HEC in the press

HEC Paris has launched four key initiatives for its students and alumni in response to the Covid 19 pandemic, among which are free webinars and a hackathon, writes America Economia. 

Across Europe, more and more companies are changing their production chains to manufacture disinfectants, masks or respirator components, writes South African outlet Web 24. 

“In times of crisis, there are always companies to take advantage of the situation, but the current context is very specific. The very wide confinement makes the production system difficult to mobilize. Profiting from the crisis is therefore also more difficult”, comments HEC Paris economics Professor Jeremy Ghez.

Andrea Masini, Associate Dean of HEC Paris' MBA programme, explains in an interview for Fortune En Español that since GMAT and GRE examination centers have temporarily been closed in certain countries, and in order not to slow down the admissions calendar, the school is encouraging candidates to apply and send their test results later on.  HEC Paris currently runs oiver 100 distance online classes to 3,000 students. 

Who’s really to blame for the current situation? This is the closest experience to war ever experienced by the vast majority of European citizens. If the temptation is to blame the European project itself, that would be a mistake. Despite mounting expectations, the truth is that the EU itself cannot do much about a health emergency, writes HEC Paris Professor of European Law Alberto Alemanno in an op-ed for Euronews. 

HEC Paris Professor Rodolphe Durand and Pennsylvania State University’s Smeal College of Business Mark DesJardine found that hedge fund activism leads to a decline in the market value of targeted companies and a decrease in the performance of social responsibility goals four and five years after the third parties intervened in these companies compared to similar firms that weren’t on the radar of activists, reports Institutional Investor. 

Certainly those at HEC Paris feel strongly about ESG. When a manifesto was started 18 months ago, about 400 out of the school’s 1,000 grande école graduates signed it to declare that they would not work for a company that wasn’t engaged in reducing its ecological footprint. The number of signatories has since grown to more than 35,000 to include those outside HEC, which includes a sustainability and disruptive innovation track on its MBA, as well as a number of electives, writes Bloomberg Businessweek.   

Research shows that activist campaigns tank financial performance over a five-year period — meaning both shareholders and stakeholders ultimately suffer, writes the Financial Times. 

The study, conducted by researchers at Pennsylvania State University’s Smeal College of Business and HEC Paris found that while there was an initial 7.7 per cent uptick in the value of companies within the first 12 months of being targeted, value steadily declined, dropping by 4.9 per cent four years later and continuing on a downwards trajectory after that. 

Emilie Korchia explains how taking an executive masters in marketing course at HEC Paris business school was an opportunity to re-evaluate her career plan, in an interview for the Financial Times.

After speaking to her peers, she decided to start her own business. She is the co-founder of MyJobGlasses, a networking platform for students and one of the biggest start-ups at Paris’s Station F, the largest business incubator in the world. She now has a new five-year plan to expand the company’s presence to European markets beyond France.

The world of American business schools is dominated by the so-called Magnificent Seven, or M7, of top MBA programs. In Europe, the Master in Management, or MiM, is the most important business education program. Potential students have dozens to choose from, so how do they start their search? To help, Poets & Quants has selected the MiM7, the publication's list of the elite tier of European MiM schools — HEC Paris is one of them. 

Greece announced it was suspending asylum applications for one month — a move that experts called a “manifest breach” of European law, writes Euronews. 

Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU law at HEC Paris, suspects that the "only merit" to Greece's actions is to scale up the migration issue politically, in a similarily to Matteo Salvini in Italy — a move that drive the issue forward within the European Commission.