New Grenoble EM programme at the University of Cambridge (Downing College)

First day at Downing College, University of Cambridge on the Transcontinental Programme

It was a great honour in September to be able to open the Transcontinental Programme at Downing College, University of Cambridge. This is the fourth programme in this series that we have launched in the past few years. For the entire semester, 32 Grenoble EM first year Master students will be studying their courses with a mixture of professors and guest speakers from Grenoble as well as from one of the world’s most prestigious universities.

Tony Liebo, Wells Fargo, Seattle, talks to GEM & SFU students about finance during Innovation Business Week

The last company visit of the Business Week 2015 was at Wells Fargo. We were explained that there are two main ways to measure the success of a bank: its assets or its market capitalization. As Europeans, only a few of us have heard of Wells Fargo before. However, Wells Fargo is the largest bank in the world measured by market capitalization. But there are only a few Wells branches in Europe: they are mostly settled in the US and in Pacific Asia.

Bert Tong talks to GEM & SFU students about entrepreneurship during Innovation Business Week

We had the pleasure meet at lunch time Bert Tong who has many experiences in entrepreneurship. Indeed, he launched Crate Away, a storage start-up which failed one year ago. He came to share with us his experience and explain us how he overcame this failure. The key lesson of this meeting is that relationships between co-founders matter the most. He insisted on the need of complementarity between members of a team. Being a successful entrepreneur is not only about having a good idea but about having reliable and trustworthy relationships. The network is at stake above all.

Kara Bauer & Paula Keleci, Value Village, Seattle, talk to GEM & SFU students about social entrepreneurship during Innovation Business Week

Today, we had an opportunity to visit one store of a popular thrift store chain called Value Village / Savers. The company is present in USA, Canada, and Australia.

The visit was very interesting because what this company does is very close to what we have learned so far during a semester in our Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation program. Indeed, Value Village is a social for-profit organisation: they make profits but they give a part their profits back to charity organisations and they help the environment by reducing waste.

Chris Devore, Techstars, Seattle, talks to GEM & SFU students about entrepreneurship during Innovation Business Week

On February 12^th 2015, we started our first visit in Seattle with Techstars, a start-up accelerator. We had the pleasure to meet Chris Devore, the Managing Director of Techstars Seattle.

Seattle’s area is a great ecosystem of companies, including very famous ones as Microsoft, Amazon or Boeing, and investors trying to support them. In that context, a lot of entrepreneurs try to develop their ideas creating their own business. When they need help, they sometimes try to connect with start-up accelerators as Techstars Seattle. Created in 2010, it is part of Techstars, a global network of start-up accelerators based in Boulder (CO).

Lululemon presents to GEM & SFU students innovation strategies during Innovation Business Week

We had the amazing opportunity to visit the headquarters of LuluLemon today (11th February) in the context of the business week.

The premises are located in Kitstiliano area in a modern building of four floors. The first department we visited was the design department. We saw the process of creation with people working on prototypes and planning the next collection of 2015. There are three design spaces, each one is dedicated to one customer segment: women, men and kids/teens. Thus employees design clothes only for one type of customers, depending on what they like to design. If an employee is passionate by designing clothes for men thus he or she will focus on doing that.

Invoke outlines to GEM & SFU students start-ups issues during Innovation Business Week

Invoke was established in 2000 by three founders: David Tedman, Dario Meli, and Ryan Holmes. The company adds value through creating innovative digital experiences. Since the fusion of Invoke labs and Invoke media in October 2014, they have had two main kinds of activities: 1. they are well known for creating digital products such as the HootSuite or Brightkit and 2. they also support tech start-ups.

Manu Varma, Traction on Demand, Vancouver, talks to GEM & SFU students about business model during Innovation Business Week

Second day of Business Week 2015, on Wednesday, 11th of February, started by a company visit of Traction On Demand, located in Vancouver. The company was created 9 years ago and they try to change the way to do business. We arrived in the morning and we were nicely welcomed by several employees of the company. The place looks very friendly and the company offered us some bagels and coffee as a breakfast.

Sarah Viala, former Transcontinental student, meets GEM students in Vancouver downtown

On Tuesday Feb 10^th, we had the pleasure to meet Sarah Viala who attended GEM Transcontinental program last year. She first came to Beijing in fall before arriving to Vancouver in spring to study entrepreneurship and sustainable innovation in a program jointly created last year by Grenoble Ecole de Management (France) and Simon Fraser University (Canada).

Peter McLachlan and Jia Chen, Mobify, Vancouver, talk to GEM & SFU students about entrepreneurship during Innovation Business Week

After warm welcoming by Jana  (member of the operation team) we started with a quick tour of the company building. Then we had great opportunity to listen to  Jia Chen, the product manager, who pitched about what it is to be an entrepreneur and about his personal experience. Finally, one of the three Mobify’s co-founders, Peter McLachlan, talked to us about the origin of the company, its development and strategy.