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Who are the hosts of the Munich KEDGE Alumni Branch?
Managed by two volunteer graduates, this branch aims to provide opportunities for local Alumni and students to get together from time to time for afterworks, visits, and other social events.
KEDGE Alumni has many branches around the world, which gives local Alumni the chance to meet each other, expand their network, share their respective experiences, and have a good time together
Today, discover the profiles of the dynamic hosts of our Alumni branch in Munich.
💬 CANDICE PRESLES (GEP 2008) - MUNICH
Tell us what a little about your professional background. What positions have you held up to now? What about your educational and professional background led you to your current position?
I took a traditional educational path: secondary education in economics and social sciences, prep school (Janson-de-Sally à Paris), and then the typical programme at a Business Management School (specialising in Procurement and Logistics), a gap year, and a semester doing an exchange at the University of Saõ Paolo in Brazil.
I started my career in Madrid, Spain, as a project manager at a consulting company for specialised software for retail and mass distribution, with clients such as Carrefour, Auchan, and Isdin. In 2008, the financial crisis forced me to change sectors, and I went to work in retail as an IT Procurement Manager at Mango, based in Barcelona.
In 2012, I changed countries and moved to Germany, working in Munich at an SME that specialised in e-commerce. After two years of working there as an IT Procurement Manager, where I managed a team of four, the company was bought by the major German software company SAP. I’ve been the Business Operations Manager there since 2015, and manage a team of ten for its e-commerce products.
Now you live in Munich. What do you like about the country, more specifically Munich? How is it different from France?
On a professional level, Germany is a very dynamic country, which was one of the reasons behind my moving here. The work culture is very healthy and allows a good division between your personal life and professional life. Your skills are recognised, both on a salary level and a career level, and there’s a very strong culture of individual responsibility. There’s also flexibility in terms of the manner of working (many companies have allowed their employees to work remotely since before the Covid crisis, especially in the IT industry). And since Germany is the economic engine of Europe, the jobs are very attractive and competitive. In this sense, Munich is an excellent city to live in because it’s traditionally been one of Germany’s powerful industrial cities and has been a hub for manufacturing-related IT start-ups and services for some years now.
On a personal level, Munich is a major Central European city with a human aspect and it’s easy to travel, not only to places within Germany, but also to Italy, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and the Balkans. If you like mountains and outdoor activities, Munich is well-placed as it is only an hour away from the Alps.
On the negative side, German society, and the Munich microcosm in particular, is quite insular and closed in on itself. If I was to compare it to France or Spain, fitting in happens slowly and is difficult, but not impossible. Social life at work is very different from France, for example, lunch breaks are short and not as sacred as they are in France. German offices, in general, are not the major place to socialise as they are in France. You also need to be aware that there is a certain rigidity in German society which, in terms of managing life in general (whether professional or personal) is not very keen on improvisation or spontaneity; even less so, humour is not seen as a way of relieving tense situations. I think this lack of flexibility is one of the aspects that is difficult to adapt to as a French person.
You’re now one of the managers of the KEDGE Alumni Branch of Munich. What motivated you to volunteer?
Munich is a very cosmopolitan city. For personal reasons, I’m in close contact with the Spanish and Latin American communities, as well as German society, especially over the last five years. After I’d been here a while, I wanted to have more contact with the French community than what I was having. By chance, at the same time, the Alumni network was looking for managers to relaunch the Munich branch and I thought that it would be a good idea to start to reconnect with a French crowd and stay in contact with the school.
What are your goals for this branch? What are your plans?
The KEDGE Alumni community in Munich is very diverse (but I imagine this is a common problem for all the new international branches). We have graduates who’ve been living in Munich for more than 15 years, already well integrated and with minimal ties to Kedge, young graduates who’ve recently arrived and who need to be quickly integrated, and students who want to go back to France quickly and are therefore not inclined to make any long-term commitments.
So our project for the moment is to make KEDGE meetings become somewhat of a ritual within the Kedge community in Munich and then to organise other types of activities than afterworks. Our goal for the moment is to create a core group of regulars who come to our events, which will give us a certain consistency and create a long-term dynamic.
How did becoming a branch manager go? Was it easy to work with KEDGE Alumni?
Everything went very well. Brigitte is an energetic and enthusiastic person who makes you feel like a member of the family right away. Everything is well documented and the support provided by Brigitte's team is unconditional. Help is always available when you need it for organising events.
Lastly, what message would you like to pass on to graduates and students are passing through, or who live in Munich?
Get past any misgivings and preconceptions you may have about Germany in general, and Munich in particular, and let yourself be surprised.
For graduates already living in Munich, once the covid situation is under control, don’t hesitate to join the network to make the branch even stronger.
💬 YANN MAURER (GEP 2007) - MUNICH
Tell us what a little about your professional background. What positions have you held up to now? What about your educational and professional background led you to your current position?
I created Regiondo, a booking system for leisure professionals in 2011.
For the past 10 years, I’ve been working for this company, which facilitates online bookings for the tourism and leisure industry. Our headquarters are in Munich, and we opened subsidiaries in Nice and Milan in 2020, which doubled our workforce. With a solid international team of more than 100 employees from 12 different nationalities, we are continuing our consolidation effort to become a global leader and continue to be a reliable and efficient partner for digital transformation for leisure operators. Before that, I was a strategy professional. I worked at L.E.K. Consulting, mainly on private equity matters. I stayed there for nearly four years, which was very formative because of the fast pace of the assignments and the analytical and modelling capacity required of the teams. Entrepreneurship came naturally to me when I was analysing the different business models when working in Munich, Paris and Los Angeles companies.
TOURMAG FIND OUT MORE ABOUT YANN MAURER ARTICLE - L'ECHO TOURISTIQUE
Now you live in Munich. What do you like about the country, more specifically Munich? How is it different from France?
What I like most about Munich is the overall quality of life. It’s a green and pleasant city for those who live there, and there’s a human dimension with many places to recharge your batteries. There are lots of Biergärtens, which are very social places, to relax. The entire city and its surroundings are accessible on bike, and you can sunbathe in the middle of the city on the banks of the Isar. Additionally, the neighbouring Alps with their large lakes offer an ideal playground for outdoor enthusiasts.
From a professional point of view, the absence of a hierarchical pyramid offers great opportunities for employees who want to advance. Information and the managers are easily accessible and available to everyone. In Germany, the catchword is planning and efficiency; however, you must respect the rules of the game and sometimes you have to give up the French ability to improvise and intuition so as to not scare the employees!
You’re now one of the managers of the KEDGE Alumni Branch of Munich. What motivated you to volunteer?
When I received the email from KEDGE that informed me that 83 KEDGE graduates were identified as living in Munich at the time, I immediately wanted to be part of this incredible network that we have at our disposal.
What are your goals for this branch? What are your plans?
Organise French-style social events, bring together the members of the KEDGE community, and facilitate the integration of the new arrivals to Munich. When the lockdown ends, we’re all going to need to be able to take a deep breath and return to nature. So short hikes combined with visits to a Biergärten are called for!
How did becoming a branch manager go? Was it easy to work with KEDGE Alumni?
Brigitte did a super job. And my great partner Candice is very resourceful 😊 KEDGE Alumni is a very effective vehicle.
Lastly, what message would you like to pass on to graduates and students are passing through, or who live in Munich?
Get in touch with us! We’ll be very happy to welcome one and all one of our Stammtisch!
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