

Matthew Zajac

VSE

Robert Hnauck

LSE

Cleo Biron

WU

Nina Poxleitner

LSM

Nicola Romano