On Thursday 10 January, the 22 start-ups at EYE (EDHEC Young Entrepreneurs) to emerge from the first year of Station F met with their mentors for the first time.

As well as offering the highest-quality education, EDHEC’s strength also lies in its network of graduates. The EDHEC Alumni community brings together almost 40,000 active members.
Following a call for mentors issued by EDHEC Young Entrepreneurs and EDHEC Alumni for the EDHEC incubator at Station F in November 2017, more than 100 professionals expressed a willingness to share their experience, perspectives and advice with the developing young start-ups at EYE.

A fine opportunity to get involved and make a contribution!
Over a period of 6 months (minimum), the stated mission of the 22 selected mentors is to reinforce the support provided by EYE by drawing on their experience and accompanying these incubatee EDHEC start-ups at Station F.

Their needs (commercial strategy, marketing, communications, finance, etc.) were first identified with the aim of selecting the most appropriate mentors. And it worked! Jonathan Mompezat (EDHEC BBA 2010), founder of the start-up Graphique Generation: “We clicked straight away! As well as sharing my vision of the business, Karim [Karim Fadlallah – EDHEC 2008, Business Operations Consultant with Payplug] will be able to use his background, his network and his contacts to help me a great deal with my commercial approach.”

Camille Dewavrin (EDHEC 2008) from Tolktoo also expressed her enthusiasm: “We are delighted to be able to benefit from the experience and advice of our mentor, Romain Dutour [EDHEC 1998 – CEO of Geobravo]. Having discussions with a trusted mentor allows us to take a step back and find solutions we never would have thought of.”

This same enthusiasm is shared by the EDHEC graduates who play a voluntary role as new mentors. Raphaël Compagnion [EDHEC 2007 – former entrepreneur and now head of Tech & Digital with Edmond de Rothschild] says he is “delighted to be able to participate in this mentoring programme for the incubator, which is an excellent opportunity to support young entrepreneurs who make an active contribution to the EDHEC group’s reputation, with entrepreneurship as one of its core values.”

Arnaud Barbelet [EDHEC 2004 – Director of Agence qui Roule] is also part of this positive dynamic: “The evening the initiative was launched was a real moment of discovery and openness shared between curious mentors, entrepreneurs full of energy and an impressively motivated team at EYE. Can’t wait to continue this experience with Alexandre and Gauthier at The Good Gift.”

This first mentoring session, which benefits 22 start-ups on the incubation scheme at Station F, is an initial experiment with a view to rolling out this level of support to all of our EYE start-ups (Lille – Paris – Nice).

More about EDHEC Young Entrepreneurs, the EDHEC incubator on http://entrepreneurs.edhec.edu