Our good friend and PED15 colleague Sergio Gargioni recently visited IMD, in a combined duty call to other Swiss organizations. Sergio is President of CONFAP – a Brazilian non-profit organization created in 2006 to articulate national interests from his country’s State Research and Innovation Support Foundations, among other goals. Sergio also presides the Santa Catarina State Funding Agency for Science Technology and Innovation (FAPESC) – one of the 26 members that compose CONFAP.

SNF and CONFAP Agreement

During his one-week journey late last April in Switzerland he signed a cooperation agreement with the Suisse National Science Foundation at Bern and visited other research institutions such as EPFL, ETH Zurich - ranked among the top universities in the world, CSEM Neuchatel - a private, non-profit Swiss research and technology organization focused on generating value for a sustainable world, and the Geneva University, among other academic and research organizations.

EPFL: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.
ETH: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, in German: Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich.
CSEM: The Centre Suisse d'Electronique et de Microtechnique.

Sergio in the News

Over the years our colleague Sergio has carved himself an interesting and commendable position in Brazil as a promoter and leader in Science and Technology research.

In connection with his visit, Sergio was part of a jury selecting Brazilian startups to cooperate with similar Swiss initiatives. His key objective of the mission was to broaden cooperation between the two countries in the fields of Science Technology and Innovation, visiting key institutions and arranging a seminar at EPFL to evaluate existing projects.
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Visiting IMD

Also, an IMD believer of the Institute’s “Real World. Real Learning” slogan, Sergio has after PED15 returned to IMD many times for various courses. The latest one being OWP in 2006 even though he visited the premises in 2011 for a short meeting.

Last, but not least, in Sergio’s agenda one of the salient topics was a meeting with Johan Goeva (above) – Alumni’s Director and naturally with Bob Collins.
With Johan, Sergio explored the idea of organizing Alumni Committees associated to the Alumni Clubs for mentoring high tech startups.

OWP: Orchestrating Wining Performance
Picture

“Bob is doing fine as you can see in the picture, still advising MBA projects and IMD’s Singapore cooperation”, Sergio comments, “pointing at Bob’s gentle and always interesting topics for conversation, as we recall from our time at IMD”.
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Perhaps it is now worth going back in time and rephrase Bob’s remarks on December 16, 2008, when Professor Xavier Gilbert was officially retiring from IMD after 37 years of service. On the occasion, Professor Bob Collins, one of Xavier Gilbert’s colleagues from the early years, reminded everyone present of the latter’s “bon mots” (good words) that have become legendary at the school. Bob said: “In addition to the quote Telling is not teaching and listening is not learning, another one is particularly appropriate in these difficult times: It is precisely during times of adversity that companies cannot afford to neglect their people.
Look at it this way: Why is a company in trouble in the first place? Is it really only the fault of the economic environment? Were the employees perfectly competent? In reality, being in trouble points to an urgent need to learn. Saying that learning is a luxury is about the same as saying that breathing is a luxury."

“IMD is still doing fine but with overcapacity” noted Sergio, just before the business school’s Supervisory Board announced the appointment of Jean-François Manzoni as the next President of IMD, starting January 1st, 2017, for a five-year term.
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Looking at today’s world of financial, political instability and social unrest, Bob’s comments on learning and Sergio´s role in the research field become paramount for the betterment of communities, regions and whole countries.
​A wonderful encounter, where Bob's special attachment to our group emerged in his comments to Sergio "...wishing you luck in your endeavors and trusting PED15 colleagues maintain their periodical reunions, even if in smaller groups".
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