Dear CEIBS Students, Faculty and Staff, and Alumni,

Happy New Year!

For the CEIBS community, 2019 was a significant milestone for the school. We hosted a series of forums in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Zurich, Accra, Singapore, Boston, London, Munich, Paris and Brussels to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of CEIBS. We stayed true to our mission of bringing China and the rest of world closer together, and in advancing cooperation in economic globalisation.

In 2019, both our MBA and EMBA programmes featured amongst the top five in the Financial Times’ global rankings, putting CEIBS on par with world-renowned business schools. CEIBS has now forged partnerships with three leading business case libraries in the world – Harvard Case Library, Ivey Publishing, and The Case Centre – to help contribute Chinese knowledge to global management education. In addition, the completion of the Zurich campus expansion will further consolidate our operations at our five locations (Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, Accra and Zurich) across three continents (Asia, Europe and Africa).

While travelling across the world to host forums and seek the latest business philosophies, we launched a diverse range of courses at each of our campuses, such as the Key Talent Programme for Chinese Companies Going Global, the Global CEO Programme, and the Fintech Programme. These programs aim to integrate knowledge across disciplines to help business leaders better predict global business trends and uncover opportunities for development.

Mei Yiqi, the late President of National Tsinghua University, once noted, “What makes a university great is not its magnificent buildings, but a team of erudite scholars.” While cultivating management expertise, our faculty strive to keep this spirit alive. In 2019, CEIBS faculty, well-versed in both Chinese and Western cultures, topped Elsevier’s World’s Most-Cited Chinese Researchers list in the category of “Business, Management and Accounting” for the fifth consecutive year. Furthermore, they authored a number of quality papers that won international academic awards, and also published a series of books on the theme of CEIBS Faculty’s Insights into Cutting-edge Topics, a special anniversary gift to the school.

With the support of the Shanghai Municipal Government, CEIBS took the lead in building the Global Platform of China Cases. In its first six years, it has housed more than 1,400 such cases. During this period, CEIBS also hosted 14 Case Master Development Camps to provide 1,000 business school faculty members from 20 countries with training on case-method teaching. In 2019, CEIBS initiated the Advanced Case Writing Workshop and Case Symposium Campus Tour to promote high-quality case teaching across China, and to share Chinese experiences with the outside world. The CEIBS Lujiazui Institute of International Finance held ten Financier’s Salons, each focused on building Shanghai into a global financial hub. In addition, CEIBS hosted many Master Classes and Executive Forums to help spark discussion, share wisdom, and facilitate knowledge dissemination.

As the only business school in China to originate from government-level collaboration, CEIBS has served as a bridge connecting China, Europe, and the world at large since its inception. Examples include Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a Board Member and Distinguished Professor at CEIBS and a Former Prime Minister of France, was awarded the “Medal of Friendship” by Chinese President Xi Jinping. At the Executive Receptions hosted on the theme of “China and the World: New Era and New Impetus” in both Beijing and Shanghai, Nicolas Chapuis, Ambassador and Head of Delegation of the European Union to China, and Dominique de Villepin, a Former Prime Minister of France and Distinguished Professor at CEIBS, shared their insights with numerous European envoys to China and leaders of multinational companies. Delegations from the Department of European Affairs and Ministry of Foreign Affairs also paid a visit to CEIBS’ Shanghai and Beijing campuses, which shows how attractive CEIBS is as a forum for foreign collaboration.

As a Chinese saying goes, “Far away from our hometown, we feel terribly homesick.” We miss our CEIBS family and would like to connect with them by sending our New Year’s greetings to the 24,239 CEIBS alumni in more than 80 countries. We express our thanks to them for making CEIBS a platform for lifelong learning and making generous donations to the school for teaching, research, and long-term development. Harnessing the endless stream of intellectual capital in the CEIBS community will deliver a huge boost to the reputation of the school.

The New Year’s bell has rung. In the next decade, we will face many challenges which may require companies to develop business model innovations. For this, business schools must nurture students and executives to spur technological innovation and entrepreneurship, drive digital transformation, and assume social responsibility. As we start the new year, let us keep our past successes in our hearts and move forward by working on an exciting new chapter of CEIBS.