July 24, 2021 The Huangpu River in Shanghai saw the grand opening of emlyon business school DBA Midsummer Night, attended by Professor William Hua Wang, dean of emlyon business school Asia, Michel PHAN, DBA Advisor, Professor Luk Ting Kwong, Academic Director of Global DBA Asia Program, Ms Chen Yining, program director, and GDBA graduates and students of 2013-2021. The event was held online and offline simultaneously.

A Meet of Different Graders with Congratulations from Worldwide

Professor William Hua Wang, associate dean of emlyon business school and dean of emlyon business school Asia, delivered the welcome speech. According to Professor Wang, emlyon business school, as one of the oldest of its kind in Europe, is among the 1% that have passed all the three international certifications (AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA), and it will continue to help GDBA's transformation and upgrading into scholar industrial leaders by sticking to the talent training requirements and resources support only available to the world-class business schools.

Professor William Hua Wang, associate dean of emlyon business school and dean of emlyon business school Asia

Joining DBA supervisors present, the DBA supervisors around the world who could not be present in person shared their research fields, introduced themselves and expressed cordial wishes and greetings to DBA alumni through the Zoom platform. DBA graduates and students from different grades also introduced themselves briefly, further enhancing the understanding between them.

Scholar business leaders from Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Mainland of China included the General Manager of APP Sinar Mas China Procurement Center, Vice President and Secretary General of Danone Greater China, Vice-chairman of Jinshang Business Club (Singapore), Chief Executive Officer of Anfield Investments Management Company Limited, Dean of Tencent Travel Academy, Manager of the Passenger Data Operation Department of China United Airlines. These industrial elites are members of emlyon DBA family and will explore the future together with their classmates while establishing unbreakable bonds.

Alumni Passing the Torch

At the sharing session, Lei MA and Peihua LI, DBA students of Class 2017 who had just successfully defended their doctoral dissertations earlier this month after four years of hard work, shared their experience and insights.

Lei MA, who was in Singapore, had conducted a four-year research on the topic of “Marketing Strategies for Private Museums in China: A Resource-Based Perspective”, and had just finished the dissertation defense earlier this month online. She also shared his experience in DBA through the online platform. According to Lei MA, academic research methods and theories in the early stage are very helpful to thesis writing, thus needing concrete efforts and time. During the four-year doctoral career, the most unforgettable thing is the moments when teachers and classmates helped and encouraged one another. MA hoped that the all the new students could lay a solid academic foundation and help one another in their doctoral studies.

A few days ago, Peihua LI successfully defended her dissertation under the title of "Asset Restructuring in Merger & Acquisition of Chinese Private Enterprises in Europe: Case Studies of Geely-Volvo and Fosun-Club Med", with the experience and feelings in thesis defense still fresh. By comparing the doctoral studies as the second battleground of her life, she said she was lucky to be able to finish the dissertation under the guidance of the first-class faculty at emlyon business school, as it was a big challenge for her. When one returns to campus after much struggle, he/she will find that DBA is an experience completely different from EMBA, rather a new journey of thinking upgrading. LI hoped that fellow students could give full play to their advantages in industrial research resources, pursue in-depth thinking and study and obtain the DBA that symbolizes the highest honor in business management.

Magnificent Fireworks Lighting the Summer Night

After the sharing meeting ended, the DBA students at all grades showed greater confidence in and expectation of their future study. Their questions to senior students were met with detailed and patient answers. At the DBA midsummer gathering, students of different years exchanged their ideas thoroughly, thus transcending the social identity of fellow students and winning a precious chance to communicate with each other.

Professor William Hua WANG opened a bottle of champagne, signifying the beginning of the dinner for the 2021 emlyon business school DBA Midsummer Night. In a relaxing environment, students exchanged insights freely. Upon the letting off of fireworks, the DBA alumni representatives at emlyon GHOIC jointly proposed a toast, symbolizing that emlyon would pay consistent attention to human resources and organization innovation and lead a new ecology in industry-university-research cooperation, and welcome the participation by all senior executives in the alumni in related sectors.

The continuous output of industry-university-research cooperation constitutes the unique advantages of emlyon business school, which has actively promoted the development of the three fields by establishing Good Business Center, Centre for the Eurasian Sport Industry, GHOIC and Business Intelligence Center. By focusing on the cutting-edge research of the industries, the research centers have yielded great industrial influence.  emlyon business school provides industry-related high-end education and training, and is committed to building an open research and innovation platform where global scholars could interact in depth with corporate executives.

These business elites, who have both brilliant resumes and rich practical experience in their respective fields, enjoy the whole learning process of DBA, as finding the meaning of life and the highest value of their own existence has become their collective aspiration. emlyon business school DBA program not just gives them a doctoral degree but also enables them to become scholar industry leaders, and offer more valuable management wisdom and industrial research for China and beyond.