G20 YES: concrete ideas from young entrepreneurs to leave behind the economic downturn

Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace prize-winner and founder of Grameen Bank, Shai Agassi, founder and CEO of Better Place, Emmanuel Faber, Vice Chairman of Danone, Christian Estrosi, President of Nice Côte d'Azur and Mayer of Nice, Olivier Oger, Dean of EDHEC Business School, together with many other prestigious speakers spent three days on EDHEC’s Nice Campus, from 30 October to 2 November.

400 entrepreneurs from the G20 countries met on the EDHEC Campus in Nice for the international G20 Young Entrepreneurs Summit (G20 YES), calling on the G20 Heads of State to put entrepreneurship at the forefront of the global economic revival.

Grégoire Sentilhes, President of the G20 YES, spoke on behalf of all the delegations in arguing that entrepreneurship is a key driver of innovation, growth and employment in both developed and developing countries, especially for young people.

The G20 Young Entrepreneurs identified over 200 measures that governments, associations and the private sector have introduced to remove obstacles facing entrepreneurs, and to consolidate the three pillars of dynamic entrepreneurship, in other words, fertile ‘ecosystems’, specific measures to finance business ventures at each stage of their development, and a culture that promotes risk-taking and an entrepreneurial mindset.

Guillaume Richard, Edhec graduate and Entrepreneur of the Year 2010, owner of the company, O², Sébastien Appleby, co-founder of EDHEC Business Angels, Olivier Beddeleem, Assistant Director of EDHEC’s MSC in Entrepreneurship Programme, Mohamed Hédi Charki, Director of EDHEC’s MSc in Strategy Organization Consultancy, Benoît Arnaud, Director of EDHEC Management Institute, Marie-Catherine Mars, Professor in Marketing at EDHEC, Monique Valcour, Professor in Management at EDHEC and Jean-Michel Ledru, in charge of EDHEC Business School’s incubator, all took part in the conferences and workshop during the G20 YES.

See the videos on Youtube (interviews with entrepreneurs).


The G20 YES urged the G20 leaders to acknowledge the need to support entrepreneurship in their final declaration, seeing it as a vital means to resolve the current financial crisis. The G20 YES also advised the G20 heads of state to engage in a collaborative process with the governments to develop a “Declaration of the Entrepreneur” as well as a solid action plan that will help to boost entrepreneurship across all the G20 countries.