Global EMBA: a journey of "glocal" transformation

In mid-November, SKEMA's Lille and Belo Horizonte (Brazil) campuses hosted the fourth and final residential week of SKEMA's Global Executive MBA Fall 2021 cohort, organised by the programme's scientific director, Fabien Seraidarian. 

During this week, 23 Global EMBA participants experienced the intensity of business transformation in two very different environments, both boasting a long-standing and prosperous industrial and economic heritage. 

Nothing is lost, everything is transformed

Participants in Lille experienced various facets of transformation taking place within in a dynamic local ecosystem, starting at Décathlon’s Lompret warehouse, a frontrunner in implementing holacracy, a decentralised form of governance still in early stages of development. The region’s Entreprises & Cités organisation explained how it supports the region's companies in (re)developing the former industrial heartland of the Hauts-de-France region, while the Alliances Network illustrated how it guides companies towards durable CSR policies. 

Roquette, a world leader in plant-based ingredients, demonstrated the company’s agility in transforming its offer in response to societal—and therefore also market—changes. And in the centre of Lille, participants were immersed in the atypical and innovative world of Garage, a former car dealership turned into an innovation hub, and a location that practices a dynamic on-going reinvention and use of its space with a myriad of different and constantly changing events. 

Participants on the other side of the globe discovered a very different ecosystem. This local experience would not have been complete without an introduction to and in-depth understanding of the region's traditionally most lucrative industry—mining. They traced the region's industrial development from the early beginnings in Ouro Preto, the former land of gold miners (and a UNESCO World Heritage Site), to today's transformation of this local industrial economy into an international one, with a visit to Vallourec. They were also introduced to a successfully burgeoning services industry, meeting such successful local players as Localiza, the Auriverde Rent a Car. 

The salt of the conversation

All participants, whether they attended the week in northern France or Brazil, recognised and appreciated that any and all transformation can only be nurtured and thrive in the ecosystem in which it has its historical, cultural and economic roots, and that any change needs to takes on a local "colour" and vision. 

The two campuses, continents and experiences were inextricably linked throughout the week—to each other and by joint classroom experiences across the distance. Participants shared their respective insights, experiences and learnings throughout the week, and connected for joint classes on a daily basis to enhance their understanding—developing an on-going conversation and competing with each other during an inter-campus challenge on the theme of transformation.

The week amply demonstrated that SKEMA's Global EMBA residential weeks are more than just learning—they are a conversation, at many levels: between the personal experiences of each participant and those of the entrepreneurs and organisations they met, as well as between theory and practice. And despite the physical distance between them, that conversation has borne great fruits: after 15 months and four residential weeks, the Global EMBA cohort is much more than a dynamic classroom atmosphere. It has become a trusted environment for all to share and learn, and its members have become a group of friends.

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