To honour Jean-Baptiste Say, one of the founders of ESCP Europe and the person who coined the term entrepreneur, ESCP Europe hosted the 3rd edition of its Jean-Baptiste Say Entrepreneurship Festival on 16th November 2017.
This took place simultaneously across all of the School’s campuses, bringing together hundreds of our international students, faculty, staff and friends to exhibit our unique, pan-European spirit.
In the UK, the event was organised as part of the Creative Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship module coordinated by Prof. Davide Sola and by the London Entrepreneurship Student Society. The vision of this Society is to unite students, entrepreneurs, investors and potential customers to exchange ideas and learn from each other.This event is run as part of ESCP Europe's top-ranked Master in Management programme, currently placed 6th worldwide by the Financial Times. The MIM students worked in 12 teams to create a new start-up idea, with each represented at a trade fair at the London campus.
Following this, each team were tasked with pitching their business to a panel of industry experts and faculty. Joining us on this panel were:
- Tony Matharu - Managing Director, Grange Hotels
- Simone Cimminelli – Managing Director, iStarter UK
- Luca Pagano - Group CEO, Bemyeye
- Christian Linder – Associate Professor of Management, ESCP Europe
- Kamran Razmdoost – Associate Professor of Marketing, ESCP Europe
Guests also enjoyed an inspiring speech from Tony Matharu, who shared his experience of launching his own business from scratch, as well as his perspective on the advantages of doing so in a country not that of your birth.
Three prizes were awarded at the end of the pitching competition, with guests, fellow students and the panel voting:
- Overall winner: Stick It. Team: Victoria Smith, Bahadori Kamran, Alice Combes.
- Industry expert's choice: QLess. Team: Benedetta Cravero, Federico Di Tizio, Shuang HU, Chloé Mareek, Francesco Renzullo
- Customer's choice: Pair-King. Team: Alessandra Gandini, Riccardo Petrachi, Giulia Tomadini, Laura Toniato