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Upcoming Events
| January 2011
* Thursday, January 27
Harvard au Feminin with Chine Lanzmann
February 2011
* Wednesday, February 16
Special Multi-Club Happy Hour at France Ameriques. Details to Follow.
More Info / Links
HarvardClub.fr
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 Harvard Mobile Web & iPhone Applications
| Harvard has announced a University-wide initiative to deliver useful, usable, and mobile-appropriate content to the Harvard community locally and worldwide. To take advantage of this technology, go to m.harvard.edu, or download the Harvard app from the iPhone app store to see the latest news and campus information on your mobile phone.
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| More Advantages of being a Harvard Alumni |
The Harvard Alumni Association is going to reward you for your Harvard Club of France membership!
As a member of the HCF, in 2011 you are eligible to receive Harvard Magazine at a significantly discounted annual subscription rate.
The annual subscription form is here. Register now (login required). If you need assistance please contact Harvard to initiate your individual annual subscription and continue receiving Harvard Magazine at your preferred address.
Discounted rates for International Harvard Club members are 54% off reg. subscription price: Regular annual subscription price (six issues): US $65
Harvard Club member price: US $30
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| MEMBERSHIP |  Are you a member of the HCF? If not, join us today for good times and compelling events!
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President's Welcome
Dear Members, Whether in France, in the US or elsewhere, I hope you have had a restful holiday season, and that you are now ready for another great and varied year with even more participation. Those of you who attended the Club's Holiday reception on December 15th at the George Marshall Center know by now what we mean by enjoying a good party in a glamorous venue, just across the river from the Hotel de Lassay where we hosted President Drew Faust herself a few weeks earlier. These two events were certainly some of last year's highlights. By no means should we prevent ourselves to raise our profile even higher! Let me thank again Wesley Johnson and Eric Morgan de Rivery for their generous support. The new year will be eventful and we will start 2011 with two speaking events this January : Prof. Robert Darnton, Director of Harvard University Library, will be hosted and honored by France-Amériques on January 12th. HCF members are of course invited to both the talk and reception. On 27th, Committee member Carine Barco has organized a wonderful "women only" coaching lunch with Chine Lanzman. Please register online through our user-friendly amiando system. We are also talking to a number of Harvard personalities-some Paris-based, others visiting-and are hope to deliver more good news shortly. On the Executive Committee, we have welcomed a new member this month: Elizabeth Kan, who has been a very active member of our community and organized several high-profile cultural and artistic events. In this issue we are also welcoming guest writer, Kalle Heikkinen, MBA´91, HAA Director of Europe, who expresses his thoughts on priorities for this region and some HCF successes other clubs could follow. Please refer to Kalle's letter at the end of this newsletter. Thank you, Kalle, for these insights. Let me conclude by saying farewell to our good friend Burhan Gafoor, Singapore's former Ambassador to France and a member of our Honorary Board. He and his wife Zarina have returned home after several happy years in Paris. We wish them a wonderful landing. I wish all of you a fantastic 2011 and look forward to seeing you often at our events throughout the year. Best regards, Philippe Le Corre President of the Harvard Club of France France Amériques
9, Avenue Franklin Roosevelt, Paris
Web: http://www.harvardclub.fr/ |
Event Pictures: Jeu de Paume, Drew Faust & Holiday!
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| After much long awaited anticipation, here are the pictures to the exciting Open House at the Jeu de Paume, the celebrated dinner with Harvard president Drew Faust and the Holiday World Party.
PICTURES OF THE JEU DE PAUME OPEN HOUSE:
54 Photos by Elsa Dufayard High-quality prints of the photos can be purchased here:
http://www.jingoo.com/elsa-dufayard
To access to the private album, just enter in the upper box "Acces aux albums privés":
Identifiant: ED27-jeudepaume
Mot de passe: harvard PICTURES OF THE DREW FAUST DINNER: And here is the link to the album of the event at Hotel de Lassay on 24/11/10 in the presence of Drew Faust, President of Harvard : http://www.jingoo.com/elsa-dufayard To access to the private album, just enter in the upper box "Acces aux albums privés":
Identifiant : ED27-HCF241110 Mot de passe : harvard
PICTURES OF THE HARVARD WORLD HOLIDAY PARTY: http://www.jingoo.com/elsa-dufayard To access to the private album, just enter in the upper box "Acces aux albums privés": Identifiant : ED27-harvard-12-2010 Mot de passe : harvard As always, you can view selected pictures from each event on our website: harvardclub.fr |
Calling All Harvard Professors!
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| If you (our dear readers) have any connections with a Harvard professor, please let us know! Many of them travel to Paris and we would love to see if they might have availability to speak for us during their stay.
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A Bon Voyage to an Executive Committee member
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 If you have been to any one of the HCF events then you have probably met Carole Gardner, our Vice President for Membership. Carole, when not busy creating a fun and memorable event or membership outreach campaign, works as the Director of Marketing USA Development in the Garnier International division of L'Oreal SA. She has been working in Paris for the past two years in international product development. Before this she was working for two years for L'Oreal in New York. Prior to graduating from Harvard Business School, Carole worked 4 years for Accenture in their strategy practice in New York City. She graduated from Duke University magna cum laude with degrees in economics and international development.
Not only does Carole have an impressive array of professional accomplishments to date, but more importantly, her leadership role in the Harvard Club of France has garnered even more acknowledgement. As the Vice President for Membership, Carole initiated and spearheaded the planning of many high-profile events that were extremely well-received by club members, such as the annual Holiday party last year and the Open House in February 2010. Not only has she succeeded in making HCF more cohesive internally, but she has also actively and consistently expanded club membership.
All Carole's hard work has culminated in another promotion, taking her back to New York. She will be leaving before springtime, therefore, it is without exaggeration to say that Carole will be deeply missed by the rest of the team, and we sincerely wish her the best of luck in all her future endeavors in New York.
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A Letter to Harvard Club of France From HAA Finland
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| HAA Director Letter to Harvard Club of France
From Kalle Heikkinen, MBA´91, HAA Director of Europe
First of all, let me congratulate Harvard Club of France for being one of the outstanding leaders among the European Harvard Clubs in programming and governance. A good example of this was the recent Harvard President Drew Faust's visit in Paris that I heard was one the best organized Harvard presidential visits ever.
Let me first tell a bit about myself. My Harvard background includes founding Harvard Club of Finland in 1996, and serving as its president 1996-2010. During this time we grew from a modest start to a club of more than 120 dues paying members, implying that almost 90 percent of the Finnish alumni population are now dues paying members of HC Finland. We were recognized in 2007 as the Outstanding Harvard Club of the Year by the HAA. In 2007, we also hosted HAA European Club Leaders' Meeting in Helsinki and Mustio. This background gives me a good platform in my current role as a Director for Europe to support European clubs in becoming even more successful in their club operations. I am Harvard MBA Class of 1991F. Professionally I serve as a managing partner at Nordic Adviser Group, a strategy firm that I established in 1998. Before that I was at McKinsey in Copenhagen and Chicago. I also serve on many boards of public and private companies.
My current role as HAA Director of Europe involves servings as a conduit of information between the HAA and the 20 clubs in my region. More importantly, my role is to share best practices and assist the clubs in the issues relevant to them. My term started in 2009 and will end in 2012.
Based on my conversations with the clubs in Europe this year, three topics are now emerging as important priorities in our region. These are:
- Intergenerational networking
- Recent graduates
- Succession planning and implementation
Many of our events tend to be speaker and dinner type of events. They may feature intestering topics and speakers but the setting does not always offer enough opportunities for informal networking. In HC France, you have created an Open House concept that serves this networking purpose really
well. Another opportunity for this is HAA's Global Networking Night that typically attracts some 30 clubs around the world, including three or four from Europe. Global Networking Nights don't have any other program than just alumni meeting each other over drinks in a nice location. The next GNN is going to be on January 13th.
Getting recent graduates into club activities is another challenge faced by many European clubs. At HC Finland, I had the practice of meeting all Finnish Harvard students over coffee or sandwich whenever I was at Harvard. How this works in practice is that we always nominate one Finnish student as
our key contact. He or she then gathers Finnish students from various schools and keeps then informed through emails. Initially this requires making some calls to Admissions offices, but once the ball gets rolling and the word gets around, getting to know every Finn on campus becomes quite easy. When these Finns graduate, it is just natural for them to join the club in Finland - or elsewhere. Recently, we have expanded this on campus networking to the Swedish students, and now to other Scandinavian students by starting to organize Christmas parties and other events. When I visit Harvard at the Alumni Leadership Conference on February 3-4, we will have a Scandinavian party on the evening of February 4th.
Succession planning and implementation is an issue that many clubs are now facing. Again here HC France has set a standard with a clear procedure on how to nominate and rotate club officers in a structured way. In smaller clubs, succession implementation is sometimes a tough issue since in a club of 40-60 members there simply cannot be many people who have the competence and the time to run the club. Some presidents are stuck in their roles for extended periods. Personally, I have favored a results-based approach. As long as the events attract members, speakers are of high quality and the membership grows, there should be no forced process for succession in small clubs. In bigger clubs, there should be a clear process.
I am looking looking forward to meeting you in some HC of France or HAA activities in 2011 to discuss any issues your club may be facing.
Let me finish by wishing all HC of France members a happy and properous year 2011. Personally I am excited as we are expecting our second baby in February!
Best regards,
Kalle Heikkinen, MBA'91
HAA Director of Europe
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We hope you enjoyed this newsletter. Please send us any comments and see you at an upcoming event!
Sincerely,
Courtney Pulitzer, Club Coordinator |
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