Business World

I was able to spend time at Insead - Isaac's business school on 2 different days. Unfortunately I didnt have my camera on either day. It's a beautiful modern building with orchids in fancy pots all around. I got to meet several of Isaac's friends including Jordane from France (also lived in China so speaks Mandarin as well), Jason, a NJB (nice Jewish boy) from NJ, Naush, a fast talking, charming man from Pakistan. It's completely international of course and everyone is very young and hip looking. People wear jeans or shorts and only rarely a suit.

I went to a Strategies Class taught by a very charming Indian professor in khakis. The case was on supply chains - I think that was the term. Comparing Li and Foung (Chinese supply chain company) and Zara, a Spanish retailer. I understand they are all over the US in prime locations. Very interesting to hear the students discuss the fashion industry from the point of view of differentiation, supply, manufacturing, advertizing (or none in the case of Zara), and other exotic terms to me. The professor introduced me to the class and in true business school style when Isaac spoke the class gave clapped loudly and the professor asked me if I was sufficiently proud. After class I told him that when I visited my daughter at HBS and they knew her parents were in the room they gave her a standing ovation for her contribution to which Isaac said "we dont like comparisons to Harvard here". :-)

My second visit on Friday afternoon was for the Entrepreneureship Contest. Teams from the Singapore campus as well as the Fountainbleu campus competed - they streamed in the French ones. The judges were Venture Capitalists from Singapore. Each team had 15 minutes for their presentation - lots of jazzy power points. The projects were so diverse as were the teams. A luxury bus company in Sri Lanka, a new device for measuring blood sugar for diabetics, software for keeping your contacts on your phone up to date (Isaac's friend Naush), wine in Nigeria, financial services thru your phone in Namibia. Each team had INSEAD students as well as others. We loved the Africans who wanted to do the financial services thru the phone but they didnt win. The winner got $10,000 and also the ear of the VC's for more funding. The judges asked really hard questions in the Q and A. Naush came in second so he got $2k. I did do some knitting for this event since it was really long.