This year the PUB 99 alumni made a class donation for the first time. Two of them, Ann De Raedt and Philip Taillieu, came to talk to us: what was their approach? And, above all, what impact do they want their donation to have?
Philip Taillieu: “53 people graduated from our course in 1999. A dozen of us organise a weekend away every year. It is there that we came up with the idea of organising a bigger reunion after 25 years. Organisation committees don’t work, so I took this on. For GDPR reasons, Vlerick couldn’t give us any addresses, but I managed to contact all but four of the PUB alumni in our year through LinkedIn and other channels. After that, it was simple: I just added everyone to a WhatsApp group and gave them the date and venue.”
Ann De Raedt: “Vlerick’s General Director, Patrick De Greve, came to that reunion to tell us about the school as it is today. Alexandre Segers explained the rationale behind Vlerick’s fundraising activities. He also outlined the context of a class donation, which would be used to fund a scholarship. The fees are quite a bit higher now than they were in our day, so the willingness was there to contribute to a class donation of this kind.”
Philip Taillieu: “That’s right. On the evening of the reunion, I asked who might be willing to donate. I created a second WhatsApp group for them – we didn’t want to offend those who didn’t wish to participate. In the second group, I briefly explained the concept and practical details again. Each of us could contribute an amount of our choice on Vlerick’s donation platform and obtain a tax certificate there if necessary. We felt that it was important for everyone to decide for themselves how much to donate; we didn’t want to turn it into a competition. We did let people know every now and then how much we had raised so far, and kept the first WhatsApp group informed too. We ended up with a nice donation of 12,450 euros.”
Ann De Raedt: “That amount will pay for a scholarship for Tanja Impens and Senne Desmet (see box text, Ed.). It’s encouraging to get feedback on the impact of our donation, especially since we would like in future to make this donation a regular thing. We want to keep that renewed formal contact with the school alive.”
Ann De Raedt: “That year at Vlerick was so intense. You learn to reason differently, you form close friendships and you learn a lot from each other. You learn to appreciate the skills and abilities that someone else has, when you don’t possess them so much yourself. That still comes in handy in my current role.”
Philip Taillieu: “You gain self-confidence, but at the same time you push yourself to your limits. I met Jan Cools at Vlerick, with whom I founded Be-Mobile. Vlerick gives you the tools, mindset and network to turn your dream into a plan. This class donation enables us to do exactly the same thing: give a student the opportunity to turn a dream into a plan. We’re coming full circle.”
Ann De Raedt: “In 2020, Medina Medical Lab merged with the French Biogroup. As well as helping to define the group’s strategy, I am mainly involved in business development for Medina in Belgium. Medina has always aimed to be more than just a medical lab that delivers fast and reliable results. Fidlab focuses more on preventive medicine in co-creation with our doctors, and giving patients a better understanding of their health. That sounds simple, but it will take time. Fidlab’s approach is medical and not commercial. So we have to do our promotion and communication through universities and professors.”
Philip Taillieu: “My dream is also in the medical sector. After selling Be-Mobile to Proximus, we diversified our business activities between real estate and private equity. And I founded a new company in 2021, Cascador Health,, which is a consultation platform for medical data. On our platform, pharmaceutical companies can run queries on anonymised medical data from hospitals, labs, doctors and health insurance companies. This allows them to optimise their research and find out which combinations of treatments yield the best results. We have projects running in several European countries. For example, we currently have a project in the field of immunology, which involves fifteen hospitals from all over Europe sharing their data with a consortium of three pharmaceutical companies. I’m so excited about it!”
Tanja Impens is a civil engineer specialised in machine learning. “I was raised by my Colombian mother. My Belgian father supported us financially, but he died in 2019. During my studies, I participated in an exchange project with Hong Kong and worked on innovative projects, as well as doing volunteering in Sri Lanka. Most of all, I’d like to work in the tech industry, in a multicultural setting, and have an impact on society at the same time. I hope to be able to lay the foundations for that with my Masters in General Management, Business Analytics & AI Track.” | Senne Desmet studied Applied Economic Sciences. “My parents both work hard, but it’s a challenge for them to afford higher education at Vlerick. I always paid for my life outside my studies at KU Leuven by working, investing and saving. This scholarship for my Masters in Financial Management will give me some financial breathing space. I’m the first in my family to study to this level, and I’m determined to prove that it really can be done.” |
Do you want to reunite with your classmates and reconnect with the place that shaped who you are today? Download the class reunion playbook and contact us to celebrate a milestone reunion.