We had the chance to learn from both our Dean Francisco Veloso and Professor Annet Aris. The Dean shared his outlook on the school and the latest on-campus statistics. Our classes are at their most gender-balanced yet, with 42% women enrolled in both MBA and Masters in Management (MIM). Moreover our “young” MIM program, was recently ranked #3 in the world by the FT.

Dean Francisco personally thanked our outgoing INSEAD Alumni Fund Representative Julien Firmenich for his contributions in Switzerland and welcomed his successor, Paolo Ciarlariello, to his new role.

Prof. Annet Aris then dialed up the strategic content of the evening by teaching us how to distinguish between digital disruption and transformation and how to evaluate whether the industries we work in are ripe for digital disruption. We even took a guess at which Swiss industry is likely to be shaken up by digital disruption in the near term.

Honoring the historic connection of Fontainebleau to business as well as the arts, Zurich-based choreographer Filipe Portugal delivered the biggest surprise of the evening: an intimate ballet piece in the INSEAD colors created especially for our Gala, featuring former Ballet Zurich stars Cristian Alex Assis and Giulia Tonelli. This lyrical moment and the live music throughout the evening inspired our guests to step onto the dance floor before the evening came to a close. A few guests still had enough energy left by Saturday morning to attend the Young Alumni Brunch at Bebek.

At Belvoirpark last Fridayk we got to reflect on our personal journey of growth so far. At the end of the evening, we all took home a token ourselves consider our impact going forward as well as a sweet “limited edition” INSEAD schoggi made in Zurich.

In the words of our guests this was “certainly an event that set a high bar for future INSEAD Day evenings in Switzerland”.

Once again, we would like to thank our event partner and sponsor Belvoircapital AG for their generous contribution and support for the Swiss INSEAD Gala, and the school Alumni Relations (Zeina Sleiman, Maureen Lee, Anne-Ev Enzmann) for their invaluable assistance throughout the last year of preparations.