our alumni

Nitin Akhade

Experience

The SESAW Workshop at IMD Switzerland was an enriching experience in learning deeply, questioning critically, sharing openly, and creating knowledge that matters.

Workshop's academic depth, engaging pedagogy, and ability to challenge our thinking, together with an inspiring cohort from eight countries, made every discussion a learning experience.

My biggest takeaway: developing the intellectual curiosity to connect scholarly rigour with real-world challenges and create knowledge that matters.

Impact

SESAW strengthened my approach to question assumptions, engage more deeply with scholarly literature, and connect academic rigour with real-world problems. It reinforced a mindset of moving beyond describing impact to understanding why and how it happens, and using those insights to create knowledge that is both academically meaningful and practically relevant.

Shreya Paudel

Experience

I found the SESAW workshop to be comprehensive, engaging, and highly effective in providing a roadmap into the world of social entrepreneurship. The community of scholars and alums from the course doing greatly inspiring work add further value to the workshop.

Impact

It encouraged me to deepen my engagement with systems thinking when talking about social entrepreneurship.

Sofia Raymond

Experience

The SESAW Workshop was a wonderful ride, the most valuable aspect in my opinion was meeting peers, and getting a whole week of nonstop bonding. Also, a very useful aspect, was that it helped develop my confidence, as a PhD Candidate. By learning the foundations of social entrepreneurship in their entirety, I feel like I can now make much more informed decisions about my research, and thus approach my work with a little bit less doubt.

Impact

The SESAW Workshop opened my eyes to the range of forms social entrepreneurship can take today, showed me what feels most pertinent, and inspired me to always commit to tackling new and more impactful projects.

Paul Vilchez

Experience

The SESAW Workshop shaped my understanding of social entrepreneurship through key literature that exposed me to diverse and critical perspectives, activities and discussions that helped me understand and question, and an open community that encouraged me to engage in these conversations. As a doctoral student, I see the workshop as an important stepping stone in my academic journey.

Impact

The workshop highlighted the importance of building a community of interest and practice. Learning how the field began and grew inspired me to contribute to these discussions and to follow my own interests as a researcher. Above all, I felt the support of the community in growing as a scholar.

Sarbinaz Nagyzkhan

Experience

The most memorable part of the SESAW Workshop was the feeling of being surrounded by the right people and being part of a safe community where I truly belong and where we share similar values. From a practical perspective, I found the guidance on structuring articles especially useful. Most importantly, I finally gained a clearer understanding of where to start and how to navigate the field. The opportunity to present my own idea and receive feedback was also super valuable.

Impact

Definitely! It helped me understand how to work with academic articles, identify the most important ideas, and know what to focus on when reviewing the literature. It also introduced me to new theories and concepts that I had not come across before and opened up new perspectives and possible directions for my research.

Pedro Tonhozi de Oliveira

Experience

I never thought it was possible to go into the depths of 50 articles in a single week. Somehow, Sophie made it not only possible but also enjoyable and memorable.

Impact

It made me realize that some of my thoughts are shared across different people, and I am not the only crazy one =D

Jeanette Ng

Experience

The Lausanne seminar was intensive, and that was where its immense value lay. A full week of concentrated reading took us across the breadth of the SE field, topic by topic. Prof. Sophie Bacq kept the pressure on our thinking throughout and pushed us to interrogate the claims we encountered. The panels gave the workshop its particular edge. Having SE scholars and practitioners in the room at close range, and being able to put questions to them directly, is not something the published work can substitute for. The cohort mattered as much. I left with meaningful connections to scholars I would not otherwise have met.

Impact

Yes. The week strengthened my critical engagement with the SE literature and exposed me to a wider range of perspectives than I had been working with. Encountering that range of approaches has made me more deliberate about the theoretical commitments underlying my own framing.

David Schroff-Spiering

Experience

I had the opportunity to participate in the seminar at a very early stage of my PhD journey. It was incredibly valuable because it gave me a comprehensive overview of the many different dimensions of social entrepreneurship and provided me with an excellent foundation for my PhD.

I also really appreciated the opportunity to present my own research and receive valuable feedback. For me, however, the most valuable aspect is the network that emerged from the seminar. At almost every conference, I meet people who have also participated in the SESAW seminar, and we continue to support one another by sharing feedback, thoughts, and new ideas.

Impact

Absolutely! My research focuses on the individual level and primarily uses quantitative methods. The SESAW seminar brought me into close contact with researchers working at different levels of analysis and using a wide range of methodological approaches. These exchanges gave me a broader perspective on the “bigger picture,” which has significantly enriched my own research and helped me consider new angles.

Simon Fokkema

Experience

I look back at it positively. I liked the high standards that were put beforehand (with a lot of difficult readings). I appreciated the insights from the other students a lot. I think the guidance/coaching of Sophie was very good.

Impact

Yes, it made more clear for me how my research relates to other research that is already out there.

Bart Leyen

Experience

I really loved my time at the 22nd SESAW Workshop in Lausanne. I still have this image in my head of arriving on the first day slightly stressed and late because a cycling race had taken over the city, and then suddenly finding myself in this beautiful place by the lake, surrounded by people who were just as excited about social entrepreneurship research as I was.

What made the week special was how deeply we could dive into the literature together. It brought back that feeling of being a student again: going to class, learning all day, continuing the conversations over dinner and drinks, exploring a new city, and being surrounded by people who enjoy learning.

And Lausanne itself became part of the experience: the lake, the views, the walks after class, and that feeling of being somewhere different for a week with a really lovely group of people. I honestly wish it had lasted a week longer.

Ludovica Castiglia

Experience

I loved the sense of community the workshop fostered, and the broad overview it gave me of the field of social entrepreneurship, which was new to me. I really valued the opportunity to engage with Sophie and Elisa, as well as other scholars, throughout the workshop, in an environment that encouraged rigorous preparation and critical reflection.

Impact

I understood The workshop helped me understand the different research topics and perspectives within the field of social entrepreneurship. This gave me a clearer view of how the research is evolving along these different directions, and gave me the chance to reflect within a community about new research questions to explore. It also shaped how I approach teaching, particularly by emphasizing the absence of universal definitions in the field, and helping me think about what critical questions students should engage with.

Dennis Imre

Experience

The seminar gave me a much more holistic perspective on social entrepreneurship. Engaging with a broad range of topics and discussing them with fellow participants and experienced researchers was particularly valuable. I also greatly appreciated the opportunity to build a network of peers and researchers in the field. Staying in touch with the people I met through the seminar and reconnecting with them at conferences has been one of the most valuable aspects of the experience.

Impact

The holistic approach to social entrepreneurship the seminar employs made me realize that my focused interest in the sub-topic of social impact had led me to pay less attention to where, how, and under which circumstances that impact emerges. The seminar helped me place my own research interests within the broader context of social entrepreneurship and think more holistically about the field. It also gave me a network I can draw on when approaching topics outside my own expertise: I now often know someone in the SESAW network who can offer a different perspective or point me in the right direction, greatly supporting and enriching my academic endeavors!

Tobias Fehr-Bosshard

Experience

I felt warmly welcome to the community even though my research and methodology have not been necessarily social entrepreneurship at the core. Beyond the intellectual prowess of the participants, what I appreciated even more, was the curiosity and willingness to explore different ways of thinking and creating impact. SESAW was not just about the content but about the experience and the relational space created. I remain in awe of how Sophie, Elisa and collaborators around them model a type of academia and personal interaction that give me hope that universities and the people around them still have the potential to help shape a more desirable future. And of course, SESAW is much more than the week but the experience of a community of practice and action. I have not been able to engage as much as I had hoped so far but it gives me confidence and joy to know that it exists.

Beyond that, I think my LinkedIn reflection still pretty much applies:

The last course towards the very tail end of my PhD journey has very likely been the most interesting and impactful to me. Last week, I had the privilege of attending the Social Entrepreneurship Doctoral Seminar (www.sedocseminar.org) organized by Sophie Bacq at IMD.

As an action researcher interested in facilitating collaborative momentum for social innovation, I was a bit uncertain whether I would "fit in". There was no need to worry as we instantly bonded as a community of PhD students driven by a shared interest in creating positive societal impact – even if we come at the topic from different angles and with different approaches. Thank you Hind BELARBI, Katharina Eichinger, Simon Fokkema, Pouya Janghorban, Bart Leyen, Torben A. Nübel, Jeanette Ng, Diana Pardo Leyva, Viktoria Unger! 🤗

It was super intense discussing 50 articles in 5 days but at the same time very rewarding to get a sense of the state of the art of academic discussions on #SocialEntrepreneurship and related fields and concepts. Many things resonated with my PhD work and were also inspiring for my future work with the St.Gallen Transformation Lab. The importance of naming and framing the phenomena we observe or impact we aim to create, how #SocialValue is negotiated between stakeholders, the potential of #InsiderSocialChangeAgents, the promise of a civic level of analysis and #CivicWealthCreation, always present tensions embraced through #ParadoxicalFrames, or the ongoing struggles with #ImpactMeasurement to name just a few. I particularly appreciated that we also explored potential challenges of social entrepreneurship, e.g. through a #SolutionismTrap.

What made the seminar a truly unique experience to me were all the things surrounding the discussions of articles. We had engaging exercises (🙌 Elisa Alt), space for deep reflexivity and connecting (🙌 Rossella Rocchino), creative summaries of the sessions by participants, as well as panels and exchanges with inspiring members of the broader #SESAW community (🙌 Emilie Romon Carnegie, Christina Hertel, Pascal Dey, Amanda N Williams, Katherine Milligan, Ash Ganzoury, Georgios Polychronopoulos, Tomoko Yokoi, Dr. Florian Hoos). And, of course, thank you Faith Chilombo Avolio for combining good vibes with flawless organization that included a mini-graduation ceremony on the roof, just when the sun broke through the clouds. ☀️

Thank you, Sophie Bacq for making this space and letting this community flourish! And, without ever having met, thank you to Tom Lumpkin for getting the seminar started all the way back in 2010. 🙌

I leave Lausanne full of gratitude, positive energy, and inspiration for continuing the work of finding ways to collaborate towards #DesirableFutures. The time is now! ⏰

Impact

Yes, in many ways! I think, particularly in the age of AI, formats of deep personal engagement both inside and outside the classroom such as SESAW are powerful exemplars of what academia is also about: Experience, embodied learning, networks of trust and of potentially taking action together. Even if probably still at the fringes, SESAW makes me feel part of a community in academia, even with my weird action research approach. This has been super important to me. And since entrepreneurship is obviously one of the key topics at a business school, such as St.Gallen, SESAW also gave me the confidence to be able to participate in discussion of what entrepreneurship does / should stand for.

Actually, we recently handed in an ENGAGE.EU proposal for an Insider Social Change Agent Summit which I would not have done, if this would not have been one of the key articles to me in SESAW – and a key article in helping me understand how I would conceptualize my own role at my university.

I also hosted a breakout session on action research for desirable futures at EGOS this year and got to talk to a fellow action-research-curious researcher and in talking felt like based on her interests and approach I should definitely recommend her to look at SESAW. At which point she mentioned that she already took it twice! :-) It is fun and meaningful to have this sense of connection.

Alexander Nuer ‍- Participant in 2013 and 2024

Experience

The networking, new insights, mentoring and learning experience were the most valuable, useful and memorable…. In my case, 2024 was a reconnection and uplifting in rebuilding my career pathway after being off for over a decade

Impact

Sure, I learnt new tools and ways of research, new pedagogy and volumes of approaches in advancing my teaching, research and community service

Nele Marie Terveen

Experience

A sense of community, like family, that stays.
Sophie and Tom are special persons that make you feel belong, and make your group creat that belonging in a lasting sense.

Impact

It gave me a new direction in terms of how to structure the field of social entrepreneurship. I still go back to the readings three years after.

Anne-Sophie Sabbatucci

Experience

The SESAW Workshop was an incredibly enriching experience. It offered a deep dive into social entrepreneurship research, from seminal work to emerging hot topics, while also creating space for thought-provoking conversations about how we can conduct research that matters. What has stayed with me most, however, is the community. SESAW has built a rare environment that is at once intellectually ambitious, developmental, and genuinely supportive. The monthly seminars are a safe space to push our research forward through thoughtful and constructive feedback, but also to share the academic journey with familiar faces, especially when working on topics that can be difficult, sensitive, or personally meaningful. That community extends well beyond the seminars, through conferences, workshops, opportunities, and an incredibly active network where people generously share papers, ideas, and advice. Sophie, Tom, and Elisa have done/ are doing a wonderful job of creating not just a research community, but a real support system and springboard for scholars who want to grow in this field. I am incredibly thankful!

Impact

It definitely changed my understanding of how important it is to share this research journey with others. Research can be tough and, at times, quite lonely, and finding people who understand that experience is incredibly important. SESAW made me realize how much having that sense of community matters, not only for developing better research, but also for finding the energy and motivation to keep going. Thank you, thank you!

Jeanne Roche

Experience

What stayed with me the most was the quality of the conversations we had during the seminar, made possible mostly by the format: we actually read all the papers in advance over the course of several weeks, summarizing the key ideas and links between papers, and only then came together to discuss, already deep in the material, with our notes, instead of improvising on the spot. As a consequence, the discussions we had during the seminar were of very high quality. It’s also what made the people side so meaningful: I met wonderful friends there, but especially wonderful people to work with.

Impact

From the seminar I discovered a way of working with the literature that made me progress a lot. Instead of getting lost in the minutiae and idiosyncrasies of each paper, I learned to take a manageable set of seminal papers on a topic and really interrogate what they're truly about: what's the big picture, what questions do they address, and which ones they leave unanswered. That equipped me for every literature review I've had to do since, and made the exercise far more enjoyable and playful instead of overwhelming.

Georgios Polychronopoulos

Experience

The SESAW Workshop is an amazing space to receive feedback on your research and provide feedback on the work of others. More than that, it creates a genuine sense of belonging to a community of like-minded colleagues who support one another, reconnect at conferences, collaborate on research, and help each other grow as scholars.

Impact

The SESAW Workshop showed me the value of presenting research at an early stage and getting different perspectives while ideas are still developing. It showed me how constructive feedback early in the research process can help shape the direction of a paper and strengthen its theoretical contribution and broader relevance.

Anonymous participant

Experience

This seminar was absolutely taught at a higher level than previous ones I have attended during my doctoral training. This may be to a certain extent that most of us had finished out required coursework and had that background. Some even had completed their degrees.

Impact

The seminar raised the level I hold myself to as a scholar. Working through the literature closely, writing summaries and discussion questions before each session, and then defending those readings with people who knew the field well showed me the difference between having read something and being able to argue with it. It really increased my ability to do my own research.

Ace Beorchia

Experience

As a doctoral student, this seminar gifted me a valuable cohort of peers, a strong connection to senior scholar mentors, and a deep understanding of social entrepreneurship's history and potential future in academia.

Impact

At a micro level, I learned deeply the core theories, studies, and past/future of social entrepreneurship research. From a macro level, this seminar provided a rich understanding of how an academic field grows and develops. Super valuable and transferrable knowledge!

Esther Salvi

Reflection

I still have vivid memories of the SE seminar in 2019 in Cambridge, it was the first year of my PhD, and this was one of the best opportunities I could get! The seminar enabled me to develop strong theoretical foundations and a deep understanding of the SE field early on in my journey. And, above all, it helped me build meaningful relationships that continue to shape my work today. I always recommend the SE seminar to young scholars as this is more than a course, it is really a community, which is growing organically (year after year) without losing its essence: a critical interest in the "social" side of entrepreneurship, and a genuine attitude toward collaboration, rigorous contributions, mutual support, and friendship.

Eva Alexandra Jakob

Reflection

The seminar helped me to structure my mind and broaden my understanding of social entrepreneurship. And, the best: I have life-long connections to interesting and exceptional people.

Chad Coffman

Reflection

One of the main strengths of the class, for me, was the size. It was the perfect number of people to introduce a variety of perspectives, while allowing everyone to share their thoughts. The atmosphere you create by encouraging/directing the discussion really made it engaging.

Claudia Moura Romero

Reflection

SESAW opened up a whole new world for me as a doctoral student. It introduced me to social entrepreneurship, sparked my curiosity, and gave me space to explore and develop my research interests. Over time, I came to realize that it was much more than a course: it was a community of curious people with shared interests, where we could continue learning, evolving, and growing together as scholars.

Thierry Amslem

Reflection

Would I recommend the course to a colleague? YES. It is so rare to find a place where SE research is approached well… I really enjoyed the structure and content of the 10 sessions.