IE Alumni Forum 2016 welcomes 1,500 graduates

2016/05/30

IE Business School brought together some 1,500 IE graduates on May 27 at its Alumni Forum 2016, a key event in the School’s calendar. Participants in the Forum, which was centered around the theme of “Challenging Success,” met at Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu stadium in the Spanish capital, to hear the opinions and insights of 36 international experts, including Peter D. Sutherland, Secretary General of the UN’s Migration and Development Organization.

Sutherland, who examined some of the major global challenges driven by migration, was joined by former US Navy commander Spencer Abbot, now a Fellow of the White House. Further speakers included Murat Unal, executive director of SONEAN, a consulting firm specialized in social networks, Ramón Martin, head of sales and commercial solutions at Visa, Martin Thomsen, Director of BP Turkey, and Hendrik Jordaan, president and executive director of One Thousand & One Voices, an investment fund that helps African companies with high growth potential which are making an impact on the region. The majority of speakers were IE alumni.

Santiago Íñiguez de Onzoño, President of IE University and Dean of IE Business School, explained how success cannot be separated from social impact in terms of generating value and respecting sustainability. He also highlighted IE’s focus on shaping entrepreneurs and professionals with “a cosmopolitan and humanist spirit, and a sense of social responsibility.”

This year’s IE Alumni Forum featured the first edition of the EPIC (Extraordinary People Inspiring the IE Community) Prizes for IE Alumni, sponsored by Baume & Mercier. The overarching aim of the prizes is to inspire students currently studying at the School through the success stories of alumni around the world.

The winners of the EPIC prizes were:

- Carlos de Hart (International MBA 2000) received the EPIC prize in the “human Success” category for his work as Vice Minister for Business Development in Colombia, and for his role, as an entrepreneur, in developing new markets for the country and driving social growth.

- Maya Helbaoui (International MBA 2012), won in the “Women Inspiring Women” category for her work in managing communication for the Lebanon arm of pharmaceutical company Roche, with whom she designed campaigns aimed at preventing hepatitis C, arthritis and cancer in women.

- Ramón Martín (Executive MBA 1991), Director of Sales and Sales Solutions at Visa obtained the EPIC prize in the “Business Impact” category, for “his capacity to adapt and contribute to the world of business.”

- Bernhard Niesner and Adrian Hilti, (both International MBA 2008), founders of online language learning website “busuu” received the EPIC prize in the “Creators” category.

- Bianca Hutin (MIM 2010), creator and executive director of art sales website “My Web’s Art,” received the Epic prize in the “Young and Ambitious Minds” category.

This year’s IE Alumni Forum 2016 also hosted the awards ceremony for the first edition of the IE Business School Prize for Economic Journalism in Spain and Portugal, sponsored by Lufthansa. The Prize recognizes the work of financial and economic journalists in Spain and Portugal, and was awarded to Spanish state broadcaster TVE’s Emprendetelevision program, Marta García Aller, a journalist at Spanish business magazine Actualidad Económica, and Portuguese journalists Nuno Aguiar and Antonio Larguesa of Jornal de Negocios. IE has been awarding prizes for economic journalism in Latin America since 2010 and for economic journalism in Asia since 2011.