The life of the network: A retrospective of 2021

Retrospective 2021 – A year of flexibility and developments

In 2021 again, the health crisis dictated its rules. Accordingly, flexibility and adaptation needed to be on the agenda. Thanks to the easing of the sanitary measures at the end of the spring, we were able to resume some of our face-to-face activities while continuing with our online conferences.

2021 has seen the arrival of new forces in the Association's office with Candice Richardet-Briand, Events and Administration Manager, and Estelle Hegi, Communication and Community Manager. With the two student assistants generously granted by the Faculty the office is now complete with a full-time equivalent of 1.8 employees.

But, above all, this year has been one of development of long-term projects that saw the light of day in 2022. New platform, new Magazine: let’s take a look back on this rich and creative year.

The General Assembly

Our traditional General Assembly took place in March 2021. Unfortunately, for the second time in a row, we could not welcome our members on campus. Thanks to our experience in 2020, it was held online and was as successful as usual.

In addition to electing Committee members, the General Assembly allowed our members to get a clear picture of our activities, goals and accounts. Haja Rajaonarivo remains our President, the committee members renewed their commitment and we were delighted to welcome Delphine Andreae to the team.

As every year, this assembly was followed by a conference.

We had the great pleasure of receiving virtually Professor Marius Brülhart, Professor of Economics at HEC Lausanne and Chairman of the Economics group at the Swiss COVID Science Task Force, for a conference on the theme: "Lessons learned from the COVID-19 experience". 

Still a very relevant topic in early 2022... 

Hybrid Conferences and Webinars

In 2020, we launched our webinars as an alternative to our face-to-face conferences. We have to admit that this format has many advantages. It allows our members to follow us anywhere in the world, whether it is on public transport, at home or at the office. Of course, we are looking forward to the pleasure of holding our conferences face to face again and meet our members in the flesh. But out of every crisis comes some positive and we took advantage of it. We adopted a hybrid format in 2021, allowing our members to attend our conferences or to follow them quietly behind their screens.

We started the experiment with Isabelle Chappuis (Executive Director - Futures Lab/HEC Lausanne/UNIL) on September 23rd 2021 with her conference "IMAGINE BEYOND! The world of work is changing: rethink the role of HR in 2030."

This theme will also be the main theme of this new edition of our online Magazine.

Read Isabelle Chappuis's article.

Find the replays of our 2021 conferences and webinars

HEC Lausanne Alumni Clubs

The health situation made life difficult for our Ambassadors. Each country, even each city, had different restrictions and the situation was changing rapidly. Despite this, some of our clubs have been able to meet again. Our Lausanne Club has a new Ambassador, Anne Liquois, and thanks to Denis Schraner, the HEC Lausanne Alumni Club in Basel was created at the end of the year. The year 2022 looks promising and should give more opportunities for our Clubs to meet.

Take advantage of our new platform to join the Club(s) of your choice.

Graduation and Soirée des Alumni

The Bachelors and Masters graduation ceremonies took place in December. Without their families (who were following them online), the students were still able to go on stage and receive their awards and diplomas in person during a colorful ceremony. Our Soirée des Alumni could not be organized, but, believe us, it's just a matter of time.

Company visits

With less Covid cases in the fall, we were able to offer some company visits to our members. Hammel, one of the most famous wine producers in Switzerland, opened the doors of their cellar and Ecorobotix made us discover its robots and the future of agriculture.

Our new platform

If you are reading this, it means that you are already taking advantage of our new platform.

As you can imagine, developing this new tool, in addition to our usual activities, has been a great challenge for our team. During the whole year 2021, we have been thinking, developing, testing, sorting and creating to finally, on March 15th  2022, launch this new medium especially designed for you. We are very happy to finally be able to share it with you. The goal was to offer you a tool that is more powerful than a simple website. A place where the HEC Lausanne Alumni community can easily find each other and have access to all our services in a few clicks.

The advantages of the platform:

Directory - allows you to find former classmates or to see if there are other Alumni nearby. Contributing members have access to additional search features.

Agenda - allows you to view and register directly for all our events

Job offers - we offer a selection of job offers which may not always be published elsewhere. Contributing members have the possibility to publish their own job offers directly and for free.

Clubs - join your favorite clubs and participate in their events.

Magazine - you are reading it now! Along with this new platform, we have developed this new online format exclusively for you, our contributing members.

Privileges- as a contributing member, you will be able to enjoy special benefits. Discover them!

This platform is user-friendly and allows you to make the most of your network. Thanks to your profile, other Alumni can easily find and contact you and vice versa. And if you prefer not to be seen, you can adjust your privacy settings at any time.

Use this new tool as you wish, simply and freely, and networking will become a breeze.

New online Magazine

You used to receive the Alumni Magazine in print every year. Not without a twinge of sadness, we have decided to abandon this format and move to the digital version that you are reading right now. In parallel to the new platform, the year 2021 was also dedicated to the development of this "new Magazine". You may find this format to be less warm, but it has many advantages. More flexible and dynamic, the articles you read will always be closer to the news. More accessible, you can read your articles anywhere and anytime. Our Alumni abroad will also have easier access to this format, as mailing was not always optimal. 

Who is behind the HEC Lausanne Alumni Association

If the HEC Lausanne Alumni Association exists and offers you many activities and services throughout the year, it is thanks to many different people. Employees or volunteers, who are they?

Of course, there is our team of three part-time employees, 100% feminine, and our student assistants who help us with daily tasks, but not only...

There are also all the people who volunteer their time.

The members of the Committee, elected at our General Assemblies and the representatives of the Student Committee who give their time during the bimonthly sessions and in different work groups helping in particular with all the developments of this year.

There are also our Ambassadors who manage our geographical or thematic Clubs around the world and who allow Alumni to meet, network and exchange over a drink, a meal or during conferences.

Our Mentors who are committed to supporting and advising HEC students as they prepare to enter professional life.

Our speakers who have animated our different events by offering our members lectures on interesting and varied themes and who are always happy to participate in the question-and-answer game at the end of the lectures.

But also some of you, Alumni, who get involved in specific or punctual tasks, such as revising our accounts, organizing the Golf tournament, participating in different working groups or helping to elaborate this Magazine.

We sincerely want to say THANK YOU to all of you!

Mentoring Program

The values of Mentoring are at the very heart of our Association's mission. To create links, to share and strengthen our network and to make the students benefit from its richness.

Field of activity, interests, language… we have paid particular attention to each and every detail in order to train the 123 pairs of the 2020-2021 edition. For the second time in a row, this edition was partially held remotely, but this did not dampen the spirits of our graduates and HEC students. More than ever, exchange and sharing are of paramount importance. And even if the Mentor-Mentee meetings are partly done online, Mentoring continues to be a common adventure, a sharing of experience, a unique and privileged and intergenerational exchange.

We would like to thank all our Mentors who, thanks to their advice and time, guide the leaders of tomorrow. Thank you to them for sharing their professional and personal experiences in order to guide and give concrete directions to these students who will certainly start their professional life with more confidence.

We are very happy to see that you are more and more in favor of this program. The 2020-21 session is breaking all records with 123 pairs formed. We wish them a wonderful year of sharing.