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your School work to prepare students and alumni to survive and thrive? We focus on preparing students to work in agile teams that are able to adapt to new developments swiftly, moving away from hierarchy and control to positively influencing different stakeholders in their ecosystem. To do this, we may sometimes have to give up on short-term gains in order to contribute to the long-term goals of the wider ecosystem, realising that the ecosystem can only grow if all members are also willing to give up on short-termism. Can you outline the background to the launch of Young & Bold? What was the impetus for this and was it driven by the School or the students and alumni? During all Nyenrode programmes, we have a lot of young people working on projects aiming to make the world a better place and deal with our scarce resources in a more sustainable way. Unfortunately, by the time the MBA, or master’s, has finished these projects have often disappeared. The projects had no follow up and this was my reason for inviting students and alumni to initiate Young & Bold in order to combine forces and to continue working on these projects. The aim is also to open things up for a larger community of people to join us in making a positive impact on society with concrete projects. The business arena has a need for combining the strengths of young people and professionals to bring their ideas alive and have others join them in making their dreams of contributing to making the world a better place come true.
t’s official. Meaningful work that helps others is of more value to a growing and vocal proportion of workforce than the salaries they earn. According to the UN’s 2020 World Youth Report : ‘Youth are increasingly demanding greater inclusion and meaningful engagement and are taking action to address development challenges themselves, including through social entrepreneurship.’ In response to these findings – and based on her own experience of working with people on projects aiming to positively impact society – Désirée van Gorp hopes to create a trailblazing global movement with the engagement of a group of MBA students from Nyenrode Business University. She has set up an organisation enabling people of all ages to come together and work on projects to make their community and society a better place. The organisation, Young & Bold, has set itself the ultimate goal of creating a digital ecosystem where professionals, students, academics, entrepreneurs, NGOs, and others can build a network with like- minded individuals and work together towards solving social impact issues that they care about: creating a positive bubble. Through this network, it plans to run programmes, campaigns, and events that help people build leadership skills and establish a network of allies through which they can make a lifelong impact. Ambition spoke to van Gorp to find out more about the initiative and to get her thoughts on how she and her students plan to take the platform to the next level. What are the biggest challenges facing international Business Schools and their graduates? Where does social impact fit into this? Social impact is increasingly important, and companies need to define their relevance for the future in a purpose-driven way. In other words, what is their positive impact on society? Business Schools should educate their students in such a way that they take the responsibility and are enabled to lead in making a positive impact on society, while making money and being successful at the same time. In a climate defined by increasing volumes of uncertainty and disruption, how does
What are the values and goals of the movement?
The mission is simply uniting the young and bold for a better world. We want to enable people to achieve their ambition to be a factor of change for good, and feel confident with the competence and skills necessary to provide their assistance and support to companies in need of their talent. As a non-profit organisation, Young & Bold aspires to be the platform that ambitious professionals (students and entrepreneurs) will
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