WU alumni hub meeting with a difference in Brno

February 18, 2016

Face-to-face networking with alumni from 4 clubs

Typically, alumni get–togethers are about reuniting with former fellow students, having fun with them and exploring opportunities for collaborative projects. The WU alumni hub meeting held in Brno (CZ) on January 27th, 2016, showed that making the most of synergies adds a completely new dimension to such reunions: Organized jointly by the local hub managers, the event brought together not only WU Alumni Club members and WU Executive Club members but also graduates of WU Vienna's CEE Competence Center and of VŠE, the University of Economics, Prague. The significance of alumni events like this was also illustrated by the fact that Christian Miller, the Austrian Trade Commissioner in the Czech Republic, delivered a keynote speech in which he highlighted the benefits of the collaboration between the two countries and the importance of the Czech Republic as a business location.

The guest list of the first alumni hub meeting in Brno was outstanding, and so was the venue: Pavel Vranek, Professional MBA Marketing & Sales alumnus and general manager of BMW RENOCAR, kindly hosted the event in his modern car dealership.

Pavel Vranek (left) and the participants of the alumni event

The hub managers of the WU Alumni Club and of the WU Executive Club, Markus Vesely, Manager RD Cooperation & Strategy at Frequentis, and Vojtech Pribyla, Director of Finance and Administration at the Research Centre for Toxic Compounds in the Environment, Masaryk University, both stressed the importance of organizing such events:

"The two of us first met at WU Vienna—during a get-together at 'Das Campus', to be precise. We soon realized that we are a great team, and so we came up with the idea of regularly organizing joint events in the Czech Republic. The reunion in Brno turned out to be truly a meeting of alumni hub representatives. In addition to the two of us, Martin Rafaj, the alumni representative of the Master Class CEE, and Pavel Pachta, the alumni representative of the recently founded VŠE Alumni Austria, were there. Brno was the ideal place for this event. Being able to network with one another face to face allows us to build mutual trust, which is a sine qua non for creating partnerships that will be successful on a long-term basis. This is why we are already busy planning the next hub meeting."

filler.news.hub.managers.jpg — Markus Vesely and Vojtech Pribyla, the two hub managers of the WU Alumni Clubs and the WU Executive Clubs

The WU Executive Academy's Dean, Prof. Barbara Stöttinger, and the WU Alumni Club's managing director, Stephanie Marberger, could not agree more:

"Joint alumni events are an unqualified success: The greater the number of alumni who network with one another, carry out projects together or simply make friends, the better. We more than welcome such initiatives and are looking forward to further joint activities in the future."

"Incidentally," added Prof. Stöttinger, "it is really difficult to not come across WU Vienna alumni in Europe today. Tonight's keynote speaker, Trade Commissioner Christian Miller, is a graduate of WU Vienna—just like his predecessor, Nikolaus Seiwald."