Interview with IE Net Impact Club President Fabia Richter and Andrew Kline

The IE Net Impact Club, which won the IE Social Innovation Challenge last year, has caught the attention of the Worldwide Net Impact organization, achieving Gold Status as a local club.  Past president Andrew Kline and current president Fabia Richter discuss the club’s recent success and how they hope to make the world more sustainable.

Net Impact is a global organization with over 300 chapters worldwide based in the US. Net Impact aims to inspire young leaders to build a more sustainable world. It approaches different areas of sustainability-related issues such as environmental, education and gender equality.

The IE Net club boasts 900 members including alumni, masters, and undergraduates.

Alumni, like IE Net Impact Club’s past president Andrew Kline (MBA 2018 intake), remain attached to the club after graduation because of events organised by the club such as the Social Responsibility Forum.

The Social Responsibility Forum is an event hosted by IE Center for Social Innovation, IE Foundation and IE Campus Life. It focuses on the future of sustainable business through different panels that address the importance of social responsibility to guide successful business models. Some of last year’s speakers include CEO of Maze Impact , Director of Community Investment at BBVA , and the Head of Sustainability from Coca-Cola.

If you want to watch last year’s event you can click here.

Below, Fabia and Andrew explain IE Net Impact Club’s recent success and how they hope to make the world more sustainable by implementing their vision through events and activities in the IE Community.

How does Net Impact work?

Fabia: Net Impact is part of the IE Sustainability Committee formed by the socially responsible clubs which include; Eco Club, SDG, Student Leadership Club, Charity Club, and Thirst Project. IE Net Impact Club is the Madrid Chapter of the general Net Impact Central Organization.

Who is part of IE Net Impact Club?

Fabia: A group of master students. We have a  board of six coordinators who help with different tasks. Currently we have three students from the IE Business School, one from the IE Global & Affairs School, and two from the IE Human Sciences and Technology School. We are looking for four more coordinators to join us.

We’ve always had two presidents. This year both presidents are from the IE Business School, Tanvi Maniktala and myself. Last year it was Andrew Kline and Andrea Antolin. Having two presidents helps in sharing the responsibilities and organizing ourselves better.

Andrew: The board of coordinators and presidents work very hard, requiring a lot of energy which we have to harness. Hence, the success of the club is directly related to having a strongly coordinated team.

IE Net Impact’s two recognitions are the Gold Status and the Social Innovation Challenge.

What is Gold Status and what does it entail?

Andrew: The Net Impact Central organization awards university chapters who have gone above and beyond making an impact in the community. Furthermore, chapters that can prove their individuals have learned and grown as individuals. This award is recognized during the Annual Global Conference in which the Gold Status recognizes chapters like ours for our work. This means we earn special benefits at the Net Impact Conference, such as recognition on the Net Impact’s website, and consideration for Chapter of the Year.

What was the Social Innovation Challenge?

Andrew: The challenge is an annual challenge about building community engagement around the club and activities that we host. The club that obtained 100 points first won the competition against the other clubs. These were four of the biggest student clubs;  Women in Business, Africa, 180 DC Consulting and ourselves, Net Impact.

What did you win in the Social Innovation Challenge?

Andrew: As the winners of the competition, we received the sponsorship privilege to sponsor a refugee to study at IE. This award was given at the Campus Life Club Awards. Hence, we won the label of sponsoring the initiative. This initiative is a program IE sponsors and coordinates together with CEAR and PAZ to give an online course to a refugee. In this case, the chosen course by the refugee student was Digital Marketing, Social Media and Analytics. We meet with him every two weeks as mentors.

What’s the most rewarding event for you the club hosted?

Andrew: Global Village and the Social Responsibility Forum.

Global Village is one of the biggest events in IE and it brings together the biggest intake of diversity that I’ve seen within the university between master and undergraduates. The event has music, food and cultural demonstrations from the different country clubs.

Fabia: Global Village. It’s great because not only do the country clubs contribute, but it is also what other individuals and schools want to bring. In fact, we’ve already started planning this year’s event, happening on April 16th. We’ve already started thinking about the overarching theme and contacting the country clubs as well as calling out for volunteers who want to help out.

Why the Social Responsibility Forum?

Andrew: The Social Innovation Forum is led by Social Innovation. Conchita Galdon is the mastermind behind this. She helps us bringing top-notch speakers that focus on building a sustainable feature.

Fabia: This event is going to be planned in October 2020. The majority of our board is going to be gone by that time so we will need dedicated help.

What is the most surprising thing you’ve discovered with this experience?

Fabia: For me, it is very valuable to work with people from other schools other than the Business School, like the HST school and the IMBA program as this brings an added value to the club.

It was great to see how you can collaborate with any one of the 200 clubs that Campus Life has. The opportunity to make connections is incredible. We’ve worked with the SDG Club, Venture Capital, Women in Business, and many others.

What events can we expect from Net Impact this semester?

Fabia: Apart from Global Village our next star event is The IE Deliveroo Challenge. This is a three-month case competition featured by Deliveroo, the delivery company service which the case challenge aims to help by obtaining a plastic-less delivery system. We have partnered with the Big Data, Consulting and Eco Club to launch this. The students working in the challenge have a mentor from each correspondent club. The teams involved consist of people from different schools and levels, both Masters and Undergraduates.

We also have minor events coming up such as an SDG Design thinking workshop, diversity talks, the charity fashion show and a collaboration with the Thirst Project which aims to bring safe drinking water to communities around the world-,  with speaker Evan Wesley, Vice President of Thirst Project Student Activation.

What is the next challenge IE Net impact faces for this year?

Fabia: The challenge this year is to channel our energies to funnel all the club collaborations, initiatives, and ideas that we aim to achieve. We want to be the club for all clubs. Our objective is to bring a positive impact on the entire university in order to funnel our resources and make it most effective as possible.

We need people to get on board as most of the board are leaving after this semester. We welcome everyone. They can contact us through our Instagram or Campus Life.