Alumni Life -> Sophie Caroline VANEL - ESC Rennes Alumni VP

What is your career path?

I have been combining human capital and intrapreneurship for more than 10 years.

Once I got my MBA I seized the opportunity to create and run the 1^st Chinese office of a Franco-Bangladeshi trading company in the textile industry: hiring and managing a Sino-Bangladeshi team, while developing the Asian sourcing network and handling the Western clients. Only captain aboard of a ship of 30 sailors and many millions, a superb human and professional challenge that lasted 3 years.

I joined after then the consulting world in strategy and human capital, from the cross-cultural perspective. I have been moving up within this industry for the last 9 years. I accompany big corporate structures, but with the sense and challenges of entrepreneurship.

What is your mission?

Help my clients build a BMW!

Chris Bangle ⁽¹⁾, former Chief Designer at BMW, developed a metaphor I am fond of   « The design group, the engineers, and the finance managers are like three meshed gears. If the gears are separated and spinning solo, nothing happens. If the gears turn the same way, they freeze up. They have to be interconnected and turning in opposite directions. But as they rotate they transfer power to one another »

It is in this perspective, and with this dynamic, I accompany big groups at international level in the definition and implementation of strategies of human and digital transformation. Each human social group of a company stands for a gear, with its own objectives, codes, values and instructions. Leading them to work together, making the co-workers the heart of the change, to lead them to sustainable success, are for me like building a BMW. I often remind people that « strategy is not something an organisation possesses, but something its people create »  ⁽²⁾.

What are your priorities within the network?

One fourth of our alumni lives abroad. Myself included. Over the last 15 years I have been living in 6 different countries. I today have a foot in France and Germany – countries where I live – and the other a bit everywhere in the world according to my professional trips. It is another way to « interact » with the network. An experience that allows me to accompany the development of our international network and reinforce the synergies among the country clubs.

While supporting our current projects my best I want to participate as well in opening a window for though and action towards women, with the partnership of men.

Media tackle on a regular basis the theme of gender pay gap and women representativeness in the hierarchy. Explanations and actors are numerous. Girls’ education and social images are one of them. Without going into details here, women themselves have a role to play to make change happen.

In this perspective, a club in Rennes is being set up. Echoing it in Paris and internationally is essential.

Which projects sound important to you for the development of the network?

Each contribution matters and enriches our network. In order to reinforce it and capitalize on this value, we have created this year a Paris Club: developing synergies between clubs under the same roof.

A second priority for the network is the preparation of the future of the association. The aim is to give us the means of our durability and ensure it continues to exist.

What are your first and last actions for the network?

I had the pleasure to be part of the Entrepreneurship Club in 2014. I was more precisely in charge of the Trophies with Gwendoline Cattier.

I slipped away in 2015, for lack of time, to give a hand again in 2016 with the Trophies at the end of the year. It is a club I have a particular fondness for. Dynamic, ambitious, creative and inspiring, the team run by Lionel Pasco leads it one step further each year.

And I find these contagious energy and mindset in each of our clubs and global network. It is the heart of our Alumni DNA!

Contact :

E-mail : scvanel@gmail.com

 ⁽¹⁾  Chris Bangle, “The ultimate Creativity Machine – how BMW turns Art in Profit”, Harvard Business Review, January 2001 

 ⁽²⁾ Page 2 de Jarzablowski P., J. Balogun et D. Seidl, (2007), « Strategizing: The challenges of a practice perspective », Human Relations, Vol 60, N°1, pp. 1-30.