ENTREPRENEURSHIP
our female students understand that this is a path that they can pursue,” Delmar elucidates. “We have mandatory classes where we teach entrepreneurship, but we also need to rethink what it means be an entrepreneur, in a way that is independent of your gender. This ties into a broader issue of how we can be more inclusive,” the Emlyon institute director notes. The school’s dean believes that one way forward lies with showcasing the examples and experiences of existing female entrepreneurs. “Our scholars work on this topic a lot and what I know is that we are lacking in female role models at the moment. We need more female entrepreneurs to promote the entrepreneurial spirit among women,” Huault reflects. The benefits of accelerated development With the total number of female students at Emlyon already outnumbering their male counterparts, the aim is to include them in all the school’s entrepreneurial activities and opportunities from the outset. In this, the Projet de Création d’Entreprise (Business Creation Project), or PCE, is one tool at the disposal of the school and its new institute. A well-known course at the school, it asks around 1,500 students each year to create their own business in teams right at the start of their programme. “They might think we’re crazy, but we really want to push them,” says Delmar. “The PCE concept exists in other schools, such as Babson. The idea is basically to say: “You don’t know anything? We don’t care. Here is a team of people that you have never met before. Go out, start your own business and come back next week to tell us what you have done.”” He continues: “They go through the course and doubt us every step of the way, but they come out of it having completed a business plan presentation, or similar and they say, “I never learned so much in such a short time about myself, about working in a team and about business.” It accelerates their learning – they discover a lot about what they want to do in the future, whether that’s entrepreneurship or not.” Regardless of their ambitions, Delmar pinpoints two key attributes that he feels all business students will need to walk away with: the ability to learn and the ability to embrace change. “Learning to learn is important because we are living in an environment where increasingly, we see rapid changes,” he observes. “As is the ability to adapt and see opportunities where other people might see problems… to see change as something positive and understand that while others might not view it in the same way, a leader’s responsibility is to not leave anyone behind and ensure a positive experience and outcome for everyone in their team and company.” A new institute housed within a new campus that has created a buzz about the school is the kind of change that seems set to yield a positive outcome at Emlyon. Notably, for Delmar, it allows the school to add some colour to its existing expertise and offerings around entrepreneurship and innovation, as well as to meet the needs of its students, alumni and wider business community.
Incubator director Alexander Bell discussed Emlyon’s programmes of entrepreneurial education and support
founders, of whom approximately 70 per cent are male and 30 per cent are female. Here however, Bell and Delmar advise, the problem lies not with the numbers gaining admission into incubator and accelerator programmes, such as those available at Emlyon, but far earlier; in the mind’s eye of what students feel they can achieve in their careers and life. “Entrepreneurship is commonly held up as one of the last professions that has in the main failed to adequately address the gender issue whereas in, say, medicine or engineering, you increasingly see more of a balance. This is an issue we hope to tackle but what we do know is that [the gap] happens at the early stages. We often talk about ‘stand up’, ‘start up’, ‘scale up’ and the problem really lies with the stand-up part, making sure that
Ambition • ISSUE 1 • 2025 29
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