This is the second edition of the lecture series. What did you want to change this year?
We have expanded the programme by organising three lectures per semester instead of three over the year. The principle remains the same though: inviting prominent personalities to SKEMA to have them share their experience in highly varied fields: in research, of course (for example, last year, Branko Milanovic, the leading specialist in income inequality), but also in broader fields affecting life in general. For this year’s first lecture, we welcomed Annie Vernon, Olympic rowing champion, who talked about the importance of mind-set and resilience, both of which are crucial for the leaders and managers of tomorrow.
How did you manage to get so many prominent figures on board?
It’s certainly no easy task to get Branko Milanovic, Marion Jansen (chief economist at the International Trade Centre) or Laurent Ferrara (head of the international office at the Banque de France, who has since joined SKEMA as a fulltime professor of international economics). We had to activate three complementary levers: the network; our original project, “ThinkForward”, which we present to all our guests; and, finally, SKEMA’s growing attractiveness. And, as a result, the guests, who are always impressed by the international nature of our school, the multiplex format and the welcome they receive from us, become influential ambassadors for SKEMA.
Have you constructed a kind of common thread through these different guests?
Last year, the common thread of our three lectures was the Global Economic Issues course that is part of our Master’s in Management. This course is divided into three parts: “Made in World “, “Financed in World” and “Born in World”. For each of these, we organised a specific lecture.
The common thread this year is the concept of “consilience” or “the convergence of knowledge”. We no longer want to restrict the lecture themes to what we teach. On the contrary, we want to open up our students to the complexity of the world by offering them perspectives that are transdisciplinary rather than interdisciplinary. For the students, it’s incredibly enriching to be able to listen to an Olympic champion, a labour historian, even a former US Secretary of the Treasury!
What advice would you give the students so they get the most out of these lectures?
Work on the lecture themes in advance and don’t hesitate to ask questions. In short, ensure you are “spontaneously ready”!
To access the full #ThinkForward lecture programme, click here.
Rodolphe Desbordes
A professor of economics at SKEMA, he is a graduate of Sciences Po Paris (Public Service section) and holds a PhD in international economics from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Rodolphe Desbordes completed his post-doctoral studies at the University of Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium) and was a reader at Strathclyde Business School (Scotland). His research covers many fields including international economics, economic development and applied econometrics.
Frédéric Munier
A lecturer in geopolitics at SKEMA. Holder of the French “agrégation” in history, Frédéric Munier teaches preparatory classes at the Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris.