EY

iGMO partners EY and KBC look back on the way the past year tested medium-sized companies’ resilience. How are companies handling Covid-19? How do they keep helping each other along even now? What’s the pandemic’s lasting impact? A conversation about ‘familial fuzziness’ and rediscovering the joys of entrepreneurship.

From 11 to 16 November, 40 iGMO members headed to South Africa for their annual inspiration field trip. Their aim was to take a step back from their own companies for a while and acquire some food for thought, both from academic lectures at our partner institution Stellenbosch University, and from visits to local entrepreneurs in the townships. Professor Hans Crijns: “Here, entrepreneurship is born of necessity, but at the same time it expresses something incredibly hopeful.”

We were very pleased to see one of our longest-standing partners, EY, renew his engagement with our alumni community recently. Marc Cosaert, who is the driving force behind the partnership, looks back on “25 years of shared values”.

More data is available than ever before, digital trends are popping up one after the other and disruptive business models are cannibalising the turnover of many large companies. Is this revolution a threat or an opportunity? Patrick Rottiers, CEO of EY Belgium and Marion Debruyne, Dean of Vlerick Business School, put their heads together to brainstorm data, disruption and digitalisation.

Put together the knowledge and experience of experts, academics and, especially, fellow entrepreneurs and your next ‘shot’ will be a whole lot better. Learning from each other, that is what the Impulse Centre “Growth Management for Medium Sized Enterprises” (iGMO) is all about. At the beginning of this year, Marc Cosaert, a Partner at EY, and Patrick Couttenier, Director of Corporate Banking at KBC, extended their iGMO Prime Foundation Partnership with Vlerick. They and Professor Hans Crijns explain why.

On Thursday 1st March our Brussels campus welcomed 20 companies and around 80 MBA participants for the Meet the Corporates – MBA Talent event. A workshop led by Professor Ralf Wetzel paved the way for speeding up a true connection during the networking afterwards.

Although they form a small minority of all Belgian companies with at least 10 employees, high-growth companies are making their mark on both employment and economic growth in Belgium. This is evident from the 'Belgian High Growth Monitor', an annual study by Professor Hans Crijns and researcher Yannick Dillen into the evolution and characteristics of Belgian growth companies.

When a family company makes the transition from one generation to another, it is important to maintain a good relationship and clear arrangements between active and non-active family members, across the generations. With the support of KBC and EY we research these transitions at the Centre for Family Business and organise courses such as the short programme ‘Families in Business’.