ESADE Alumni Around the World: Gustavo Gracia and Toni Martínez, president and former president of the ESADE Alumni Singapore Chapter

"ESADE Alumni is a great source of interesting people from all around the world, especially in Singapore, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Asia."

Gustavo Gracia, President of the ESADE Alumni Singapore Chapter and Asia Pacific Operations Manager in FACI Singapore, and Toni Martínez, Former President of the ESADE Alumni Singapore Chapter and Vice President, Head Internal Audit - DKSH Holding Ltd. are interviewed by ESADE in Singapore.  

How do international chapters help ESADE graduates who live outside of Spain?

Gustavo Gracia: In the Singapore Chapter, we have more than 10 different nationalities, which allows us to provide a broad and varied approach to ESADE students, other alumni and even chapter board members. Our first priority is to support the alumni who live here, help them keep in contact with each other, organise networking meetings, announce interesting events via social networks, etc. Our Chapter is very multicultural.

Toni Martinez: The essence of being international is that you are in a country (or series of countries) different from your own; every time your career leads you to such a country you start anew in many ways. The benefit of ESADE’s international chapters is that they offer you the opportunity to immediately connect with a group of people who share a common background and experience rooted in ESADE, and who have already gathered knowledge about your new environment. This can significantly speed up your professional and social adaptation. As Gustavo pointed out, the ESADE Alumni Singapore Chapter is incredibly diverse and it is great that such a diverse group has come together around our common ESADE background.

What motivates you to strengthen ESADE’s alumni network?

Gustavo: My main motivation is meeting people with diverse backgrounds and expectations. ESADE Alumni is a great source of interesting people from all around the world, especially in Singapore, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Asia. Sharing professional and personal experiences with them makes this job really motivating.

Toni: I think it’s the emotional attachment to ESADE and a genuine interest in being part of – and contributing to – the ESADE alumni network and all the opportunities it offers.

What are the goals of the Executive Board of the ESADE Alumni Singapore Chapter?

Gustavo: The main goal is to strengthen bonds among our members, but always while trying to have fun with everything we do as a Chapter. At the end of the day, many of us are far away from our home, friends and relatives. I like to think we have set up our own community of friends thanks to ESADE.

As someone who is pursuing a career in a country like Singapore, what value do you see in your status as an ESADE alumnus?

Toni: I think the education we gained at ESADE gave us solid technical knowledge and a great range of soft skills such as adaptability and a strong work ethic. These characteristics are essential to succeeding in a professional environment like Singapore that is competitive and extraordinarily diverse. ESADE prepares you for that and it also gives you an extraordinary alumni network to contribute to and benefit from. In 2008, we worked with Mary Granger (Regional Director, Asia) to create the ESADE Asia Pacific Network group on LinkedIn. The group now has about 800 members, all with ties to ESADE and living or working in Asia.

Your Chapter is very active and its members are very involved. How do you manage that?

Gustavo: We always try to have a positive approach and a self-motivating attitude as much as we can. Most importantly, we try to maintain close collaboration with all of our board members, keeping everybody involved in the decision-making process.

Toni: We started trying to organise the ESADE Alumni Network in Singapore in 2008; I remember that only five alumni came to the first dinner that September. At the time, we were not even sure how many ESADE graduates there were in Singapore. We spent some time trying to identify as many of them as possible. We were pleasantly surprised to find that there were already quite a few ESADE alumni in Singapore, some of whom had lived here for 20 years! However, there had never been much effort to get them together, so our first priority was to organise events that could attract their interest and bring them together. Mary Granger visited Singapore a few times each year and we organised alumni meetings every time she came. That worked wonders. When she proposed the creation of the ESADE Alumni Singapore Chapter in September 2009, we organised an official launch dinner at the Raffles Hotel that was attended by 20 people. Thereafter, we tried to leverage every opportunity to stay connected to ESADE in Barcelona. We organised alumni events whenever a professor or group of students was in town. Our group grew relatively quickly and new people came along. Most remarkably, Gustavo got fully involved as soon as he arrived in Singapore just over two years ago and has become the chapter’s true driving force. Gustavo gradually took over the chapter’s presidency last year and I think his new ideas and energy are key to the chapter’s continued success.