Impact on talent inclusion
Diversity, whether social or international, is a key factor in the performance of any academic institution. It gives individuals the opportunity to learn from others from diverse backgrounds, develop a global outlook and engage in the major changes ahead.
What will your donations help us to achieve?
Diversity in our student body in terms of culture, background and viewpoints makes for a uniquely vibrant environment at HEC. This helps us attract top international students and train responsible leaders in an increasingly open and multicultural society.Associate Dean, HEC Paris MBA program
2024 projects for talent inclusion
- Overcome self-censorship prior to the competitive HEC entrance exam
Fighting against the self-censorship that limits young people in their educational choices and encouraging them to dream bigger are fundamental aspects of the policy carried out for high school and preparatory class students. Confidence-building is the watchword of HEC’s equal opportunity programs.Our goal is to support 400 high school students from disadvantaged and rural areas to ensure that 100% of them pass their Baccalaureate exam with honors and enroll in ambitious higher education programs.
Similarly, we will support 400 scholarship students in preparatory classes every year with the goal ofensuring that 100% of them enroll in French business schools.
- Affirm our commitment to equal opportunity
Since 2009, tuition fees for students who receive scholarships based on social criteria established by CROUS have been entirely or partially covered by the HEC Foundation.
This funding measure has had a dramatic impact on the proportion of CROUS scholarship students at HEC, which has increased from 5% in 2009 to 15% in 2019. Within the Grande Ecole program 18% benefit from means-tested financial aid from the HEC Foundation. We must now intensify our efforts with an aim for scholarship students to represent more than 25% of our student body, while maintaining our standards for excellence.
- Promote exchange by creating the “HEC Village”
By creating dedicated spaces for clubs andassociations, sports facilities, shared kitchens, a family area, a dance studio, an administrative service center and more, we plan to create an array of student spaces where art, a source for inspiration and innovation, will play an integral role, in an effort to improve quality of life and promote exchanges between students.
- Develop students’ soft skills
Soft skills are essential to working as a team,becoming an inspiring leader and are sought by companies of all sizes. Through its Career Center, HEC Paris strives to support all students in degree programs who want to learn more about themselves and fine-tune their career goals as a result.
- Consolidate HEC Paris’ position as a top-ranked international business school
One of the keys to HEC Paris’ success is its ability to attract top international students from the world’s most prestigious institutions. This diversity acts as a driving force for promoting the HEC trademark among leading global recruiters. At the same time, cultural differences in the classroom give students a preview of the intercultural career opportunities that await them.
- Develop international representative offices
Today HEC Paris is present in London, Berlin, New York, Tokyo, Beijing, Abidjan and Qatar.
Expanding our offices means supporting the HEC trademark in countries where the school is not yet represented and making the HEC trademark more visible in major global business hubs such as Hong Kong, Singapore, San Francisco, Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Nairobi, Lagos etc.
Lastly, it provides an opportunity to develop relationships with companies or local employers in connection with the Corporate Partnerships and Careers Department and to support Alumni services.
- Africa, a challenge for the future
Africa has an important role to play, both demographically and economically. Training its elite is a major challenge facing the continent.
HEC supports this challenge by offering training programs for business executives, helping creat promising start-ups and financing the education of its finest talents.
Your impact
It is with your help that I was able to study in the best possible conditions. As a scholar of the HEC Foundation, I felt supported by HEC Alumni.Student, Media, Art and Creation at HEC Paris
Achievements already made possible through donations
Created 5 years ago by HEC and Eloquentia and supported by individual donors, the BRED bank and the Michelin Foundation, this program has become France’s largest national public speaking competition for high school students. Its aim is to transmit the art of debating to all French high school students, in addition to introducing the world of undergraduate schools to students otherwise excluded from this opportunity.
In 2023, more than 2,000 young people were initiated in the art of public speaking through the actions of HEC Paris, the Equal Opportunities Task Force and Eloquentia. 80 of them were chosen to take part in a workshop on the Jouy-en-Josas campus, some of them taking the train for the first time! The 6 best speakers then went on to debate 3 topics before a packed audience at La Cigale: “Should We Envy Fools?”, “Is the Individual at the Service of the Collective?” and “Is the Best Yet to Come?” At just 15 years of age, Fayma, a 10th grade student at Thiers high school in Marseille, came away with the 2023 title of Best High School Speaker!
Our aim, with your help, is to scale up and reach some 10,000 young people throughout France, in addition to inviting 200 high school students to the campus every year!
From August 24 to 30, 63 students from 32 establishments were offered classes, workshops and tutorials during the PREP’HEC pre-entry seminar, helping them to start their course on the right foot.
At the begining of the 2023 academic year, the PREP’Etoile class had 33 scholarship students in the 2nd year of the preparatory course, selected for their HEC potential.
They were welcomed by Laurence Debroux (H.92), Major Donor and sponsor of the class of 2023/2024: "PREP’Etoile is fully in keeping with the equal opportunity initiatives led by the Foundation and the School, a cause I hold dear. No matter what our personal or professional situations are, each of us knows that meeting the right person, the right piece of advice, or the right encouragement to believe in ourselves and persevere can make a huge difference, and that’s what this program is all about. I’m delighted to be this year’s sponsor."
Seminars with HEC professors were also organized to help preparatory students learn more about the opportunities offered by business schools. Lastly, the “HEC For All” preparatory course scholarship scheme, open to all French high school students since 2019, has enabled 532 preparatory students from 127 schools to approach the competitive exam period in optimal conditions. These students are scholarship recipients from the CROUS, registered for the business schools entrance exams, and recommended by their institutions.
HEC Junior Council donated €12,000 to the HEC Foundation, to cover costs for 88 scholarship students taking the oral exams on campus, and to fund the tuition fees for one student having passed the entrance exam. A huge thank you to them for their generous support!
This major evening event, organized by Class Gift Association in the Hall of Honor just before the graduation ceremony, celebrates both the unique experience offered to HEC students and their entry into the Alumni and donors community.
Thanks to their generous support and that of the event’s sponsors, Major Donors Julie (H.96) and Karim Saddi (H.97), who made the trip from London to attend the evening, this collective donation will fund 15 scholarships for campus students.
« HEC has brought so much to our lives and careers, that we are delighted at present to be able to give some of that back. Our support for the Foundation thus enables students who otherwise lack the means to come study at HEC! » Karim and Julie Saddi.
A first give back gesture, which affirms the spirit of solidarity within the HEC community and perpetuates a wonderful HEC tradition initiated in 2005 by Marc Ramanantsoa (H.05), Michel Touati (H.05) and Jean Garandeau (H.05).
Launched in 2019, the PACT Africa program (Support Program for African Talents) has enabled 5 talented students from Ivory Coast to prepare and succeed the international entrance exam and be admitted to HEC Paris in September 2020. The aim of the program is to double the number of students from sub-saharan and southern Africa in the HEC Paris Grande Ecole program within 5 years. It is based on the Dual Diploma agreement signed in 2017 between HEC Paris and the National Polytechnic Institute in Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast, and will expand to other countries in the region with the support of the HEC Office in the Ivory Coast.
For the 2022 academic year, 13 PACT Africa students have been admitted to HEC Paris.
Thanks to the generosity of our patrons, the project is growing and now covers 3 countries: Gabon, Cameroon and Côte d'Ivoire! This year 75 students were supported, 29 were eligible for HEC Paris and 13 have just been admitted for the 2022 school year!
For the past 10 years, the “HEC For All” program has been providing financial support to preparatory class students through needs-based scholarships.
In 2018, this program involved 14 partner high schools, primarily in Paris. In 2019, it was expanded to cover the whole of France and almost 280 applications from 70 high schools were submitted. As a result, 261 scholarships to cover living expenses were offered in 2019 to preparatory class scholarship students (compared with 150 in previous years). The objective is to increase the number of scholarships funded each year from 250 to 400 scholarship students.
In 2020, the HEC Foundation awarded 452 living grants of an average €400 to CROUS scholarship students to support them with their living expenses. These grants are awarded to students enrolled in a Business School preparatory class who obtained their French Baccalauréat with distinction. This grant represents a form of encouragement for these students.
In February 2021, the Foundation awarded 530 living cost scholarships (452 in 2020) to CROUS scholarship students enrolled in Grande École Preparatory Classes (CPGE). The scheme went national in 2019, and is now present in over 120 establishments with CPGE preparing students for the HEC entrance examination. Above and beyond the financial support on offer, these scholarships provide a great motivation boost to students just a few weeks before their exams, constituting a clear show of support from HEC.
Initiated by Adrien Nussenbaum (H.01) in 2021, the program geared towards students from war-torn countries welcomed its second class at the start of the 2023 academic year.
At present, 12 students from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Belarus and Syria are following the Grande Ecole and Specialized Masters programs, thanks to grants covering all or part of their tuition fees and living expenses.
"I’m so grateful and would like to thank all those who made this program possible. Despite the challenges I have faced, I’m determined to change the world and put my knowledge to work for a more peaceful planet." Anna Bazarna (H.26) HEC Imagine Fellows, from Ukraine.
Launched in the wake of this program, the student association HEC Imagine strives to promote the program on campus and raise awareness among students and the HEC community of the role of business as a vector of world peace.
In 2022/2023, HEC Paris launched two new elective classes on “Business & Peace” and “Business & Human Rights”, which attracted great interest from the campus students.
These are impressive milestones for the program aimed at transforming the lives of 10 new students per year, who will in turn help us to build a more peaceful and sustainable world. Your support is essential to boost our impact!
The graduation ceremony for the first HEC Imagine Fellows on June 7, 2024 promises to be a highlight event!
With the support of the Laidlaw Foundation, the HEC Foundation launched an ambitious scholarship scheme enabling talented women to enroll in one of the world’s best MBA programs, here at HEC; a first step to boost their career and unleashing their full potential!
Each year, ten candidates with exceptional paths but facing financial hurdles will be selected to receive a scholarship covering all their tuition fees. They will then benefit from mentorship and dedicated networking opportunities to build their contacts and excel as business leaders.
To apply:
Liesbet Corriveau : corriveau@hec.fr
ou www.hec.edu/en/laidlawscholarsprogram
For several years now, the Foundation has officially welcomed MBA, Master and Doctoral students to the campus. These excellence scholarship students come from all over the world to study at HEC.
The welcome event offers them a chance to meet with HEC members, who share their own experiences and their pride at belonging to the HEC community. We were honored to welcome Christophe Cuvillier (H.84), Sophie (H.85) and Olivier Wigniolle (H.85). Erwann Le Lannou, from XTX Markets, was also present to hand over the first excellence scholarships to 17 students on the Data Science for Business program. Thank you so much for these moments of celebration, conviviality and pride for all the beneficiaries!
The aim of PACT Afrique is to help young African talents from the most renowned institutions in the Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Gabon to prepare for the written and oral entrance exams to the 2nd year of the Grande Ecole program. This equal opportunity scheme is run by the HEC Office in the Ivory Coast.
Thanks to the commitment of donors and corporate partners such as Schneider Electric, as well as Alumni mentors, the scheme enabled 22 new students to join the campus in September 2023, and has been presented to some 1,500 young people locally in 4 years.
To promote the program, its initiator Bertrand Schwab (H.87) traveled with Eloïc Peyrache to the Ivory Coast and met with 202 students at the INP-HB in Yamoussoukro. The aim is to increase the number of African students on campus by 15% by 2025.
« As a beneficiary of the first PACT Africa class, I’d like to express my sincere thanks to the donors for the trust they placed in us! The Foundation scholarship was truly the start of this adventure. I received invaluable help during the recruitment process and continued support during my time at HEC. Thank you for your generosity and trust. »
Marie Alexandra (H.23), from Benin
More information about inclusion talent at HEC Paris
