My dear friends and readers,
I wish you all the best for 2018, and I hope that this new year will be excellent and full of joy for yourselves and for your families.
Please allow me to make a short but important announcement, and to share a few personal reflections looking back at 2017.
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| Thomas Bittner |
After 6 rather intense years as President of INSEAD Alumni Association in France, I have reached the end of my 2 terms with some pride and emotion, handing over to my successor, Thomas Bittner, with whom I had worked very closely during my mandate, as my right hand comrade, but most importantly as a real friend.
Without Thomas, we would not have accomplished what some distinguished alumni called the « Renaissance » of our association. It is fantastic that Thomas is now taking the helm of the ship, to lead our community into its next endeavors.
Now, the end of my presidency is a big change for me personally, and I took some time in the past few weeks to reflect on the precious learnings from 6 years leading, or rather serving the Alumni Association of the #1 Business School in the World.
- Leadership goes together with Trust. Both were granted to me by the INSEAD alumni community back in 2011, with a large majority vote, and since then it has been for me a responsible, enjoyable, ambitious and relentless mission... to deserve and to cherish this precious grant every day.
- Inspire, innovate and connect. The association I took over in 2011 was anchored on a great legacy from my 16 predecessors. But it required some substantial transformation to thrive for another 50 years and more. The first key was to inspire the community, so we all embarked on a journey to make the world a better place, seeing business as a force for good, and creating major, memorable, impactful events around that belief, like INSEAD Essentials and INSEAD Forum. The second key was to innovate, quite radically, and to digitalize everything for example: Technology has been a clear enabler of our success… and it’s not over yet. The third key was to connect all of this: people with ideas, inspiration with innovation, strategy with implementation… Since then, « inspire and connect » has become my personal motto and the name of my blog.
- INSEAD people are amazing. Over the last 5 years, the alumni association has welcomed a massive audience of 20.000+ people, alumni and friends of INSEAD, across 700+ fantastic events. We now have thousands of followers on social media, starting with none 6 years ago. We are now featured in most business media, and we have published many insightful studies on various topics… All this would not have been possible without the hundreds volunteers, alumni, professors and staff from INSEAD, to whom I want to pay a vivid tribute and express my immense gratitude.
- Humility precedes everything else. I felt very proud having successfully assembled, engaged, led and inspired one of the most amazing team of people I know, with such powerful combination of diversity (of talent and character), willingness to serve, passion to give back, intellectual wit and speed, appetite for collaboration and innovation, collective knowledge and experience… So in fact, rather than making me proud, this team made me more humble than anything else, and I am hugely thankful to my fabulous Executive Committee members for what they did together. Six years after, it feels to me like we formed the best team on Earth!
- Thank you … as I learnt so much. I indeed learnt an awful lot of stuff, having attended, listened to, and facilitated so many events with so many astounding speakers. One cannot forget the inspiring insights from a lesson of geopolitics by Laurent Fabius, a teaching on reinventing oneself by Herminia Ibarra, a joint word of wisdom from Bishop Dominique Rey and Dean Dipak Jain, a vibrant and forceful speech from Jacques Seguela, a description of successful leadership by Bertrand Collomb, a heated debate on M&A between Gregoire Chertok and Hubert Sagnieres, a clear vision of the world by Clara Gaymard, a radical call to make the world a better place by Kevin Roberts and Paul Polman, a confrontation (on the same panel) between Facebook, Google and Microsoft, a thoughtful conversation with Carlos Ghosn, a digital 101 with Lubomira Rochet, a provocative exchange with Arnaud Montebourg, or a chat on the future of leadership with David Jones and Kate Robertson at the One Young World conference in Johannesburg! Those magic encounters have probably taught me as much as 20+ years career or an MBA from INSEAD :-)
But besides this continuous and formidable experience, the thing I really got to learn along my six years leading INSEAD Alumni Association is that the most important things (for me) as a leader are to serve, to inspire and to connect people – in order to (try to) make the world a better place!
I sincerely hope I have been able to do so with the entire community over the past years. I have tried, with the outmost determination, to be efficient, energetic, passionate, federative, inspiring and leading during my mandate. I did ask the alumni to forgive me for times when this had not been the case, and apologized to those which my leadership style might have displeased or disturbed.
In conclusion of this looking-back-in-time, I can only express my immense gratefulness for having been allowed to run this fantastic association between 2011 and 2017. It has been an enormous privilege that I shall never forget.
So, to all of you, dear readers, HAPPY NEW YEAR ! … and to INSEAD alumni association in particular, FAREWELL !
