Theme: Crawl, Walk, Talk!

Our theme, "Crawl, Walk, Talk", describes the journey of an idea through its nascent stages to one of finality: to be shared with a global audience. The theme of the event came from what we saw happening all around us: peers with good ideas, but who had trouble developing and articulating them clearly.

As in the case of learning to run, learning to talk about an idea is a process.

Crawl - You first have a spark, it involves creativity, to compel yourself to think differently.
Walk - You then start shaping the idea. You find other references and discuss it with a few to make the idea clearer.
Talk - You are able to share the idea succinctly - to aim to raise awareness and move the world.

Amphithéatre Blondeau
1 Rue de la Libération
Jouy en Josas, Île-de-France, 78350
France

Afshin Mehrpouya

Associate Professor, HEC Paris

Afshin Mehrpouya is an associate professor of accounting and management control systems at HEC Paris. Trained as a medical doctor in Iran, Afshin also holds an MBA and PhD in management. His research is broadly in the role of performance measurement in transnational governance. He currently studies the construction and use of different calculative knowledge forms such as rankings and ratings in transnational governance regimes. He is a member of the editorial board of Accounting, Organizations and Society. Prior to starting his academic career Afshin had years of experience in the design of environmental and social rankings and ratings. He has advised a range of development and sustainability related initiatives such as Access to Medicine Index, Aid Transparency Index, Medicines Transparency Alliance, Access to Nutrition Index and Responsible Mining Index.

Alessandra Mantovani

Master’s in Sustainability and Social Innovation Candidate, HEC Paris

Alessandra Mantovani is an American-born designer and social entrepreneur who has spent the last eight years abroad, completing her studies in design, business and sustainability in Montreal, Berlin and Paris. She is currently pursuing her Master’s in Sustainability and Social Innovation at HEC Paris, where she has become increasingly aware about the complex nature of global problem solving. As a designer, Alessandra is an advocate for the tremendous and nuanced power of design. She applies design thinking to sustainability issues - identifying pain points, creating empathy maps, and prototyping solutions. This has helped Alessandra foster iterative thinking approaching problems with a "fail fast" mentality which she applies to personal and professional life. Currently, Ludivine and Alessandra are working on MAWA, a fully circular start-up which creates sustainable insect protein.

Dany Isse

Master’s in Business Administration Candidate, HEC Paris

Dany Isse is an MBA candidate at HEC Paris. He is focused on digital transformation, working with companies to leverage digital tools & new innovation methods. Dany joined the American University of Beirut to study Economics. Thereafter, he pursued a master’s degree in Energy Economics from Universite Paris Nanterre & IFP School in France. His work across supply chain functions in the Oil & Gas industry took him to France, Nigeria and Angola, with pit-stops in Lebanon and Dubai. In the rare occasion when he’s not injured, Dany is a long distance runner. He’s aiming to do his first ironman in the next two years, knowing that his swimming skills are only slightly better than a camel. After a client pitch went wrong in an MBA competition, Dany had a light-bulb moment: he remembered an old Lebanese proverb ... client pitches were never the same again.

Deepika Sehdev

Master's in Public Policy and Development Candidate at Paris School of Economics

Deepika is a student of Public Policy and Development at the Paris School of Economics. Prior to that, she was an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Delhi (India). She started learning music at the age of 10 and holds a graduate degree in Indian Classical music. She also holds a masters in Economics. She has been a part of many theatrical musicals and has represented India in international cultural exchange programs. A strong advocate of women’s rights and social justice, she believes that music can transcend borders and languages to connect people, places and perspectives.

Emmanuel Auberger

Expert in Packaging for a Circular Economy

Emmanuel Auberger, formerly the CEO of Verallia, wants to revolutionize consumer shopping habits and bring back returnable packaging. Having studied at HEC Paris between 1991 and 1994, Emmanuel has had a successful career of over twenty years with the likes of Renault and Saint-Gobain. He is an expert on packaging and has extensively studied the dangers of plastic contamination in food. An avid traveler, ten years into his career, Emmanuel took a year-long sabbatical to backpack around the world for nine months with his wife. Outraged by the environmental impact of single-use and over-packaging, Emmanuel started experimenting with ways to reduce his family waste with the support of his children. His eco-consciousness led him to this journey to bring back the milkman’s bottle!

Hervé Dole

Professor, Université Paris-Saclay / Vice-President, University of Paris-Sud

Hervé Dole is an astrophysicist and professor at Université Paris-Saclay. He is involved in the European space mission Euclid to be launched in 2022. Euclid’s main scientific goals are focused on a better understanding of dark matter and dark energy’s proper- ties in the Universe, as well as galaxy cluster formation deep in the Universe. He also worked in the USA for NASA’s infrared space observatory. He is also the Vice-Président of Université Paris-Sud and is in charge of science outreach, science & society, arts and culture (2016-2020). In addition to his teaching and research activities, Hervé enjoys raising awareness about astrophysics amongst the masses through different media.

Joaquin Marcano

Master’s in Business Administration Candidate, HEC Paris

Joaquín Marcano is a production engineer from Venezuela, graduating from the Universidad Simón Bolívar and Louvain School of Management in Belgium. He’s a very curious individual who loves to learn about anything, often through YouTube to which he admits being addicted. Joaquín has multiple hobbies including soccer and writing when he is not dreaming of social entrepreneurship. He is always eager to create new businesses with a healthy disregard for conventional thinking and a strong preference for creativity and innovation. Joaquín seeks to close the educational gap between those who have access to quality education and those who don’t. From 2010 to 2015, Joaquín worked in an NGO that promoted democratic values and youth participation in elections. He realised that the problem of accountability and representation needed to be solved in order to tackle the problems facing our world today. Joaquín believes that politics can learn from businesses and vice versa.

Julie Andrieu

Master’s in Management Candidate, HEC Paris

Julie Andrieu was born and raised in the Southern French countryside. She left the sun and the good food for rainy Jouy-en-Josas to study at HEC Paris. Prior to that, she spent two years in Toulouse completing her classe préparatoire with a focus on Geopolitics and Mathematics. After working for a hedge fund last summer, she has decided to pur- sue a career in finance. Julie enjoys travelling, reading and meeting new people. She is a total foodie and goes back to the south of France as often as possible to get a taste of her grandmas’ cooking. Julie was born with a neuromuscular disease called SMA (Spinal Muscular Atrophy), but never let her disability prevent her from being ambitious. As she progressed through her studies, she noticed that people were often misinformed on disability issues, which made her want to spread awareness to banalize disability. Today, Julie is an ambassa- dor for a charity raising funds for research on genetic diseases.

Kelsea Walsh

Master’s in Sustainability and Social Innovation Candidate, HEC Paris

Kelsea Walsh is from Canada and has lived in France, Vietnam, and China. She pursued an undergraduate degree in politics and international studies at the University of Ottawa in Canada before coming to HEC Paris. She has travelled extensively, observing environmental innovation and learning about inequalities all over the world. It is through travel and further study that Kelsea is exploring the power dynamics in leadership. Having observed the major chasm in social justice between Vietnam and Canada three years ago, Kelsea became motivated to help drive change towards our sustainable future. Her passion initially started with environmental justice, and expanded to social justice after realizing the interconnectivity of leadership, social structures and governance, and business. Her talk focuses on our acknowledgement of privilege and power, and learning to use this step by step to find meaningful connection, in order to create change.

Lucas J. Carbonaro

Senior Project Manager, European Investment Bank

Lucas J. Carbonaro is half Italian and half Scottish and self-identifies as European. He grew up in Sicily and graduated in Mathematics from Catania. He pursued his Master’s in Statistics at LSE before completing three years of research on computational finance at the University of Oxford. After completing his MBA at HEC Paris, Lucas continued his finance journey and currently works for the European Investment Bank. Between 2010 and 2015, Lucas helped raise $150k for charity, supporting educational causes through various sports challenges. In 2016, he took a sabbatical to set up a Luxembourgish fund supporting low income students gain access to best in class universities. Lucas enjoys sports and believes in life-long-learning taking weekly lessons in Russian and chess. As Lucas like to say, “It is well known that humans can do amazing things, and in my opinion, this is easier when one has a clear goal, a step-by-step approach and is surrounded by people sharing the same objective.”

Lucia Gonzalez Schuett

Master’s in Business Administration Candidate, HEC Paris

Lucía González Schuett was born in Barcelona but moved to a tiny rural community in southern Spain while she was still a child. Her father had made an abrupt career change to follow the family’s farming tradition. Suddenly they were harvesting cork and managing cattle on horseback. Being so close to nature helped Lucía develop the balanced and healthy lifestyle she treasures today. She began playing the flute at age nine and has been part of several bands and chamber music groups. She also plays volleyball and is an avid skier. Lucía graduated in Foreign Languages in Madrid. After working in different areas related to communication, she radically altered her career path joining a Spanish multinational fast-fashion company in Germany. She was living a happy life, indeed, one in which her needs had always been met. Maybe that was precisely why the initial question arose: what did she really need? When is enough... enough?

Ludivine Berouard

Master’s in Sustainability and Social Innovation Candidate, HEC Paris

Originally French, Ludivine Berouard has lived abroad most of her life. She grew up in the Czech Republic and then moved to The Netherlands where she pursued a Bachelor’s in International Business Administration at Erasmus University. Her work experience in China and Thailand sparked her interest in new cultures and complex challenges. Her experience at One Young World summit inspired her to tackle these challenges. Before joining HEC Paris, Ludivine worked in Uganda where she co-founded Marula - a consultancy business working with corporates, NGOs and the public sector to bring youth into the agriculture sector. This is when she became passionate about creating sustainable agricultural models within the food industry that are inclusive to local communities, the planet, and her fellow youth. She believes that social good, equality, and diversity can and should play a key role in today’s world of global business.

Nina Sesto

Director of Telemedicine, Magdalena Clinic for Cardiovascular Medicine / CEO & Co-Founder, Smart ECG Tech

Nina Sesto earned her Ph.D. in molecular biology at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. She has led multiple research projects that were published among the highest ranking scientific publications and was awarded the Jacques Monod Prize for research in medicine. Eager to accelerate the translation of science to society, she earned an MBA from HEC Paris and Wharton Business School. Nina worked as a consultant for Dana Farber Cancer Institute on the use of telemedicine for cancer diagnostics and therapy in Africa. During this period, she explored digital health and machine learning based analytics as a way of improving processes and increasing access to healthcare. In 2016, Nina became an alumni of Singularity University Exponential Medicine. She is active in the start-up community, helping med-tech and bio-tech companies while developing her own start-up. Calling Croatia home, Nina is the mother of two wonderful boys.

Pierre Guyot

Master’s in Business Administration Candidate, HEC Paris

After his graduation as Industrial Engineer in France, Pierre decided to get out of his comfort zone and to experience the Canadian adventure. With Tech industry experience in both North America and Europe under his belt, Pierre Guyot enjoyed an interesting and enriching experience, but he faced many unexpected challenges. Specifically, his young age appeared often to be an obstacle to his legitimacy and credibility. He usually had two options: either hide his age or accept not being considered. He believes that anyone who wants to contribute to a more sustainable and efficient society and business ecosystem, regardless of their race, gender or age, should have the opportunity to be heard adequately. In other words, we, as a society, should emphasize talent and what people can bring to the table instead of proxies that can mislead us about a person’s true potential.

Sabine Magiera

Master’s in Media, Art and Creation Candidate, HEC Paris

Sabine comes from Wiener Neustadt, Austria and holds bachelor degrees in Musicology and International Business Administration. She started playing the piano at the age of seven and has received lessons from Professor Eugenie Russo in Austria. She plays regularly at international piano competitions and concerts. She won the first prize at the Austrian National Piano Competition (“Prima La Musica”), received excellence scholarships for international piano masterclasses, and has been awarded prizes at several European piano competitions such as “Allegro Vivo” and “Klavierpodium Munich”. Outside of her classical background, Sabine loves improvising on the piano, which is how she came up with her new piece “Lucid Memories”.

Sephra Abraham

Master’s in Sustainability and Social Innovation Candidate, HEC Paris

Sephra Abraham is from Mumbai, India and is pursuing a Master’s in Sustainability and Social Innovation at HEC Paris. She holds a Bachelor’s in Economics from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai and a Diploma in Business Studies from ICADE, Madrid. She has been working with an organization called Red is the New Green. This organisation is focused on combating menstrual health and hygiene related issues and promoting sustainable menstruation in India. She is heavily involved in research pertaining to this topic. Her goal is to enable the underprivileged women to get access to clean, affordable and sustainable menstrual products. She wants to open people’s eyes to the environmental problems of commercial menstrual products and encourage women to switch to sustainable products!

Sergio Pecorelli

Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Brescia / Adjunct Professor, Yale Medical School

Sergio Pecorelli received his Medical Degree cum Laude at the University of Pavia, with his residency in OB/ GYN cum Laude at the University of Milano. After that, he completed his Fellowship in Pelvic Surgery at Mayo School of Medicine with a PhD in Gynecologic Oncology Research. His research has focused on female cancer and the implementation of primary and secondary prevention actions. Among other awards, he has received the Gold Medal for Public Health Services from the President of the Republic of Italy. He serves as part of the scientific committee of the Italian Olympic Sports Medicine Federation and is President of the Giovanni Lorenzini Medical Foundation. He initiated, with an international team, a first-of-its-kind research project, called “The First 1000 days of Life”, aiming at studying 1500 pregnant women, their babies and the fathers of these babies. The study observes environmental influence on future health and wellness of these babies and their future generations.

Tom Pullen

CEO, Innovinco

After being trained in Design Thinking by Stanford University, Tom Pullen started his Executive MBA at HEC Paris in 2017, majoring in Innovation & Entrepreneurship. Shortly afterwards, he founded Innovinco, a start-up specialising in accelerating innovation within large established companies. In a career spanning 21 years, Tom has worked at major global corporations including Mars and Danone. He has driven business growth for iconic brands like Twix, Bounty and Badoit, as well as turning around the Evian brand in its largest market. In his capacity as the Global Innovation Director at Danone, he was responsible for the acceleration of innovation worldwide, creating numerous commercially successful, award-winning innovations in the process. Tom is originally English, now half-French, and lives with his wife and 4 children in Versailles. He plays football (badly), tennis (better) and has completed many long-distance races including the London Marathon.