2018 Global CEO Excellence Awards

CEO MONTHLY / GLOBAL CEO EXCELLENCE AWARDS 2018 37 , 2 “ Tomorrow is Our Business ” HEC Paris’ New Brand Campaign To Support Forward Thinking Leaders ThreeyearsafterPeterTodd’sarrivalasDeanandthedeploymentoftheDeepenandDifferentiate strategy, HEC Paris speaks out to reaffirm its leadership and ambition, with a special focus on its international standing. Specializing in management education and research, HEC Paris offers a complete and unique range of educational programs for the leaders of tomorrow: Masters programs, Summer School, MBA, PhD, Executive MBA, TRIUM Global Executive MBA, open-enrolment and custom executive education programs. Founded in 1881 by the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry, HEC Paris is a founding member of the University Paris- Saclay. It boasts a faculty of 108 research professors, more than 4,500 students and over 8,000 managers and executives in training each year. Today, HEC Paris was ranked second business school in Europe by the Financial Times’ overall business school ranking in December 2017. The campaign sets out first and foremost with a vision, “Tomorrow is Our Business” , which is anchored in business and the future. The economic world has never evolved as quickly and as deeply as today. HEC trains the leaders of tomorrow’s business, so the school is ideally placed to reinvent and direct this unprecedented transformation. Thus, HEC must grasp everything tomorrow’s business will be made of: innovative business models, strengthening of social and responsible approaches, and changes related to digital transformation. “Tomorrow is Our Business” : through this phrase, HEC also explicitly underlines its position as a business school: its main focus is the world of business. This campaign, designed and carried out by BETC, which has worked pro bono for the school since 2012, is expressed through a film and a series of portraits. The 45-second film directed by Bertrand Touchard was shot on campus in October 2017. It involved students who were keen to act or appear in the film, alongside three professional actors. It immerses us in the school’s world, deliberately rendered timeless, to let us share the lives of students who will tomorrow have a positive impact on their environment. Today or tomorrow? That is the key question, because the film can be read on two levels. Tomorrow, because, as anonymous students, these nascent talents aspire to change the world, since “Learning to dare can change everything” . The school’s historic motto (Apprendre à oser/Learn to dare) is thus used in the film as an invitation to adopt this daring spirit which can change the world. Today, because HEC Alumni will not only recognize the sites where the film was shot – the Blondeau Amphitheater, the gym, the Hall d’Honneur, the Blue Arch and the historic library, all located on the Jouy-en-Josas campus – but also the journeys of Alumni which inspired these students’ portraits, all addressing a tension between business and values, business and societal changes. In the series of portraits you will recognize some of the school’s actual Alumni, including Emmanuel Faber, CEO of Danone, Mercedes Erra, founder of BETC, Hubert Joly, CEO of Best Buy, Aurélie Lavaux and Irène Soulages, founders of BimBamJob, Fidji Simo, Vice President of Facebook, Christian Kamayou, founder of MyAfricanStartup, Jean-Paul Agon, CEO of L’Oréal and Guillaume Gibault, founder of Le Slip Français – personalities of reference who are today leaders or creators of companies with a decisive impact on business and society. Their uniqueness was captured by Pyromanes Officine Créative’s photographers. The “Tomorrow is Our Business” campaign can therefore be interpreted as a whole which complements and enriches both budding students (in the film), and leading personalities (in the portraits), embodying new values which they offer to our society. In terms of implementation, the campaign kicks off in the third term of 2018 during the major campus events (the MEDEF Summer university, Welcome Day…) and will be launched on the school’s social media channels. In 2019, it will be relayed by international media outlets in order to impact business spheres and business education circles, thus expanding the HEC Paris brand on its market. This campaign is a faithful reflection of the objective set by Peter Todd at the very outset of his mandate to firmly position HEC Paris in the world’s Top 10 business schools: “We wish to embark in this conversation with the Harvard’s, Stanford’s and Wharton’s of this world, in order to permanently position HEC among the very best international business schools on this planet.”