HEC MBA participants produced this years MBAT video – completely in house! This gave us the flexibility and creative latitude to do something a little different from previous years. It was a combination of three things that were drivers for the final product. We wanted to showcase the athletic talents of some of our MBAT student participants, provide a foretaste of the competitive nature of the actual sports tournament, and finally use the videogenic Paris as a stunning backdrop. We were literally running around the city, shooting in front of some of the most recognizable monuments in the world. It was definitely the most exciting MBAT project and every student involved, right from the actors and directors to the editors and costume people, had a really good time making the video. With participants from the top European business schools, The MBAT is the only event of its kind; growing in scale and popularity, the video will be a great way to advertise this years tournament and in further years to come.

Click here to see the video on the HEC Paris YouTube Channel!

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“It was a dark rainy October evening and I was sitting in my office when … OK, just kidding, I don’t remember anymore what was the weather and where I was at the moment when I received the SOS message from the Sustainable Business Conference team saying “We need a track leader for Infrastructure and Mobility track”; one of the 3 tracks of the conference.
What I do remember very well is that I immediately sat down and wrote back to the organizers … “Guys count me in!”. My motivation was simple. Firstly sustainability is a topic that interests me a lot, secondly I am originally a civil engineer that likes architecture and a city person interested in future city development and lastly I couldn’t miss the opportunity to participate in a project managed by an Italian . And as we had only few months to prepare the conference and the classes in core 1 just became to be very demanding, the SBC was really a very dynamic experience.
The format of the conference was 3 panel discussion for each of the 3 tracks through-out the day and the topics we chose for Infrastructure and Mobility track were first “Sustainable City planning” with the aim to bring examples of Sustainable projects from all round the world, second “Future of mobility” tackling the most pressing issue of today – cities ruled by cars, and finally “Financing Sustainable projects” with an aim to show where funding of such projects can come from.
Organizing a conference is a very particular activity as it is very important to get some good speakers as soon as possible to attract other speakers, good moderators and sponsors. Therefore our goal was to do as much as possible before Christmas and that was the moment when I started to realized how difficult was to manage a team composed of busy volunteers. It was a time of many academic commitments, including preparation for exams, numerous assignments and internship applications, and it was difficult to continuously monitor priorities and keep pushing the team to deliver the expected work for the conference. Fortunately enough we soon had newly motivated team members from January intake joining us.
With the freshly reinforced team, we needed to speed up with preparation, finalize the speakers list, and work with marketing team to promote the conference or logistics team to arrange everything for the conference day.

Then finally 22nd March came and all what we were preparing went live and I think I can say that the 9th issue of the HEC Sustainable Conference was a true success! To conclude, I have really enjoyed preparing it and working with such a great team of people and recommend this experience to all future HEC MBA students.”

Tomas Drasar, HEC Class of 2013

“One of the highlights about the HEC MBA experience is the Leadership Seminar at The École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr (Special Military School of Saint-Cyr). This 2 day event is designed to challenge the MBA participants mentally and physically as they work on their leadership skills through individual and team activities. The Leadership Seminar is conducted and lead by representatives of the French Armed Forces.

The Team Challenges

The objective of the team challenges is to develop our the individual leadership ability of the participants while leveraging off their inherent capabilities. Every participant was assigned a leader for each of the various challenges. The role included general coordination of the team to deliver against the objective of the task. At the end of the task – the team members as well as the Military supervisor would take turns providing feedback to the participant.

We all learnt a few things about our leadership styles, and most importantly we received feedback on how to be more effective in leadership roles.

Individual Challenges

Though the Individual challenges seemed to be testing physical abilities, they were actually more geared around helping the participants take on their fears. To successfully complete the tasks the participants had to motivate themselves to overcome their fears in tackling what seemed like impossible tasks.”

Nhlamulo Baloyi, Class of 2013

Read more about Nhlamulo’s experience at HEC and in France via his blog

“It was a dark evening when I received the first email from the Net Impact Club. The communication informed all the members of the incoming elections to appoint the next Sustainable Business Conference (SBC) organizing team and included the invitation to an introductory meeting.

Although I didn’t know I was a member of the Club, I decided to attend the meeting anyway: sustainable business was one of my main fields of interest, and after all, in the worst case I would have gotten a free pizza!

Well, the pizza was not super (I’m Italian, I need ultra quality pizza!!) but SBC was really exciting! I had worked for almost seven years for a managing consulting company focused on energy markets and in particular on renewable energies. I thought that SBC could represent the natural evolution of my experience in that “sustainable” sector.

Moreover, my friend Vincent was at the meeting as well: we soon decided to set up a team to participate in the SBC elections. To present a team, we had to find other three members, so we decided to involve the right people to raise the quality of the team (and also its beauty!!): Elena and Charlotte were soon on board. However, we would have had just 5 minutes to present our idea and prove our capabilities to organize an efficient fund raising to enhance the next SBC. We thus needed someone with huge analytical skills and a unique Power Point talent: Giulio was the right person. And the “Smart up” team was complete.

The next step was to decide the main idea around which to build our proposal for the next SBC. We started to meet in our rooms at Expansiel, sometimes in front of a cup of coffee, others times in front of a number of beers… and we eventually came up with the idea of “smart cities”: how our cities should change in order to face the issues created by the rising urbanization trend.

This subject is very hot in the industry now and international institutions such as the European Union are starting to support this concept, along with grants and research funds. This meant that there was business around it and so higher chances for our fund raising.

We liked this subject because it was focused enough not to be considered too generalist, but broad enough to leave room to multiple approaches. We thought that this diversity could enhance the appeal of a conference, which targets every year at least 400 students and professionals, with very different interests: from cleantech to finance to social business.

So we started to study this subject in more depth and prepared our 5 slide presentation. Eventually the elections arrived with five teams competing to take the lead of the organization and soon we discovered the first surprise: another team presented the same idea! They decided to be the first team to present, while we opted to be the last.  We were pleased to do so, as we remembered from the “Negosim” feedback that the last presentation has generally a more positive impact on the attendees.

All the teams were well prepared and had very interesting ideas, but I was confident as in these cases motivations make the difference and I had the feeling that nobody was more committed than us…

… and I was right! Well, I don’t know if we won because we produced a convincing presentation or just because we have been the last to talk… but “Smart cities, smart sustainability” was officially the title of the SBC 2012!

For reasons unknown to me, I was appointed general coordinator and our first task was to gather all the other teams around our project.

It was October 25^th 2011, with less than five months to go… it seemed a mission impossible: to find 50 speakers from all around the world, some big names from the industry to attract the press and professionals, to set up an effective communication plan in order to bring 600 attendees to Jouy en Josas, to prepare the logistics… and especially to finance it!

But common, we are HEC MBA participants… no matter what, we were going to make it!!”

Sergio Portatadino, SBC President, Class of 2013

“The colourful mist of culture, food and the diversity of India which had descended over the HEC Paris campus over the last week was slowly disappearing. The sound of the “Bhangra music” and boisterous singing greeted the air as we walked towards the Piano Bar, the on-campus socialising hotspot for MBA participants. As we walked, I reflected on the wonderful week that had just flown by.

The India Week is annually organized by the Indian participants of the HEC Paris MBA program and the Grand Ecole. This year it was held a few weeks following “Holi”, the Indian festival of colors. Although Indian food and Bollywood music are well known to everyone, the MBA and Grand Ecole students wanted to show the true meaning of being Indian, beyond food and music, – that is to say, “dive into the culture of a billion people, come and explore the true India”.

The Air India – India Week 2012 commenced with the celebration of Holi, on the HEC Campus. With special colours or “Rang” brought over from India, Holi was celebrated by both international and Indian students whole-heartedly.

However, this special week was not only intended to showcase the Indian culture but also the business enterprise of Indian companies in the form of Air India, the event’s main sponsor, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), InFact Group and India House. It was an honor to be associated with such illustrious names from the Indian business world and I, on behalf of the organisers, would like to thank them for their contributions.

InFact Group accepted to give a short presentation about their business and also discussed potential job opportunities in Paris. As a double delight, a Bollywood treat in the form of the internationally acclaimed movie, “Monsoon Wedding”, was screened on the campus along with snacks and specially prepared “Masala Coke”, a concoction of Indian spices and Coca-Cola.

A highlight of the Air India – India Week 2012 was the “Cultural Booth” held during the noon break between lectures. A unique opportunity for international students was presented in the form of the “Pani-Puri Workshop” by the Indian MBA students. Students and staff alike enjoyed the wonderful sweet and tangy flavours of the Pani-Puri’s that left the taste-buds craving for more. The “Photo Booth” was also a big hit with students – a photo opportunity to be an “Aladdin”, a “Maharaja” or a beautiful Indian “Maharani” (Queen) or Princess was too good to resist for many. Mouth-watering samosas and Choley Masala were also served as accompaniments to the amazing Pani-Puri.

For the Grand Finale, the Gala Night was THE standout of the whole Week. Commencing with a showcase of the various languages of India, the night began with a harmonious demonstration of the Indian percussion instrument, the “Tabla” by Anshuman Sarangi (MBA Graduate 2012). This was followed by an explosion of Indian folk dance and music, the Bhangra, demonstrated by the famous Indian Dance troupe from Paris called “Waris Punjabi De”.

Following a sumptuous Indian dinner, an Indian Fashion show and dance performances enthralled the crowd and the Air India – India Week 2012 ended with a special Indian Disco at the Piano Bar.

As part of the organizing team, I felt happy that the Indian community at HEC Paris was so enthusiastic and willing to spare time in contributing towards this event in spite of the demanding schedule. A successful event cannot be achieved without great teamwork and I would like to thank each one volunteer and participant for their great work. Well, enough of reflection …….now is the time to “turn the light bulb, pat the dog” and sing out loud – “O Balle Balle!!”

Kartik Kadle, HEC MBA Full-Time Participant, Class of 2013

Photos contributed by: LoVern Van Tonder and Shubham Bhattacharya

“I would define the CFA Research Challenge as one of my most exciting, learning experiences from MBA program at HEC Paris. This topic comes to my mind everytime I think of my MBA during the fundamental phase, and I am very happy to share this experience with everybody here. The official description of the CFA Institute Research Challenge can be found at the end of this blog post, however I would like to share my own impressions.
It was the end of September when the Finance Club leadership team announced that there was going to be a competition organized by CFA institute and that HEC was looking to enter. The objective of the competition was to write an analyst sell-side report on the French company selected by the CFA Organization. I was attracted to the competition as I really wanted to learn more about financial industry and the proper way a report should be done.

After organizing a team of 5 people (4 MBA students: Antoine Cossart, Stephane Quenet, Elli Suzuki and myself, and 1 student from Masters in International Finance Stanley Yeung) – we attended a kick-off meeting where we found out the name of the company – GROUPE SEB. As I am not French and the company is French, I had not heard of them before. But when my French team-members told me that this company owns international brands such as Tefal, Krups, Moulinex and Rowenta, it became obvious that our research would be interesting. Moreover it appeared that the L’Universite Lille 2 had won this competition over the last 4 consecutive years, and that put some pressure on us. But that was only the beginning…

In fact the research and the competition itself exceeded all of our expectations. On the one hand, we had very intense compulsory studies and on the other, we had to find time to work on the report. So the efficiency level we needed and the effort per hour to put into it was huge from all of the team members. And we were all very different – 5 different nationalities, different characters, different previous work and non-work experience, different skills, different time-schedules and different other commitments and different time-zones during the Christmas break, we nevertheless made this huge diversity our strong competitive advantage.

The mentor from BNP Paribas who was assigned to guide us, Norberto Cordisco, helped us to start actually working. When the input information from the kick-off meeting is just a company’s name and format of the report, and none of us has ever written this kind of report, to understand just what to start with and how to split the workload was essential. But we had a great team and everybody was willing to learn.
I do not have to mention that I would never expect that just by researching one company you almost memorize any corporate finance book: industry and business analysis, financial analysis, modeling and valuation, risks etc . We submitted the report on January 2nd , and we finalized it only on January 1st! Great start to the New Year. One month later, we received an invitation to the French National final. Out of 12 teams only 4 were invited to present their reports. So we had only 2 weeks to make a presentation, write a speech and to defend our hold position of the stock which performed extremely well during the last 10 years. Not an easy task I should say.
Deciding whether you should buy, hold or sell the stock of the company you already very much like, writing a report and making it coherent, compiling a pitching presentation, writing and trying to squeeze the speech in only 10 minutes, memorizing the speech and trying to guess what questions you might be asked at Q&A session, rehearsing the speech 100 times to yourself and presenting your research in front of the panel of senior investment analysts and equity research directors – just to name a few of the challenges our team faced.
We managed to get ready 4 days before the presentation and asked for the feedback our 2 corporate finance professors: Pascal Quiry and Yann LeFur. We really appreciated that they both not only devoted a substantial amount of their precious time to actually read the 10-page report and look through all the additional 16 pages of appendixes, but also they separately listened to our presentation and discussed with us how we can improve it.
And the result was rewarding – we won the French Final. In fact, HEC won the French level for the first time this year and that was a great achievement for us. Needless to say that it was not the presentation itself but mainly Q&A session that was a decisive factor for a winning team. Here you can really make a difference by answering the questions about the French company in France. And YES, we made that difference!
That was however not the case with the EMEA Final in London. For the London competition we would have to compete with 23 other national winning teams from 23 countries. And as by March 15th – the date of the competition – we had already known the actual 2011 numbers of the company performance, we had to do some homework on not only presenting the French company to European judges but also to update all the data and valuation model for the actual 2011 results. And of course, we rehearsed again and presented to our 2 corporate finance professors again.
The event in London itself was really well organized – everybody in the same hotel, 2 days of networking, different speakers presentations and a competition of course. At 7pm on the 2nd day we knew a winning team who would go to Global Final in New York in April – it was Stockholm School of Economy. Good job guys!!!
Of course it was kind of sad that we did not win but we left the event with the feeling of being proud to have represented France in CFA Challenge in London. It was 6 months of work, we advanced to EMEA Regional Finals, we presented a strong recommendation and the presentation was one of the team’s best performances. And we also greatly enjoyed the learning experience and the teamwork experience. With lots of challenges we had, I am very glad I had this chance and opportunity to participate, to learn and experience it.
Time to pass to the next HEC team in CFA IR Challenge – the bar is high, but I believe next team will make it. And the experience and learning are definitely worth all the difficulties and efforts.”

Olga Malovetskaya, member of HEC team in CFA IRC, MBA Candidate, Class 2013

CFA Institute member societies host and launch local competitions involving teams of three to five business or finance students (graduate or undergraduate) from participating universities. Mentored by senior professionals, each team researches and prepares an investment recommendation based on analysis of a local publicly traded company. The teams’ findings are then presented at the local event and are evaluated by a panel of high-profile heads of research, portfolio managers and chief investment officers. The local winners advance to regional competitions in Americas, Asia Pacific and EMEA, and the winners of those events travel to compete in the global final.

“PARIS, March 6, 2012 – TABLE FOR TWO (TFT), a non-profit organization that tackles the opposing issues of malnutrition in developing countries and obesity in the developed world, hosted today its first pilot event in France in collaboration with two MBA participants from HEC Paris, Jennie Levitt and Shaheen Peerbhai. Jennie and Shaheen are the founders of Friday Lunches, a private catering service dedicated to providing lunches every Friday for hungry B-school students on the HEC campus. The price of a lunch included a €0.20 surcharge, which will be used to provide one school lunch for a student in Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Tanzania and South Africa.

TFT is seeking for corporate cafeterias, restaurants and dining halls across France to serve healthy, nutritionally balanced TFT-branded meals. “We were happy to host TABLE FOR TWO’s first kick-off event,” said Jennie, co-founder of Friday Lunches, “because we were able to prepare tasty, well-rounded meals for our classmates and to sponsor 47 warm, healthy school lunches. We both love cooking and we can’t imagine a better way to share that passion.”

TFT currently partners with HEC Paris MBA to launch its French operation in 2012. Since its founding in Japan in 2007 by, among others, James Kondo, Country Manager of Twitter in Japan, and Masa Kogure, recently named an Asian Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the Schwab Foundation, TFT has quickly grown to become one of Japan’s most visible social enterprises.

Visit http://www.tablefor2.org/tft_usa/ for more information on TABLE FOR TWO and http://www.fridaylunches.fr for more information on Friday Lunches.”

Elli Suzuki, HEC MBA Full-Time Participant

“Lions dancing to the beat of drums and cymbals, cheongsam-adorned ladies sashaying to the tune of a Chinese oldie, MBA participants of all nationalities executing the moves of taichi, our western friends performing a fashion show in Chinese traditional costumes, these were all highlights of the grand finale to the Chinese Cultural Week at HEC MBA.

The Chinese Cultural Week was organized by MBA participants from China, Taiwan and Singapore. Through a week of events, which took place from 6 Feb to 10 Feb, the organizers aimed to share interesting elements of Chinese culture with their fellow MBA participants.

Each day, programs of a variety of themes were held during lunch break and in the evenings. There were workshops that showcased Chinese arts, crafts, games and cuisine, fairs where participants got a taste of Chinese snacks and a movie night where a Chinese and a Taiwanese film were screened. On the professional front, the organizing team invited two of the event’s corporate sponsors, Huawei and ChinForm, to give presentations to participants on working for companies in China.

The Chinese Cultural Week was held right after the Chinese New Year this year, bringing an extension of the celebrations to the HEC MBA Building. The organizers would like to thank the event’s sponsors, Huawei, ChinForm, the Chinese Embassy, the Taiwanese Embassy and Contact Singapore, for their generous sponsorship that made the event a success.”

Chia Yui, Lee

“Refresh. It was nearly midnight and I couldn’t pry myself away from my computer screen. I could hear the party going on outside and knew my friends were waiting for me; one of them gave me a call: “Kelly, are you coming to the piano bar?” Refresh. The results were going to be updated any minute. Refresh. Party? Was she nuts? Refresh. For the past hour I had been talking on Skype and reloading the results page. The results would make or break the future of our company, Real Malaysia. Refresh. My palms were clammy and my heart was beating fast.

Refresh. Then I saw it, our book to market ratio had reached 2.4 from 1.9! We were among the top firms and could be proud. We had just purchased two plants in Malaysia and formed a joint venture with the Americans. However, my joy was premature as I noticed the letter of information for Q3 announcing future economic difficulties that would trickle from the U.S to Europe and then Asia. Now it was time to go to the piano bar and warn everyone. I found myself halfway through the hallway when there were enough people around me to make my declaration appropriate: “there’s a financial crisis in the US!” – not the real U.S. of course, about which I may have cared a little less at this precise moment, but in Negosim Univese 2.

I had to inform the others. Within minutes I was typing away to let my business partners know the good news and future obstacle. They responded in real time. “Yes, we were right to buy the raw materials from the Americans you see…” I had to put Bhoopi on hold. “We must think about what the other firms will do next and always keep high management fees…” Rémi was looking ahead. “But make sure we have enough cash to borrow,” Fernando was cautious. “We should be very happy!” said Iris, forever the optimist.

In three days we had gone from strangers to acquaintances and months later, my Negosim teammates are among my favorite people in the MBA program. In three days, I ran a multinational company. I negotiated, I dealt, I analyzed and I looked at the bottom line.

In three days, I did what some do in a lifetime.

For Iris, Bhoopi, Fernando, Rémi and Bernard.”

Kelly B, January 2012 intake

HEC MBA Participants

“Washoi washoi, washoi washoi! This year’s theme for HEC Japan Week was “Matsuri”, or “Festival” in Japanese. While much of our culture is already well disseminated outside of Japan through the likes of sushi, manga, kimono, and judo, my Japanese classmates (Keiichiro, Atsuki, Mitsuya, Mitsuhiro, Yugo, Akiko, Kaeko, Nozomi and Misako) and I wanted to present a true representation of Japan as we perceive through our local eyes.

This year’s Japan Week also took place nearly eight months after the devastating triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear radiation. While our families and friends back home are still working to restore our country, we had chosen “Matsuri” as a theme to bring their positive forward-looking spirit of festivity and energy on campus.

MBA participants exploring Japanese Style

MBA Students trying out Japanese Styles
In order to achieve such ambitious goals, we prepared a mélange of events. On the business front, we invited Fast Retailing, the largest and the fastest growing public company in Japan and a brand-holder of UNIQLO, Comptoirs des Cotonniers and Princess Tam-Tam. The company is not only symbolic for its bottom-up success that originated from a small men’s shop in the rural province of Yamaguchi, but also for its ability to incorporate the best practice of Japanese manufacturing – the attention to both quality and accessibility. We believed that there is no other Japanese company than Fast Retailing who is more appropriate to discuss the business future of our country today. We were tremendously lucky to have them on campus and sponsor part of the Japan Week.

We also prepared series of cultural workshops from Japanese calligraphy to yukata-photo shooting, costume shows and traditional games. We had the pleasure of inviting professional Wadaiko drummers from the Tsunagi Taiko Center, the “Silence Profond” photo exhibition by Chill Okubo, and a tea ceremony demonstration. Through these arts, we hoped to convey our virtues of subtlety, refinement, and dignity for others, which are so often undermined in our modern society today.

Since the first kick-off meeting in late-September to the finale that ended yesterday, each one of us had put in tremendous amount of work and dedication under the surface. We especially want to thank our sponsors, the Grands Ecole students, the 2010 MBA intakes, the MBA faculties, and last but not least, our beloved classmates, who had allowed us to bring the best Japan Week in HEC MBA history!”

Japanese MBA's dance performance

Elli Suzuki, Class of 2013

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