ESSEC Business School of France partnered the School to host a high-level international forum on management education on July 13 in the School.

Educators and business leaders from various industries around the globe participated in the ESSEC-Fudan Conference, sharing their perspectives and most advanced thoughts on the development of international management education. Government officials, students and alumni from both schools were also at the event.

As the world is stepping into a “post-crisis” period, the time is now to re-shape the economic situation, and high-quality and responsible business leaders would play an increasingly important role during the social and economic transitional period.

Themed “Fostering Innovative and Responsible Leadership in Emerging Economics”, the conference intended to combine the wisdom from both academicians and businesses, and thus seek to discover multiple effective paths toward cultivating leadership with innovative-styled management skills.

ESSEC-Fudan Conference

During the round-table discussion session, President Enrique Baron-Crespo of European Foundation for Information Society, CEO Jean-Luc Decornoy of KPMG, General Manager Jian Wang of Dupont China, Human Resources Director Daisy Dai of Accenture Great China, and Prof. Yuichiro Anzai from Keio University of Japan, joined to share their thoughts and expertise on how to establish social responsibility awareness and innovative spirits in entrepreneurs.

A round-table discussion

During the following keynote speeches session, School Dean Prof. Xiongwen Lu, Chancellor Wendy Luhabe of University of Johannesburg in South Africa, Mr. Thierry Peugeot who is Chairman of the Supervisory Board of PSA Peugeot Citroen presented their thoughts on such issues as the future of business schools, localization and internationalization of business education.

School Dean Prof. Lu said in his speech that, the entrepreneurial spirit of “becoming the first and being innovative” is urgently needed by current society, which is what the School identifies with. He said that the School is sparing no effort to cultivate business elites and leaders with both local insights and global visions, by providing intensified training to students on their innovative capabilities through means of research and in-class learning, external exchanges, and internship opportunities in enterprises.

School Dean Prof. Xiongwen Lu is delivering a keynote speech during the conference

Dean and President Pierre Tapie of ESSEC Business School concluded the conference by saying that, facing the increased competition in globalization and market transformation, a real business leader should not only be responsible for enterprises and stakeholders, but have more social responsibilities and contribute to social progress and economic sustainable development. To attain that, they should have to be equipped with innovative concepts and capabilities, which is the core of achieving more success.

Dr. Pierre Tapie, who is Dean and President of ESSEC Business School in France

Dr. Tapie also said that, ESSEC is continuing on the path of offering its students with education on innovation and humanities, which he expects to share with local business schools in China.

The Conference is another major step of the School in furthering its cooperation with world-class business schools. By doing so, the Western advanced educational expertise would be able to combine with Chinese local business practice, and multiple sources of participants from the academic, business and educational fields would also benefit the current effort of fostering high-end management talents and the internationalization process of Chinese management education.

August 2, 2010