Building the future with the ESSEC Foundation

28th November, 2019 in Paris, the ESSEC Foundation gathers major donors for a dinner that is always very much appreciated as an opportunity to meet and share a very special moment.

In the course of the evening, Thierry Fritsch (E80), President of the ESSEC Foundation, highlighted one of the major areas supported by the Foundation, namely equal opportunities, where the Foundation has set itself the ambitious goal of allocating €1 million per year to scholarship students beginning in 2020 (compared with €833,000 today).

Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi, Dean and President of the ESSEC, and Gilles Pélisson, President of the ESSEC Campus 2020 development campaign, talked about the goals of this reinvented campus, which will transform the way we teach, research and collaborate with companies, in response to today’s societal and environmental challenges.

On 3 December, the ESSEC Foundation and the School joined forces to celebrate Giving Tuesday, an international day dedicated to encouraging giving in support of equal opportunities. Thanks to the generosity of alumni, students, the ESSEC community, the Foundation and the School raised a total of €42,210 by the end of the day, the equivalent of 4 social scholarships for 2019/2020.

Alumni, students and the entire ESSEC community came together to focus their efforts on the #ESSECGIVINGTUESDAYCHALLENGE: an initiative designed to raise 20,000 euros in 24 hours to fund 2 social scholarships using the powerful matching donor principle. Thanks to the generosity of the alumni, the students on campus, he ESSEC community and the sponsor/matching donor, who generously matched all the contributions received, the Foundation and the School raised a total of 42,210 euros by the end of the day, the equivalent of 4 social scholarships for ESSEC students!

The ESSEC Foundation and ESSEC would like to thank all the donors, as well as Foy’s, Chez Maurice, the Falafel Brothers, the Student Council and JAM ESSEC association for their generosity and support on the occasion of #GivingTuesday.

A special thank you to the sponsor and matching donor of this event

“I immediately accepted to be part of the first matching donor initiative, part of Giving Tuesday 2019, when the Foundation suggested the idea to me. I was impressed by the numerous fundraising efforts undertaken by the school's students to mark World Generosity Day. It was my way of thanking all those at ESSEC and the Foundation who are working to help students in need to fund their studies, and also a way for all of us to show our deep attachment to the principle of equal opportunity in our society.”
Romain Burnand | E82

On 6 February, the ESSEC Foundation invited numerous alumni to New York for its annual meeting, thanks to the warm welcome of François Luiggi (H92), president of the ESSEC Alumni USA Chapter and general manager of the Pierre Hotel.

The evening served as an opportunity to thank donors involved in the development of ESSEC, both in France and internationally, and engage new alumni in the School’s projects.

While ESSEC’s International Advisory Board met in NYC and participated in the event, Thierry Fritsch (E80), President of the ESSEC Foundation, and Vincenzo Vinzi, Director-General of ESSEC, shared the School’s Foundation-supported priority development plans:

• Campus 2020 (the complete reinvention of the Cergy campus and the associated development campaign) headed by Gilles Pélisson (E79), alongside the School and the Foundation.

• Equal opportunities through the allocation of 250 social grants per year.

• Academic excellence and the joint development of dual degree programmes with internationally leading universities to remain competitive in the long term and respond to new economic, societal and environmental challenges. Following the announcement of a dual degree programme with UC Berkeley’s School of Engineering in October 2019, Vincenzo Vinzi announced the signature of a dual degree programme with Parsons School of Design on 6 February.

• Entrepreneurship, marked by the recruitment of a new Entrepreneurship and Innovation Centre Executive Director, to position ESSEC as the academic hub of the French start-up ecosystem.

An event that showcases the ESSEC community and its ability to bring its alumni and faculty, as well as representatives of other academic institutions, together to build the School’s present and future.

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Thanks to the support of numerous Alumni, we are confident in the future and we can continue to support the development of the school and help the students.

This year, the Foundation is committed to supporting four strategic priorities: the social scholarships, Campus 2020: a complete reinvention of the academic experience on the Cergy campus with 3 new buildings, the academic excellence and the endowment.

Dear friends and donors,

Our beloved school has not gone untouched by the coronavirus pandemic. ESSEC was forced to close its doors for several months and invent a new, innovative remote learning model. Against this backdrop, the new Digital Campus, created in 2019, has proved to be both useful and extremely valuable! ESSEC has benefited from the support of its Alumni community and their numerous initiatives to help in the fight against Covid-19.

During these months of uncertainty and low visibility, it is crucial that we stay on course and prepare for the future and the reopening of ESSEC in September 2020.
The purpose of the ESSEC Foundation is to support the School in terms of its strategy and its ongoing academic excellence, but above all to provide full funding for equal opportunity and social diversity scholarships. We spent €833,000 on such scholarships in 2019. This is an increase of nearly +10%, but it is still insufficient: ideally, we need 1 million euros.

This year, the ESSEC Foundation is joining forces with the “Campus 2020” fundraising campaign, chaired by Gilles Pélisson, Chairman of TF1, in order to finance a complete overhaul of the Cergy-Pontoise campus over the next two years. This involves an exciting architectural project, a “green” campus, a model of modernity and environmental protection, designed for the education of the future. Of the €35 million total cost of the project, we have already collected €25 million thanks to the generosity of the public authorities, partner companies and alumni, via the Foundation. The Foundation has so far contributed €3.3 million. We thus still need to raise €10 million. Construction work, which will be carried out in phases to maintain normal activity, will begin this summer and will be completed in 2022.

Finally, under the aegis of the ESSEC Foundation, and with the help of our friends at the ESSEC Alumni association, this year we created the “ESSEC Captain Romain Chomel de Jarnieu” award in honour of one of our alumni friends who died for his country in Mali in November 2019. This €25,000 prize spread over a period of ten years, will be awarded each year to a student project that serves the public good. This award perfectly illustrates the humanist values that are, and must remain, one of the cornerstones of the ESSEC spirit.

Thank you for your generosity and loyal support,

Best wishes,

Thierry Fritsch | E80
President of the ESSEC Foundation

Today your support to the ESSEC Foundation and the school is crucial to help students facing hardship following the health crisis.
In this context, ESSEC has to transform its approach to teaching, research, and work in tandem with companies, academic partners and Alumni to respond to the new challenges of tomorrow.

Discover the impact of your gifts for the social grants and how you can get involved alongside the Foundation and the school with the ESSEC Campus 2020 project.

"This scholarship gives me the opportunity to undertake and to succeed in my journey at ESSEC. I was able to do a double degree with the Ecole du Louvre and live a five-month experience on the ESSEC campus in Singapore."

Discover the testimony of Isabelle URBAH (E21), a final year scholarship student

ESSEC and the Foundation are joining forces in a fundraising campaign, giving alumni and businesses the opportunity to offer students, professors, companies, researchers and staff the experience of knowledge-sharing and innovation in an increasingly demanding global context.

Along with Vincenzo Vinzi and Thierry Fritsch (E80), Gilles Pélisson (E79), President of the ESSEC Campus 2020 campaign, shaped a development committee to get involved alumni and businesses together for this ambitious project. Nancy Faure (E97) explains why she's getting involved in the adventure: