20 CEMS Club Presidents and 4 organizing members from the Student Board were gathered in person at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School in Dublin, Ireland. During the two-days conference, the Presidents had the opportunity to have an issue-sharing session, brainstorm and pitch solutions and best practices, network, discuss and vote on structural changes to processes affecting their clubs, and discuss further collaboration between their local CEMS Clubs.
The Presidents were welcomed on Friday by the Student Board Representatives as well as both the CEMS Programme Manager, Claire McGoldrick, and Academic Director, Andrew Keating. They started the conference off by introducing the school and the CEMS Master experience at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School.
Following this insightful session, each CEMS Club President had the opportunity to introduce themselves, their respective CEMS Club, and highlight the main issue they were currently facing. This was in turn followed by an update from the CEMS Global Office, represented by Melissa Morelet-Weaver as the Alumni Relations Manager, and a deep dive into the Student Board’s projects, presented by the SBR Vice-President of Finance, Joelle Soumi.
Before the lunch break, the morning programme culminated in a fruitful discussion among the presidents on current issues impacting their CEMS Clubs, including a solution-oriented brainstorming on potential remedies. The first half of Friday was concluded by taking group pictures of the presidents standing in the CEMS logo.
After a lunch kindly offered by UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, the presidents were able to get a tour of the Salesforce Tower Dublin, engage in a panel discussion with CEMS Alumni now working at Salesforce, and mingle with them afterwards. The interactions with more CEMS alumni continued at an official CEMS Alumni mingle, organized by the local CEMS office. During the ensuing discussions, the presidents were able to gain insights into a potential career path in Dublin, the local working life, as well as numerous corporate partners that are also situated in Dublin.
Thank you to Salesforce for supporting this conference!
The second day of the conference got off to an exciting start with the announcement of the results of the CEMS Club Awards presented by SBR Max Kilian (WU). It is important to highlight that this year was the first time where the awards were livestreamed for CEMSies around the world to follow the ceremony in real time! The awards are divided into six categories, as well as a “Best CEMS Club” award.
The winners of this spring semester were:
- Alumni: #1 St.Gallen, #2 Rotterdam, #3 Dublin
- Corporate: #1 Budapest, #2 Calcutta, #3 Rotterdam
- Marketing: #1 Cologne, #2 Rotterdam, #3 Warsaw
- Responsibility: #1 London UK, #2 Viena, #3 Rotterdam
- Socializing: #1 Cologne, #2 St.Gallen, #3 Dublin
- Desired: #1 Cologne, #2 Milan, #3 Budapest
- Best club: #1 Rotterdam, #2 St.Gallen, #3 Dublin
We would like to extend our congratulations to all winning CEMS Clubs and all other CEMS Clubs for their participation and work throughout the semester!
CEMS Club Awards
The announcement of the CEMS Club Awards paved the way for a discussion and voting session for presidents on how to reform and update the voting process and selection of best practices for these awards. Presidents discussed together in breakout rooms and then voted on changes that will be implemented over the coming semesters to improve the voting process to make it notably fairer, more inclusive of all clubs, more objective in the best practices selection and more representative of each club's efforts.
After a well-deserved lunch and a tour of the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School campus to digest, the presidents were able to refine their issue sharing conclusions from the previous day in small groups. Everyone presented their action plan to solve their main problem to the other presidents, and received direct feedback from the others as well as tools to help them improve their respective action plan upon return to their universities.
Finally, the conference concluded with an international picnic where all Presidents contributed one food item from their home countries. To celebrate the end of the conference all together, CEMS Club Presidents got invited to a social activity in the evening to network with the CEMS Club Dublin.
The Student Board sincerely hopes that the Presidents found this 20th CCC edition eventful and insightful, and that they have returned to their local CEMS Clubs with new ideas and inspiration, as well as renewed motivation for the remainder of their tenure.
The CEMS Global Alliance would like to thank UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, including Claire McGoldrick, Shaun Toner, and Tom-Henrik Soenksen and Salesforce for hosting this event. In addition, the Alliance would like to thank the Student Board CEMS Club Support Team, including Andrej Bederka, Max Kilian, Manisha Kopuri, Tobias Lehmann, Franziska Lukas, Andres Ordenes Torres, and Oliwia Zbirog for organising this initiative.
We are looking forward to the next edition in Spring 2025!
