Audencia’s iconic alumni
Celebrating the School’s inspirational graduates
Looking back on Audencia’s rich history, we think of the countless individuals who have passed through the school and gone on to make a lasting impact in their communities and the world at large. This iconic alumni collection gives us the opportunity to hear from a diverse group of successful graduates who have gone on to achieve great things in a variety of fields. From entrepreneurs to artisans, CEOs to academics, our alumni have used the knowledge and skills acquired during their time at Audencia to make a real difference in the world. Their stories are a testament to the power of education and the enduring impact that Audencia has had on their lives.
As you dip into the portrait gallery, you will discover the passion and drive of our alumni and gain a deeper understanding of the ways in which Audencia has prepared them for success. We are proud to share these stories with you and hope that they will serve as an inspiration to students and alumni alike.
Pascale Quester
A remarkable rise to the top of the university ranks
When we enter Pascale Quester’s living room through the lens of her laptop camera, we find her surrounded by boxes. She has just moved from ...
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Bertrand Vecten
Man of the earth, master of the waters
Discreet by nature, Bertrand Vecten (MROS 99) was by no means predestined to become a legend when, back in the summer of 1996, the tip ...
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As the Vice President of Strategy Pricing & Interchange at Mastercard, Ana Maria Olaya Vargas epitomises reasoned and modern-day feminism, inspired by the mixing of ...
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Jon Harr
The superstellar engineer-philosopher
Fifty-year-old Jon Harr (MBA 05) comes from Oslo. After a career in engineering and then working as project director at the National Centre for Space ...
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A graduate of the Saint-Nazaire ECG programme, now Audencia’s Bachelor in Management, 53-year-old Cyrille Glumineau (BACH 92), is the General Manager for Sales Central & ...
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A spirit of curiosity. This is the most befitting qualifier to describe 38-year-old Elisabeth Gautier. A former 2009 graduate of the Audencia Grande Ecole Programme, ...
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Delphine Francois Chiavarini
The roadmap of an aligned leader
For Delphine Francois, a career path is something you carve out for yourself, with no fear of the par-for-the-course twists and turns, nor forgetting that ...
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Marie Comacle
Breaking down taboos on female masturbation and sexuality
Marie Comacle affirms in her very softly-spoken and calm voice that she continues to maintain throughout the entire interview. “A great many women feel intense ...
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Jesus Abia Arias
An odyssey from Valladolid to L’Oréal HQ
From his beginnings as Product Manager Biotherm Spain to being appointed the Managing Director of Prada, Mugler and Valentino in Europe, 39-year-old Jesus Abia Arias ...
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Alexandra Renard
The journalist who wanted to be of service
Alexandra Renard is what is known as a special correspondent and she has been around the media block a few times. She started out working ...
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Fabrice Beillevaire
Cheesemakers par excellence, from father to son
Fabrice Beillevaire, referring to the Executive MBA he earned at Audencia in 2020. "If I hadn’t followed this training programme, I would have found myself ...
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Mathieu Aguesse is a 2015 graduate of ICAM School of engineering and Audencia’s specialised master in Marketing, Design and Creation (MS MDC). From his offices ...
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Stéphanie Gateau
Joy and kindness as driving forces
Stéphanie’s path to date has been one of ups and downs. She was diagnosed with a rare neurodegenerative disease and Asperger’s syndrome and her family ...
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Emmanuel ‘Gus’ Reckel
Itinerary of a banker turned baker
As Emmanuel, he graduated from Audencia’s Grande Ecole Master in Management programme and pursued a career in investment banking. As Gus, he learned to bake ...
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Esha grew up in a small Nepalese town on the eastern hills of the Himalayas. Her parents - who owned a bed and breakfast, were ...
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Jessica Giuliani
The high-flying financial officer
It is with an open smile and a lilting accent betraying her Southern France origins that Jessica Giuliani greets us for this interview. Hers is ...
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After graduating from SciencesCom in 1998, Stéphane Dugast went to sea as a reporter for Cols Bleus, the magazine of the French Navy. Although he ...
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Not everyone is tempted to move halfway across the globe and start life again in a foreign country but it certainly was a decision that ...
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Ramin Shahzamani
Supporting vulnerable children reach for their potential
In 2021, Ramin Shahzamani was appointed CEO of War Child, an Amsterdam-based NGO that supports children affected by conflict around the world. Ramin, who has ...
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In 2009, Thomas Roulet graduated from Sciences Po and Audencia’s Master in Management programme. Today he is an Associate Professor at Cambridge University, Deputy Director ...
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Olivier Duha
Disrupting the world of customer relations
“If there’s a message that I would like to pass on to future entrepreneurs, it would be that there are endless opportunities out there,” Olivier ...
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Victoria Mandefield
Engineering solidarity
Victoria Mandefield is a social entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Solinum, creator of Soliguide, a survival guide and support for the homeless. She ...
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After studying for her bachelor in The Netherlands with periods in Helsinki and Paris, before joining the International Master programme which took her to Nantes, ...
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How did the daughter of a construction contractor with no connections, who grew up in a rural area of south-western France surrounded by cows, ever ...
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Marie Françoise Marie-Nelly
The unwavering optimist
Marie Françoise Marie-Nelly’s life is showered with a series of events that, in hindsight, could be good premonitions.
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When reached out to Henar Cabrera, she was living in Dublin and working as an International Customer Service Representative for Blue Nile, an American online ...
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Beauty Manake
Botswana’s first female minister of agriculture
It took 6 months to pin her down for a promised interview, but given our subject’s status, we knew that we had to be patient ...
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Taghi Taghi-zada
Driven by the desire to learn and to put people first
At 36, Taghi has moved up the professional ladder with remarkable speed. At 21, when he was head of logistics for a firm specialising in ...
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Sun Ping is adamant that setting oneself a strict framework of rules is the key to a successful career and a harmonious life.
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Fulgence Ouedraogo
Captain Courage
Fulgence Ouedraogo is the tireless tackler and captain of the iconic Montpellier Hérault Rugby Club, in the South West of France.
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Didier Gaffinel
A steadfast rise through the ranks
In 2022, Didier Gaffinel celebrates 30 years of service at Crédit Agricole. After 16 years of investment banking and its notoriously strenuous regime, he later ...
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This is the story of how a quiet Vietnamese boy raised in a poor rural village with no electricity and no library, ended up bagging ...
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Tifenn Dano Kwan has led world-class marketing strategies for some of the largest SaaS organisations, and anyone reading her LinkedIn profile will recognise that she ...
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Les Petits Culottés is the first eco-friendly nappy brand distributed through direct sales and short sales channels in France.
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Boris Couilleau
Pioneering democratic and inclusive business practices
Boris Couilleau’s first years after graduation were not plain sailing: within half a decade, he’d experienced the consequences of a ruinous investment, a series of ...
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Varsha Manjunatha
Breaking the mould without burning bridges
"When I look back at the path I have followed since I left my humble community in Bangalore, it feels nothing less than a miracle”. ...
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Amal AbdulQader
A life story stranger than fiction
Amal hesitated before agreeing to an interview for our iconic alumni series. "I wasn’t sure that my profile would be a good fit because my ...
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François-Xavier Roger
Seizing opportunities as they come along
A truly international executive, Francois Roger has lived on four continents. He learnt the ropes of high finance by joining pharmaceutical company Roussel Uclaf as ...
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Like all Cambodian boys, Sorachna Honn was been raised to respect his elders and his teachers, to work hard and with integrity, to provide for ...
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What first impresses when we meet Estelle Nze Minko, the centre back for France women's national handball team, is her extrovert, rebellious, and uncompromising nature. ...
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Claude-Michel Schönberg
Music as a raison d'être
When the world-renowned composer welcomes us to his Chelsea home, his frustration is palpable. We meet during a phase of respite between two lockdowns, but ...
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Nicolas de Villiers
Running the show and making history
In 2004, aged 24, just one year after graduating from Audencia, Nicolas received the keys to the Puy du Fou, a historical theme park with ...
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Dominique de Font-Réaulx
A contagious passion for culture
Dominique de Font-Réaulx has had a succession of high calibre positions within the most prestigious museums in France. She was curator of the Musée d’Orsay ...
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Vincent Roux
The entrepreneur who pays it forward
Aged six, Vincent was already doing business on his parents’ front door. At 23, he was the first student whose company was incubated at Audencia… ...
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