ENTREPRENEURSHIP SUMMER
SCHOOL BRUSSELS 2013
What happened
This year no less than 16 speakers, including Madi Sharma (CEO of Madi Group), Harley Lovegrove (Chairman of the Bayard Partnership) and Neil Rafferty (Founder and CEO of Portent) managed to convey the entrepreneurial spirit.
The students got the chance to network with other like-minded, motivated individuals from 30 different nationalities, sharing their experience in business, ideas of success and also fears of failure.
To conquer this stigma of entrepreneurial failure, ThinkYoung launched the campaign Fail2Succeed on July 11th with a debate on entrepreneurial failure at the European Parliament. Speakers at this debate were Philippe De Backer, MEP for ALDE Group, Marko Curavić, Head of Unit 'Entrepreneurship', DG Enterprise and Industry, European Commission, and Isabelle Rabier, Founder and CEO of Dermance. Interesting questions and proposals arose from participants and speakers.
By the end of the week, the students had engaged with 16 speakers, visited the European Parliament (where they contributed to a debate on entrepreneurial failure) and had attended a networking event at the office of Google Belgium.
Steven Price
Founder & Executive Director of the European Institute for Industrial Leadership (EIIL)
Steven graduated in Engineering, Manufacture and Management from the University of Manchester, before beginning his career at ICI. For four years he was Project Manager with ICI Engineering where he helped to establish new business ventures in the Far East. He then moved to Brussels as the European Regional IT Manager for ICI Specialities.
Today, among other things, he provides services as an independent project manager and project management 'coach'.
He also helps client's project teams develop the necessary personal and inter-personal skills to work together more effectively. He is a member of the Association for Project Management and Vice Chairman of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Benelux branch.
Alexandros Koronakis
Director of New Europe
Alexandros Koronakis is the Director of New Europe Group.
He spearheads the digital development of the New Europe Group, heading up the different development projects for the various media outlets of the company. He also advises governmental, commercial, and civil society bodies on media, internet, and political strategy and development.
The Speakers
Marko Curavic
Head of Unit 'Entrepreneurship', DG Enterprise and Industry, European Commission
Marko Curavić has been since May 2009 the Head of the Unit "Entrepreneurship" in DG Enterprise and Industry of the European Commission. As such he has been engaged in the deregulation of start-up and bankruptcy procedures in the EU Member States, the establishment of the entrepreneurs’ European exchange programme Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs, the promotion of entrepreneurial education and the support of female entrepreneurs.
Currently, his Unit is working on the Entrepreneurship2020 Action Plan, a EU initiative to boost entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial culture in Europe. His main areas of professional interest are entrepreneurship, venture financing, management and development economics.
Andrea Gerosa
Founder of ThinkYoung and Entrepreneur
Andrea is the founder of ThinkYoung, the first European think tank made by young people for young people in Brussels.
He is also the founder of a Swiss based real estate firm that operates investments and advisory. Previously, Andrea worked as an associate consultant for the Oracle Corporation in Spain. While studying business administration at Bocconi University in Milan, Andrea worked for four years in the European Confideration of Junior Enterprises (JADE), starting off at the consultancy firm JEME Bocconi in 2002, elected President of JADE Italia in 2003 and European President of Jade in 2005.
Isabelle Rabier
Founder of Dermance
Isabelle Rabier is the founder and CEO of Dermance. Created during her studies at HEC Entrepreneurs in March 2009, the company is the first one dedicated to skincare for women over 45.
The brand has now held 1500 beauty ateliers, selling through 150 advisors who have been specially trained within the group. Isabelle's objective is to internationalise the company starting in 2016.
In 2013, she was selected as a member of the French delegation to G20YES of Entrepreneurs in Moscow and spoke in the European Parliament on entrepreneurship in February. She is also a member of several boards and associations interested in entrepreneurship.
Madi Sharma
Founder of Madi Group
Madi Sharma is a businesswoman who currently runs the Madi Group - a group of private sector and not for profit companies with a philosophy to create innovative ideas tailored to local action which can achieve global impacts beneficial to society.
The group includes an import/export company, "the ethnic trail..." which actively creates entrepreneurs across Europe; MRS Business, a sourcing and resource company providing back office support to SMEs, "Madi Magnesium", a succesful consultancy which supports SMEs, organisations and Governments to overcome their challenges; and a business brokerage company "I3" which links global corporate companies and governments.
Wytze Russchen
Founder & Managing Director of Russchen Consultants
After completing his thesis on European integration, Wytze Russchen worked as a private secretary for a Member of the European Parliament. Following this experience, Wytze became spokesman and parliamentary lobbyist of BUSINESSEUROPE, the European employers' organization in Brussels.
He was then appointed Senior Secretary of European Affairs in Brussels. In 2005, Wytze founded Russchen Consultants, which continues to advise various large multinationals and (European) federations in the field of EU public affairs, event management, communication strategy and project management.
Philippe De Backer
Member of European Parliament - ALDE group
Philippe De Backer is a Flemish Member of the European Parliament for the liberal ALDE group.
After having acquired his Ph.D. in biotechnology at the University of Ghent, he worked for an investment fund in Luxembourg. From 2007 to 2010 Philippe De Backer was chairman of the Jong VLD (young wing of the liberal Open Vlaamse Liberalen en Democraten party). In the same period he was councillor in the municipality of Kepellen.
Since september 2011 he is Member of European Parliament.
Geet Khosla
Interim-CEO of PressDoc
In 2011 Geet Khosla participated in the ThinkYoung Entrepreneurship Summer School.
In his second year as a Bachelor student he started GVK Internships, that later became G Va Khosla and Associates - specialised in international short term employment projects and contracts. In December 2012, he finished his masters degree in Business Psychology from LSE, selling his company in the same week. Currently Geet is the interim-CEO of PressDoc.
It's an online PR toolkit that helps companies create, manage, and spread their news at Starbucks prices.
Neil Rafferty
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Portent
Neil has spent 25 years in the Telecoms and Technology sectors before setting-up Portent Business Services.
As Chief Executive, he ran Easynet Group plc, Priority Telecom and Unisource Carrier Services with other senior sales and marketing roles at Cisco Systems, Global One and AT&T Istel.
An articulate, confident, results driven entrepreneurial sales and marketing executive, with a demonstrable track record in driving business growth, Neil's significant international experience and personal skills have seen him able to get the very best out of a team and achieve exceptional performance.
David Ghysels
Founder of Events in the sky
After founding Hakuna Matata in 2002, a communication agency specialised in gastronomy, David founded Events in the Sky in 2006 with Stefan Kerkhofs.
The company organises events (dinners) in the sky and in only 5 years it managed to be available in 40 countries.
Incredible and unique dinners are organised around the world, gathering renowned chefs in magical settings like Las Vegas Strip, Dubaï Marina, Copacabana beach.
The concept was born from the idea of promoting young promising Belgian chefs. To make it feasible, David partnered with Stefan Kerkhofs, specialist in fairground structures. Prior to this, David worked at Equator (advertising agency), where he was general manager from 1999 to 2002. David holds a degree in communication, with a specialisation in advertising, and also received additional trainings in marketing and entrepreneurship at Solvay Brussels School of Management.
Jean-Baptiste Nyssen
Founder of Keep on toasting
Jean-Baptiste admits he has always been curious about food trends all around the world and also passionate about the web and the opportunities it offers. He graduated from Ecole Hotelière de Namur, specializing in hotellerie-restauration. After that he worked in the kitchen of several renowned restaurants in Brussels when he finally decided to start his own project. In September 2012, driven by the idea that people could enjoy high-quality food everyday, Jean-Baptiste launched "Keep on toasting" - his own mobile restaurant with an open air kitchen where he is preparing and serving gourmet food...in a food truck. The Foodtruck offering "Gourmet Croque-Monsieur" is geolocated and connected to the social media and each day can be found in different places in Brussels.
Harley Lovegrove
Chairman of The Bayard Partnership
Harley Lovegrove was born in South East London in 1957. He formed his first company at the age of 21 while working as a junior marketing assistant for an industrial company in London. In 1995 Harley moved to Belgium where he earned a living importing UK building products onto the Belgian market. Twelve months later he joined a very small Belgian high technology software company (Eonic Systems) where he was taken on in the position of office manager.
Working alongside the CEO, the company grew rapidly and Harley took on the responsibility of COO. Within a period of less than four years the company opened development and satellite sales offices in the US, Germany, Korea, India, Brazil, China, and the UK.
Eonic Systems was sold to an American multi-national in 2001.
Since 2000, Harley has taken up numerous interim management posts working for a variety of businesses from high technology and software to petrochemical, transport, mobile telecommunications, banking and apparel.
Today Harley is the Chairman of The Bayard Partnership, a highly successful outsourcing supply business. Apart from publishing a weekly blog and newsletter that goes out to readers all around the world, Harley has also published two books 'Making a Difference' and 'Inspirational Leadership'.
Pierre Buffet
Managing Director at Domobios
Pierre Buffet holds a Master’s Degree in Management Engineering from the Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix of Namur. After working for the commercial development of Nanocyl in Asia, he headed towards entrepreneurship and financing of small and medium enterprises (SME). Within Groupe One, he coached a number of start-up enterprises.
Then he started his own consulting firm in financial management for SME. In this entrepreneurial environment, he met Anne-Catherine and joined the Domobios project. Today he is the Managing Director of the company.
Tin Hang Liu
Tin Hang Liu is the founder of SEOLAB (SocialMedia division), an italian company with top clients like the Benetton Group Worldwide, Fox, Kimberly Clark and CEO/founder of Cityfun, a startup company that focuses on reviews of local business in partnership with the biggest media group in Italy, Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso.
Previously, he was the director of Italchina, an international company concerned with mergers & acquisitions, consultancy and corporate management.
Here he worked with top clients such as: The Cagiva Group and Giugiaro Design. He is also a teacher at IULM University where he lectures about Social Media Marketing and Online Strategies for students at a Master Level.