SKEMA Alumni Matinales conference series: “Making your future career meaningful”

The third edition of the SKEMA Alumni Matinales conference series was held on 22 February on the Sophia Antipolis campus. The theme? “Talent scarcity: are environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria the key to attracting and retaining talented candidates?”. This enriching and enlightening conference provided concrete answers about new recruitment practices and the new ways of managing to adapt to future generations.

The conference opened with a highly informative keynote by Frederic Munier, Professor of Geopolitics at SKEMA, about the mutation of work since the beginning of the century.

"The world of work is undergoing an unprecedented yet silent mutation. While for thousands of years it was need that drove men and women to work, a new motivation is appearing today, particularly among young graduates of top establishments: meaning! In a world where the great political or religious narratives have lost some of their power, the younger generations are seeking to reconcile self-realization and the pursuit of happiness in and through work. As a result, the new demands they have of companies are pushing the latter to reinvent themselves. To recruit these days, it is no longer enough for organisations to merely advertise a salary; they must also show how they can improve the world around us..."

Experts with varied backgrounds

To discuss the issue, several high-level executives of reputable companies were at the conference, including our alumna Alexandra Cittadini (SKEMA 2000), Chief Operating Officer of the Pôle Santé Saint Jean healthcare complex in Nice. Two members of the Top Management network, Jonathan Leyva, CEO of Konica Minolta Business Solutions France, and Noemie Cicurel, Director of Learning & Development at Robert Half France Benelux, also shared their experience and expertise on the subject.  

With companies facing new recruitment challenges post COVID-19, employers must now adopt new strategies if they want to keep their talent and attract more. To succeed, ESG criteria seem, in many ways, to be the solution to talent leakage, disengagement, brown-out (loss of meaning), or lack of prospects, an omnipresent issue in companies today.

“All of the speakers, without exception, provided pertinent and diverse insights into the issue in question. These contributions reinforce the idea that companies of all sizes must now do a better job of communicating about their DNA (where they come from, what has shaped them), their CSR values and their vision for the future.
Their future employees intend to find and give meaning to their occupation and this is no longer just a weak signal, it is definitely a strong trend.

By organising these events, SKEMA remains completely in phase with its ecosystem, which extends beyond the realm of courses and diplomas, by continuing to provide precious insights and guidance to its alumni network. That is why we come here and why we return with pleasure”, shared Patrick Delalandre (SKEMA 2004), CEO of IntelliCo.