CEMS Annual Events – St. Gallen 2012

The CEMS Annual Events, one of the most important occasions of the CEMS Global Alliance, took place this year in the town of St. Gallen, Switzerland from 28 November to 1 December 2012; 474 graduates of all member universities participated. In the 2011/2012 academic year, 39 CEMS MIM students of the University of Economics, Prague (VŠE) successfully finished their studies.  In addition, VŠE won the award for “Best Business Project of the Year”.

CEMS is an international alliance of 28 leading business schools and more than 70 corporate partners.  The membership of two business schools – HKUST Business School, Hong Kong and Indian Institute of Management Calcutta together with two new corporate partners (Kerry Group Plc. and Li&Fung Management Ltd.)— was formally confirmed.

A key project of the CEMS alliance is the CEMS MIM master’s program (Master in International Management). The CEMS MIM regularly places in the TOP 3 Masters in Management rankings by the Financial Times. VŠE has been an active member of the network for more than 13 years.  

The CEMS program is international indeed.   There are currently more than 7000 graduates of 78 nationalities working in 72 countries worldwide.  In academic year 2012/2013, 1000 students of 65 nationalities are studying in 27 countries.  The graduates prove themselves well in the international labor market. For instance, in 2011, 95% of graduates seeking a job were successful in finding one within three months; of them, 45% worked abroad, 38% in corporate partners and 85% in large multinational companies.

Representatives of partner universities had the opportunity to meet during the 2012 CEMS Annual Events, too.  Discussions regarding the future direction of the alliance were an important part of the meeting.  At the University of St. Gallen, the session of the Executive Board took place together with a meeting of the academic directors responsible for the content and quality of the CEMS program and a meeting of the program managers responsible for its operations and administration.

In addition, the graduation ceremony was also a vital part of the meeting.  In 2012, 700 students from 27 countries successfully graduated – 474 of them attended.  Of these, 39 VŠE students graduated, meeting all of the program´s requirements in order to be awarded with the internationally recognized CEMS MIM certificate.  The presidents of partner universities presented the certificates to 25 of these students.

At the ceremony, there were also awards for best courses, block seminars and projects evaluated by students themselves. VŠE was awarded for the Best Business Project of the Year (189 projects were evaluated in total) called “Energy trading and commodity clearing business development” done by Igor Paholok (VŠE) and Václav Schenk (UniCredit Bank).

The CEMS MIM is a part of International Management master’s program taught completely in English at the Faculty of Business Administration (VŠE). VŠE corporate partners Škoda Auto, a.s. and Plzeňský Prazdroj are active in the program too.

The application period for the academic year 2013/2014 lasts from December 1 to February 22, 2012.

To find out more about the International Management/CEMS program, visit: http://cemsmim.vse.cz/english/.