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Credits Inner Circle

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Regent’s University London is a registered charity with surpluses reinvested for the benefit of its students.

Andy Harris Sarah Lewis

Inner Circle is produced by the Development and Alumni Relations Team to keep you in touch with Regent’s University London

David Whitaker

Head of Development & Alumni Relations

Contributors Tim Jackson Mikko I Arevuo Dr Elias Boukrami Mira Sula Rachel Kelly Lorna Walker Jon Gracey Irene Uwejeyah Paul Corral Illustration Eleni Kalorkoti Thai Padley aka ThunderPad the Mighty Photography Bex Singleton Geoff Crawford Contact Us Development and Alumni Relations Regent’s University London Inner Circle, Regent’s Park London NW1 4NS +44 (0)20 7487 7700 alumni@regents.ac.uk www.regents.ac.uk

© Inner Circle. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or part of any photograph, text or illustration without permission from the publisher is prohibited. Due care is taken to ensure the content of Inner Circle is fully accurate, but the publisher cannot accept liability for ommissions or errors. This magazine can be made available in larger print or alternative formats for people with visual impairment or dyslexia. Please contact the Alumni Relations Team for further information, on 020 7487 7793 or by e-mail to alumni@regents.ac.uk.

Content Vision 2

Regent’s Club

Foreword by David Whitaker, Head of Development and Alumni Relations

Regent’s Club Istanbul gets off to a stylish start.

Danilo Antonelli and Ebba Nogeman Körner

Instafamous 24

Regent to Regent’s

Regent’s Charity Fashion Show, Model United Nations and a visit from some special alumni.

Amata Chittasenee shares her techniques for gaining followers on social media networks and using them to your advantage.

This photography project marks the first collaboration between Regent’s University London and Regent High School.

Asil Attar

Digital Skills Gap

Regent’s Network

University News

Scholarship Student Profiles 38

Alumna and global fashion expert tells us how she is nurturing the next generation of talented designers.

Programme director Lorna Walker, explains how modern marketing courses must stay relevant.

Join a creative company comprised of and run by Regent’s University London alumni and students.

Jackie Zulich

Your News

Capitalism Under Siege

Read the thoughts of Senior Lecturer, Mikko I Arevuo, on the state of modern capitalism.

This entrepreneurial alumna combined a passion for diamonds and a head for business to establish a unique luxury brand.

Alumni Dragons’ Den

Philip Ozouf

Niko Michault

A leading light of the EBS class of 1993 spoke to us on his return to Regent’s. Is Oil a Commodity or More Than That?

We spoke to the founder and artist manager at PUSH Music Management about digital piracy, exciting new artists and the advice he has for young entrepreneurs. Black Rainbow

Rachel Kelly explains how she used poetry as personal therapy and inspiration for her new book.

Migrant Woman

Cracking the Fringe

PhD student Mira Sula tells us about the launch of a new magazine aimed at telling the stories of successful migrant women.

Alumni Events

Expert analysis comes from our programme director for MSc Oil & Gas Trade Management, Dr Elias Boukrami. 20

See photos from our fourth annual Alumni Dragons’ Den, hosted as part of the Regent’s Arts Festival

Regent’s alumnus Jon Gracey has shared with us an exclusive excerpt from his new book that details how to stage a successful show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. An Actor’s Life for Me

British actor and Regent’s alumnus Joseph Hayward reflects on his journey to New York City and reveals his secrets to maintaining a successful acting career.

Vision

, Noelle Reno and Luke Levene Our fiercest dragons: Hardeep Rai, Judy Piatkus

Regent’s alumnus York Zucchi (EBSL) recently joined with other alumni in welcoming this coming year’s new students with a friendly postcard. He used the phrase, “Welcome to Regent’s global family.” And I wanted to reflect on what that means and how we give it value both here at Regent’s and throughout our worldwide community. I see every day real benefits to our students, to our alumni and to our university of the David Whitaker close relationship that has developed over Head of Development and the years between our alumni and Regent’s. Alumni Relations We’ve sustained this close-knit family by Regent’s University London launching and growing our community of Regent’s Clubs all over the globe (just this year we have launched in Düsseldorf, Istanbul, Hamburg, Miami, Shanghai and Vienna). These clubs bring together not only alumni - not only of our constituent schools but also those who have been visiting students with us over the years, and now we are pleased to welcome alumni of American Intercontinental University London, which Regent’s incorporated in 2013 to form the basis of its new school of Fashion & Design on our second campus at 110 Marylebone High Street. And they support us in reaching out to a new generation of prospective students by collaborating with our senior international officers as they travel to meet new applicants. Alumni have been sharing their experience of Regent’s and what it meant to them in Stockholm, Mumbai, New Delhi, Moscow and Dubai this year. They are helping Regent’s make its case for a unique brand of education with a distinctive international character, and they are reaching out to a new generation on the cusp of making life-changing decisions. And here at Regent’s, we welcome back alumni more often now than at any time in our history. Not only to encourage them to catch up with tutors and friends in familiar surroundings or to recapture a spirit and memory of their time here, but also to support and nurture our students. Whether as mentors, joining us to work one-to-one with our talented postgraduates, as panellists in our awesome Alumni Dragons’ Den putting young entrepreneurs through their paces, like Luke Levene (EBSL), Judith Piatkus (SPCP), Noelle Reno (RACL) and long-standing friend of Regent’s Hardeep Rai (pictured here at their meanest, moodiest, no-nonsense best ahead of interrogating this year’s intrepid pitchers), or as guest speakers like Philip Ozouf (EBSL) who took time out from his exceptionally busy role as Treasury Minister of Jersey to give our students and staff an insight into the challenges facing the Financial Centre of Jersey. I’d like to reach out to you, wherever you are reading this, and ask you to join the growing number of our alumni who are no longer the long-lost aunts and uncles of the Regent’s family but regular visitors, getting to know the newest members of the family, whether by joining your local Regent’s Club to meet new graduates or prospective students, offering internships and seeing at first-hand how the brightest and best of the new generation are putting into practice all that they are taught, or even supporting a shining new talent by establishing a scholarship. Drop me a line today – let’s get the family together!

Regent’s Charity Fashion Show Regent’s wins top award at 50th International Collegiate Business Strategy Competition Regent’s University London students won the top award in the best documents (business plan and annual reports to shareholders) MBA category at the 50th International Collegiate Business Strategy Competition held on 24 to 26 April 2014. The event, which is considered the world’s oldest simulated business strategy competition, was attended by 34 university teams from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and China. California State University in Long Beach hosted the competition in Anaheim, California. The six-member team ‘Britain Insight’ was led by MA Global Management student Walter Strecke. The other members included Julius Trentmann, Vivek Jain, Alexandra Voith, Akash Oswal and Zohra Mellouli. Faculty advisor Dr Eric Chan said: “I am very proud of our team of remarkable students as they have demonstrated great competence in a global MBA business competition and their presentations were very professionally delivered. Well done to all.”

A group of current Regent’s students organised a successful charity fashion show on 9 April. It was part of the BA International Event Management course and was organised for the Caudwell Children charity, which provides family support services, equipment, treatment and therapies for disabled children and their families across the UK. The collections were modelled by Regent’s students in front of a packed audience in Herringham Hall. The show was well received and enough money was raised to send one child and their family to the “Destination Dream”. The Regent’s Charity Fashion Show team wants to thank everyone who participated in their event.

Success for Regent’s at Model United Nations

Regent’s achieves fifth place in Bloomberg trading competition Regent’s team from the faculty of Business and Management finished fifth out of seventy-five teams from leading universities in the UK. Congratulations to Koko Aruk Egbeyemi from MSc Oil Gas Trade Management and Yu Jin from BA (Hons) Global Business Management who made more than £7,000 in 28 days of trading by taking a minimum level of risk in a capital of £100,000. The Regent’s University London team was always in the top five during this competition and Bloomberg has invited them to a corporate day visit at their head office in Finsbury Square, London. The participation has heightened Bloomberg’s interest in the programmes running at Regent’s University London and the company will also be speaking at an upcoming BA Global Management foundation event.

Thirteen students from Regent’s University London represented Egypt in thirteen committees at the National Model United Nations Conference in New York City last week. After several days of deep discussion with 2,700 students from all around the world on topics ranging from disarmament and development to peace-building in Central African Republic, the students emerged exhausted and happy after passing many of the resolutions that they spent four intense days negotiating. Additionally, two students received position paper awards: Gilmar Queiros for UNHCR and Natasha Greenwood for UNAIDS. Gilmar also received the position of Chair in UNHCR. The ultimate achievement, however, was the Honourable Mention Team Award, which indicates that our students were high performers in each and every single committee. Regent’s is incredibly proud of this group of remarkable students, as not only were they effective ambassadors for the university, but they proved themselves as leaders and global citizens.

International Partners’ Conference 2014

Every January Regent’s University London hosts the International Partners’ Conference (IPC), a three-day event looking at the issues facing international higher education. The focus of this year’s conference was transnational education (TNE) – purpose and models. The event provided a forum for over one hundred of our international partners to network and share good practice with institutions from across the globe. Following an opening keynote by Rt Hon. David Willetts MP, Minister for Universities and Science, delegates heard high-profile keynote speakers covering a wide range of topics. Our final session on the student perspective featured a panel of Regent’s alumni, Phillip Ozouf, Torquil Wheatley, Freddie Ossberg and Sofia Petkar, who shared their experiences, offering insights on a range of TNE subjects including living abroad, networking and the importance of multiculturalism while studying.

Regent’s is now a member of Universities UK Universities UK (UUK) makes a significant contribution to higher education policy and does excellent work in representing the sector at home and abroad. Regent’s University London is only the second private institution to be awarded membership and the first of any type of institution to be granted membership under the new tighter criteria that UUK introduced last year. Membership presents the university with an opportunity to work with UUK’s members and share our unique and internationally focused perspective.

Bedford College alumnae visit Regent’s

Left to right, the alumnae are: Linda Cadore, French & German 1986, Maxine Varney, French & German 1986, Julie Dodsworth, History 1985, Helen Chauncey, French 1986, Penny Loehrig, French & German 1986, Annie Tagredj, French & German 1986, Linzy Dickinson, French & German 1985

We were pleased to welcome back to Regent’s a group of Bedford College alumnae who met in the first term of their first year at Bedford College. Most were on the same course and all were residents of Hanover Lodge, which was the main student hall of residence on the Outer Circle. They happily recalled beautiful morning strolls through Regent’s Park to the college for lectures and the peace and tranquillity of the campus so close to all the excitement and buzz of central London. After graduation they all headed off in different directions to build careers and families – to France and to Germany as well as to different parts of the UK. The visit was organised by Maxine Varney (French & German Class of 1986) who was very happy to return. She added:

“Whilst we now all lead very different lives, the bond of our wonderful time at university led to an enduring friendship that the group has kept alive through various get-togethers and a steady stream of news bulletins over the years. As we all celebrated our 50th birthdays, it seemed appropriate to return to the place we met. Regent’s University London is far more elegant than Bedford College ever was – when we were students the place was distinctly shabby – but the romance of the buildings and the serenity of the grounds were very much as they always had been. Many thanks to David Whitaker for welcoming us to Regent’s and for facilitating such a memorable visit.”

Alumni Profile Asil Attar

Asil Attar is CEO at Lead Associates and a global fashion expert, based in Dubai, who has been representing labels such as Alexander McQueen, Dolce & Gabbana, Dries Van Noten, Harrods and Giorgio Armani in the Middle East for over 15 years. She was born in Baghdad in 1969, an Iraqi with Persian and Indian roots. From a family of engineers, architects and artists, Attar moved to London at a very young age. She returned to the Middle East for one year at the age of 12, where, under the guidance of her mother and the pressure of being educated in an all-Arabic school, she learnt to speak fluent Arabic. Her UK education continued when she completed her degree in Interior Design at American Intercontinental University – now a part of Regent’s University London Asil’s significant retailing experience sheds light on interesting regional distinctions in consumption patterns and demand for fashion and luxury brands across the Middle East. Dubai, for example, is a retail hub and shopping destination, as she explains: “Whereas at one point it may not have been a priority for franchise partners or retailers or brands to come out here, certainly over the last five years it’s been more a focus for them because they recognise this is a dynamic buoyant market and that the demographic that shops there is actually all centralised here. Dubai is a gateway to Asia and more and more brands choose to have flagships here.” A key factor in Dubai’s reputation as a shopping and tourist destination is its development of extravagant retail and leisure facilities. The two principal malls are Dubai Mall and Mall of the Emirates, both of which, she explains, have acted as magnets for fashion brands: “These two malls have been strategic for the region.” However, accessing the right real estate is not easy for brands as they always focus on the prime zones: “Every brand wants to be located in that ‘golden mile’. It kind of slows down the pace of brands being here because there is a waiting list. Everybody wants to be next to the luxury anchor, or in a certain square footage or area.” While other large developments are planned, such as Saadiyat Island, Dubai Mall is adding another one million square foot extension.

Despite this, Asil reveals a shift to community malls: “What’s also interesting is that at one point it was about the giant big-scale malls and now it’s going back to focus on the community malls. So while they (the local customers) will go to the big malls for food and beverage and entertainment, the community malls provide them with a private environment to shop.” Having recently left her corporate life running and distributing fashion brands across the region, Asil’s focus is now on pursuing her personal vision to develop the enormous local talent she sees in the Middle East. “Six or seven months ago I decided to quit my corporate world and focus on building that industry of emerging designers and labels. For me it starts with the regional designers. I am scouting the best of the Middle East and I am looking for my future McQueen. The purpose is to find and nurture them, invest in them and then export them.” Explaining how the business develops the new talent she adds: “We take on all the investment and we just allow them to create. Their job is to create. We take on their manufacturing investment. We take them through basic business acumen, commerciality. We take them through workshops on how to build a range that’s going to showcase in Paris.” She has has interviewed over a hundered and has been cutting it down to a very select few from which only two or three of the most talented designers will be selected. But then: “They will be the ones we invest in and will become our future McQueens and Elie Saabs, and it’s that journey for five to ten years.” The future looks bright for design talent across the Middle East!

Asil was interviewed by Tim Jackson, Fashion Marketing Programme Director at Regent’s University London.

Mikko I Arevuo Senior Lecturer in Strategic Management Fellow of Adam Smith Institute

Adam Smith taught us that self-interest leads an individual to seek the most “advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in view.” Adam Smith’s magnum opus, The Wealth of Nations (1776), or even more importantly his earlier work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), are no longer required reading in most management schools. We have forgotten that Adam Smith was first and foremost a moral philosopher. By omitting the moral foundations of Smith’s work, we have come to equate his concept of self-interest with a greedy disregard for others. Nothing could be further from the truth as Smith’s self-interest is directly linked with the common good. Smith quickly clarifies the link between the pursuit of individual advantage and the societal benefit by adding: “It is his own advantage, indeed, and not only that of the society, which he has in view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to the society.” History has vindicated Smith’s fundamental insight. Capitalism has made the world richer and healthier than previous generations could have imagined. An average person today lives in infinite luxury compared to the lives of our forebears, which Thomas Hobbes characterised in Leviathan (1651) as “poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. According to the World Bank, in 1981 1.93 billion people lived on less than $1.25 a day, an indicator for extreme poverty. By 2008, the number of people in abject poverty had decreased by a third to 1.28 billion. Why, despite the benefits of the capitalist economic system, is it under existential siege? The explanation for the widespread anger is not difficult to find. Over the last 30 years there have been serious dislocations which have been exacerbated by the recent economic crisis. Millions of manufacturing jobs have been moved from developed market economies to countries where labour costs are lower, and youth unemployment is alarmingly high, particularly in some of the European economies. Income inequality has radically

widened in the US and the UK, and market pressures and management compensation structures have led managers to focus on short-term profits rather than on long-term wealth creation. Finally, capitalism is suffering from an ethical crisis. According to the think tank the Henry Jackson Initiative for Inclusive Capitalism, a broad-based acceptance of basic ethical norms is necessary if capitalism is to regain acceptance otherwise, the system itself will become discredited and ultimately destroyed, whether by internal failures or external pressures. To rebuild confidence in capitalism, there are two critical areas that need to be addressed: short-termism and business ethics.

Millions of manufacturing jobs have been moved from developed market economies to countries where labour costs are lower, and youth unemployment is alarmingly high, particularly in some of the European economies. Shareholder value maximisation became the norm in the 1980’s. There is nothing wrong with maximising returns for risk-takers as long as it is based on the sound strategic principles of long-term value creation. However, over the last 30 years investment markets have undergone a structural change that has caused capital and equity markets to become focused on short-term returns. In the 1960s the average stock-holding period in the UK and the US was approximately eight years. Today, it’s about four months. It is difficult to call today’s equity holders risk investors in the traditional sense of the word that they have an interest in the firm’s long-term survival. In fact, modern investors are more akin to speculators seeking quick returns. This structural change in investor behaviour has pressured management to create value on a short-term and even quarterly basis. Companies become fearful that investors will divest at the slightest wobble in the share price or if the firm misses its quarterly performance

expectations. Under these conditions shortterm fixes tend to win over the long-term goals. The situation becomes even more exacerbated if management compensation is linked to shortterm corporate performance. Data is beginning to support the negative economic impact of short-termism. There is increasing evidence linking short-termism with a long-term decline in corporate investment as a percentage of GDP. Moreover, corporate investment activity tends to favour efficiency innovation that releases capital by reducing employment and cutting production costs. What is particularly worrying is that the released capital is not invested in R&D, which could increase the rate of product innovation and thus have a positive impact on employment and economic growth. Instead, as the emerging evidence points out, capital is used for share buy-back schemes that artificially increase share prices. The end result is increased volatility, inflated asset prices and stagnating long-term growth and employment. Economic policy initiatives such as investment tax credits can be designed to counteract management short-termism. However, these measures alone will not be sufficient to change the prevailing market behaviour. A more effective means to encourage long-term investing is for businesses to stop providing quarterly earnings guidance for equity investors. Unilever, Merck, and GE have already shifted their investor guidance away from quarterly reporting to longterm performance indicators. Other firms have started programmes that reward equity investors who hold their shares for a longer period of time. There is also evidence that institutional investors such as pension and sovereign wealth funds, who collectively hold roughly 35 per cent of the world’s financial assets, are beginning to redesign the performance and reward systems of their asset managers to reward long-term performance.

Combating short-termism is a start but it will not solve the crisis of confidence in capitalism overnight. Although we know that people tend to behave better when they are evaluated over the long term, they will not behave ethically unless they work in an environment that fosters ethical behaviour. We should remember that the behaviours that led to the near collapse of the global financial system in 2008 were not the result of illegal behaviour. The financial crisis was largely precipitated by questionable moral and ethical behaviour. The reaction to economic crisis has been to increase the level of regulation.

Capitalism has made the world richer and healthier than previous generations could have imagined. An average person today lives in infinite luxury compared to the lives of our forebears, which Thomas Hobbes characterised in Leviathan (1651) as “poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. However, the danger of regulation is that rather than asking the question “Should I do this?,” the question becomes “Can I do this?” Regulation creates rules-based behaviour that essentially removes an individual’s moral responsibility. If capitalism is going to survive in the future, we need to bring ethics back to the centre of commercial activity. Adam Smith would surely agree that commerce cannot be separated from morality. As we seek solutions to the 21st-century problems of capitalism I will leave the last word to Adam Smith: “When the happiness or misery of others depends in any respect upon our conduct, we dare not, as self-love might suggest to us, prefer the interests of one to that of many. The man within immediately calls to us, that we value ourselves too much and other people too little, and that by doing so, we render ourselves the proper object of the contempt and indignation of our brethren.”

Alumni Interview Philip Ozouf

Philip Ozouf is a member of the EBS London Class of 1993, part of the group we are celebrating at our big reunion on 18 October. Earlier this year, we caught up with Philip when he returned to Regentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to deliver a talk to current students about his role as Treasury and Resources Minister for the States of Jersey.

Take us back to EBS in the late eighties and early nineties. What do you recall? I came to EBS because I wanted to do languages but I also wanted to do business. That was the thing I was interested in. I didn’t want, however, to do languages by simply reading French or Spanish literature. I actually wanted an experience where I would learn a language in the context of the career I thought that I was going to be pursuing, which was business and management. At the time EBS was not very well known here, but was much known by friends of mine in Germany and in Paris; it was a bit of a risk. Nobody from Jersey had ever been to EBS before. I took a risk and it ended up being the right thing for me to do. I didn’t have what many people would describe as a normal student existence. Studies at EBS were pretty hard work, frankly, compared to the ten hours of face-to-face time that friends who were studying at Oxford or Durham or wherever got. When I was here you had to do either a frontline factory floor or selling job. I think it’s important that students get not just the executive experience of in-company training; actually you need business graduates to come down to earth. They need to understand sales and how the basic job roles of being a mechanic, an operative, a salesman and then the grades up, of how that works. I was then extremely fortunate to get an internship with Commerzbank in Hamburg, through another student who was at EBS. I was treated amazingly well because I spent a week in each of the corporate departments of the bank. I then spent a very interesting couple of weeks going around the new branch opening programme that Commerzbank had in the then former East Germany, which was then rolling out in the branches there. That was an experience that I don’t think any of my peers that I went to school with and friends who didn’t go to EBS will have had. What sort of impact did those internships have on the direction of your career, particularly your early career? I wanted to get a job in a fast-track management role. The absolute golden graduate jobs of my era were Mars, Procter & Gamble and Cargill, which is one of the world’s largest commodities trading companies, privately held and highly respected.

I went through interviews for a number and I actually got a job with Cargill. My differentiator was that at the time they were looking for people with language skills. I’d had an experience of doing languages, not just reading Goethe or Molière but I’d actually done economics and accounting classes in these languages. I was about the world’s most odd accountant trainee but accounting trained me to think, to organise thoughts, to recall decisions and to understand risk. At the end of the day I’m probably an ideas person but I was taught at EBS that you can do it but there are also things you need to do not to fail. For me, not failing was learning how to be more controlled, more disciplined, more organised, and how to record and present information. You realise more and more the world is a fast moving world and the need to increase skills and constantly sharpen the sword is a never-ending endeavour. That’s not something that should be regarded as a negative; there are exciting ways to acquire knowledge. How stimulating did you find not only the environment of being with international students but actually being taught by people from all over the world as well? Well that was the thing that I wanted. I would never undo the experience I had at EBS, the friendships that I made, the people that I met at EBS. I was a Jersey boy from a farming family, not particularly international. I’d travelled as a child but to a limited extent. The experience of coming to the bright lights of London, of meeting people from all sorts of different backgrounds and from all sorts of different cultures, changed the course of my life. I met people who have been important features of my life for the last 25 years. We continue to meet when we can, we’re all busy people and living in different places but we have a bond. What did you feel when you saw some of the students here today and talked to them? I was quite encouraged. They were very much like the kind of people that I met here when I was a green 17- or 18-year-old, or however old I was. I was quite impressed. I think it’s good. I saw the remarks that the Minister for Education, David Willetts, made at the opening of the IPO conference: “Britain and London needs to present itself with excellence in financial

services, in healthcare, in tech and as a centre for education.” I think what he says is important and I agree with it. I think that London has a role as a global centre for education. Britain has some of the finest universities in the world, but the market is becoming more competitive so the UK needs to raise its game. How did you make the transition from the world of business into politics? I was from a farming family in Jersey that had some difficulties so I agreed to take some time out. I went back to Jersey and I didn’t like the Jersey that I saw. I stood in the election to shake some of the other candidates up; I didn’t actually believe that I was going to get in. I ended up being elected and have been there ever since. I enjoyed my time at Cargill; it taught me the importance of medium-term and long-term planning. Cargill is a long-term investor and has tough financial management. It has high probity in terms of standards, the way that it does business, and is a hugely successful privately held organisation. Almost all the skills that I learnt at Cargill transferred to me becoming intensely preoccupied with the fight against short-termist political decisions. Short-termism and an absence of planning are the blight that affects democracy, particularly the democratic and political debates about public finances. Responsible finance ministries should collect more revenue in growth periods in order to gather resources to protect the economy and to protect people from recessions. Young people are an unfair casualty of recessions so you have to invest in job creation programmes and infrastructure; it’s the right thing to do. You mentioned in your talk the amount of debate about tax havens and how Jersey benefits from having fair regulation. Do you see other tax havens starting to get their business in order and actually follow the same sort of route? This phrase “tax haven” needs some definition. If a tax haven is a place that is secret, that is not transparent, that does not comply with international rules on antimoney laundering, terrorism, financing, the international community’s rules on how financial office should run, then Jersey is not a tax haven. We actually report more financial crime every year than the City of London does. That’s not because there’s more crime in Jersey but because we have better detection rates.

However, if a tax haven is a place that decides to run a simple low tax system because that’s what the people that elect me like - I am a servant of the people. I have no power without the pleasure of the continued support and confidence of the parliament and ultimately the people that elect me. Jersey has evolved and has a very tough approach to financial regulation. The people of Jersey do not accept high government spending. They want worldclass health services and world-class education but they want that delivered in economic growth and economic activity, not high taxes. We do have a very simple, very high threshold for tax compliance. We have low taxes and we expect people to pay them. What advice would you have today for the students about to graduate? Take as much advantage of the fantastic network of friends that you will make during your time at Regent’s. Foster them, develop them and spend time with them. That’s not just spending time on your studies but spending time on really one of the best and most exciting and vibrant capitals of the world. There are lots of things here to see, learn and enjoy. Work/life balance is important. Working hard is obviously important in your studies but you have to enjoy everything else that London has to offer and its diverse cultural, sporting and other opportunities. Prepare for a world that will be changing even faster than the world that your parents or I – as a 44-year-old – have experienced. Change is something that will only get faster. When I sat in a classroom at EBS and I was told of something called an email, and I had a fax machine that my mother used to send a weekly message to her children, I did not imagine that an email could be a legal document that would be able to be signed. Today I sit here signing ministerial decisions on an email, on an iPad, on a mobile phone network, securely, safely. The evolution from fax to desktop to email, to laptop, to iPad, every jump in those technologies has become half the speed. That process is not going to change.

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commodity? The thirty glorious years that followed the Second World War were distinguished by an advent of economic policy inspired by Keynesian doctrine or based on demandside policies. However, inflationary pressures contributed to a restoration of the monetaristsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; predominance and the role of central banks consecrated by the famous Taylor rule, with objectives of price stability and economic growth. The former governor of the New York Fed, Paul Volcker, was a distinguished fan of a rigorous monetary policy and many restrictive measures were reflected in particularly high interest rates during his tenure. Another era took place after the major global financial crisis of 2008, where all monetary and economic policies have been characterised by the search for systemic stability before price stability. As a result the level of interest rates today are (and have been in recent times) exceptionally low and outstanding public deficits have reached a record level. However, in a possible way out of reducing these deficits, Paul Krugman (who is a Nobel Prize-winner for Economics) warns that currently adopting a pragmatic approach in setting the economic policy could be biased, as austerity fiscal measures can only aggravate the crisis and eliminate potential sources of growth with the reduction of public spending and accelerate the transformation of the recession to an economic depression.

In addition, the exacerbation of resource constraints requires continuous adjustments to respond to this new imperative of reducing waste and careful use of the stock of nonrenewable resources, with new ways to consider these changes, involving greater solidarity between man and nature. These external objectives show the importance of the parameters of an international environment for the conduct of an energy policy, which is significantly important for any economic policy. This is argued as the science of economics presumes the importance and scarcity of resources. Fossil energies are characterised as being important for the social and economic functions as they are not renewed and being limited to the level of the existing â&#x20AC;&#x153;reservesâ&#x20AC;?. Following economic growth, the second challenge lies in the energy supply. The nature of the relationship between the two is reinforced by the fact that every living process is conditioned by the existence of some form of energy. The role of energy has also appeared as the first priority in the Address on the State of the Union delivered before a joint session of the Congress on 30 January 1974 by President Nixon. The American leader had always given prominence to energy issues in his interventions and actions and he did not hesitate to say that oil was the blood of the economic system, stressing that economic and military power

depended on oil. Problems associated with energy issues always led to geopolitical strategy questions of energy supply. He added that in the industrial economy of the West dependence upon oil and strategic position depended on the security of access to oil. President Nixon did not hesitate then to share his beliefs and conclusions with the Republican Party, his people and allies of the USA. His vision, echoed by the Republican Party, is reflected in every appraisal and projection filed during the fifties about nuclear energy and oil. Discussions between the leaders of the Republican Party stand on the singularity of the energy variable and include oil. This particular product is qualified as the product that cannot be compared to others because it is the source of their industrial production. The long history and experience in the US oil and gas sector dates from 1859, and that Europe was supplied with up to eighty per cent of its energy needs by the United States in the early twentieth century can be partially explained by this special sensitivity to oil and energy. Americans from certain regions of the United States, such as Texas, have adhered fully to

Dr Elias L Boukrami PhD, MSc, BSc Hons, Char Acc, PGCHE, FHEA, CMI Programme Director, MSc Oil & Gas Trade Management Senior Lecturer in Banking & Finance 17

the approach that encourages conservation of oil production and leads to energy efficiency. This is maybe why the US has made the largest progress in terms of fossil energy efficiency consumption in the last ten years. Thus, the fear of suffering an energy shortage became an obsession for contemporary geopolitics expert Alexander Adler, who stated that Europe will continue to depend heavily on Russia in 2025. The US position integrates an evolutionary perspective on the sources of energy supply and the technology required to exploit them. It also ensures flexibility and avoids intolerable dependence on a specific source. The role of the Russian Federation and the European energy (current and projected) suppliers is a particular concern for US policymakers. Similarly, Moscow strategists retain significant flexibility in considering gas sales to China and Europe and tend to create conditions favourable to their bargaining power with these customers in the medium and long term. In the energy sector, decision-making processes require maturation before their implementation and those with transportation infrastructures designed for immediate delivery are in advantageous positions. Students should always remember that impulsive decisions and reactionist behaviour to short terms blips are not that common in the energy sector. US policy in the energy sector has taken into account the capitalisation of experience and pragmatism which removes all prejudices and preconceptions. The famous duo with these customers in the medium and long term. confirmed that oil is made of 10 per cent economics and 90 per cent politics, as noted by D Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. This oil mentality explains the anxiety of suffering a failure in supply one day or being submitted to the diktat of suppliers wishing to take advantage of their positions in the given situation. History shows that in 1928 the Achnacarry Agreement instituted the famous cartel to challenge global production quotas. Furthermore, the US embargo of Japan in 1937 showed necessarily how difficult it was to consider oil just as a basic commodity. The oil industry in the USA cannot be compared to those of other countries and it would be very na誰ve to extend findings related to the US oil and gas sector to other areas of the world. Daniel Johnson

US policy in the ener capitalisation of exp all prejudices and pr and Kissinger confirm economics and 90 pe chairman of Cambr indicates that the US oil sector is characterised as having a large number of producing wells (about 600,000), however, most of these wells produce a low volume (today two-thirds of US oil wells produce fewer than ten barrels a day). This factor allows US oil companies to always be efficient as the volume of production is low. The author illustrates this exploration effort comparing the data with Russia, which has drilled four times fewer wells. Moreover, to close the gap, Russia will have to drill more than 50,000 wells per year for 40 years to meet the gap already generated. US seismic data is not comparable with the data available for other regions as, for instance, the size of the US shale could be up to ten times smaller than the European or the Chinese shale, but this is, as yet, unknown. In addition this could be combined with a protectionist policy for oil and gas fields and the lack of high-quality verified data typical of US geology. This, then, could give a clear and simple rationale for the very high competitive advantage that the US is enjoying over Europe and Asia in terms of shale gas exploration and production costs, and the unlevelled existing prices over the three regions. All these factors partially explain the significant progress that the US has made in terms of crude oil import reduction, as oil imports have been

rgy sector has taken into account the perience and pragmatism which removes reconceptions. The famous duo of Nixon med that oil is made of 10 per cent er cent politics, as noted by D Yergin, ridge Energy Research Associates. halved from 12.5 million barrels in 2006 to just 6 million barrels in 2014, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The United States is expected to be a net exporter of oil and gas by 2020. This will have a strong impact on the rest of the world as negotiating capacity and flexibility are directly correlated to the degree of flexibility or elasticity of supply and demand. Reactions to these environmental changes can be recorded in time. It is interesting to point out that expectations are rooted in indirect provocation of change or its causes. Many changes in energy efficiency and the distribution of growth between Europe, Japan and the United States will take place in the near future, or may have already started taking place. Finally, the relationship between interest rates and oil prices is an interesting case to watch. High interest rates combined with high oil prices was the case in the early 1970s and in 2007 to 2008 when oil prices reached the record level of $147 per barrel and the US Target Fed Fund Rate was 5.25 per cent (currently 0-0.25 per cent for the last five years). Such a combination gave birth to two distinct crises in 1973 and 2008. Also, some argue that having low oil prices coupled with low interest rates is not desirable as it means that the money is freely available and energy is also cheaply

available. This might implicitly indicate that the economy is in an apocalyptic situation and there is no hope for potential growth. Moreover, it could also be seen that central banks around the world, and especially the Fed, will observe oil prices with attention before hiking interest rates, as the Fed is conscious of keeping the mix of low rates with high oil prices or vice versa. This will also preserve the negative correlation between the US dollar and oil prices, which is an impressive advantage that the US economy has over the rest of the world. It could be concluded that, at least for the largest economy in world oil issues can in no way be considered outside the geostrategic dimension because, economically speaking, oil is listed as one of the main predictors of economic growth. Other countries such as France, Japan and the United Kingdom give the same importance to energy but with different choices in terms of sources of supply (nuclear, solar, natural gas, etc.). In conclusion, without energy there can be no economic growth, and this simultaneously remains the predictor of energy demand.

Can you tell us about your background? I initially studied language and literature and whilst at university I published my first book, Permission to live. I also completed some media and PR courses and started to work as a journalist at Modern Woman magazine, the first magazine for women in Albania after the beginning of democracy. I was in love with books and fortunately, along with democracy, many great books from famous writers started to be published in Albania. I fell in love with Nietzche, Freud, Jung, Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre and other philosophers, from whom I learned more about psychology. This led me to study for a masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in Counselling and Psychology at the University of Sheffield. I then specialised in Positive Psychotherapy and Family Therapy and did a PhD in Psychology. What is the concept behind Migrant Women? Being a writer, I felt the need to write and to know more characters in order to be in touch with the world that I live in. I started with a small project running a magazine for my community called Albanian Woman, dedicated to migrant Albanian women. It was a great feeling, even without being paid to do it, highlighting their world in a new country and it inspired me to continue with it. Most of the women couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t relate to who they had been in their home country and who they wanted to be in their new chosen land of residence. They were given a voice and platform and I was so privileged to help them recall their dreams.

It has been an amazing experience discovering that there were a lot of successful migrant women who had started their life again from scratch, and I wanted to tell the world about their success. It has been a great way to convey good role models to inspire other women as well. This is how Migrant Woman began. From my research, I was surprised that in a big city like London, where more than 250 languages are spoken, there was not a magazine for migrant women. Luckily I met the right person at the right time who wanted to invest in a similar project and I proposed the idea to him to create and build Migrant Woman. I explained to him the concept of the magazine, which was to convey a different image of and for migrant women. The next day, the company with the magazine title name and the website domain were registered, and a month later the first issue was published, online and in print. Why is it important to you? Why do you feel these stories need to be told? From all the studies that I had read by different researchers, it was argued that many migrant women are vulnerable, weak, insecure, with low self-esteem, problems with their career, and a lot of other characteristics like these. I felt that this is a reality we are feeding with an image that was tailoring the profile of migrant women. From the depth of my heart I wanted to show a much more positive side and a new truth based on real life and great examples of that. Migrant women are strong, capable, devoted, with a lot of skills, and they never give up, even when faced with adversity, on their journey to search for a better life for themselves and their children.

Mirela Sula is currently studying for a PhD at Regentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s School of Psychotherapy & Psychology.

I really wanted to change the perception that the world has of us. The first issue of Migrant Woman was a test drive, promoting migrant women as a source of intelligence and goodness and full of positive energy. This was to give what I believe is a much more real image of migrant women. It is the message we should convey to the world and to each woman who migrates – that they can succeed. We will choose the place we want to live, the people whom we want to surround ourselves with, and the life we want to lead. The migrant woman is in charge of her own destiny. What are your plans for the future development of the magazine? I have a big vision for the Migrant Woman magazine. Migrants are all over the world, and my theory is that we are all migrants in this universe. Therefore this is a magazine for everyone moving around the world in search of meaning and a better life. The magazine could potentially be a franchising project and I would be happy to consider selling the copyright around the world. Tell me more about your new book. When is it released? What was the inspiration behind it? I am already the author of 12 books, and the last two, which are in the self-help genre, have been very successful in my country. Don’t Let Your Mind Go has been a best-seller book in Albania. It has now been translated into English and will be published by Balboa Press shortly. I am happy that my words and messages will be conveyed to a wider world audience. Don’t let your mind go is based on my experience of working with clients and from my personal life. It can help readers to understand the importance of their mind by reflecting on true stories. Despite the

difficulties that a person may have had in the past, regardless of how sad the past may have been, no matter how unlucky that individual feels in a given moment, all of these experiences can turn into advantages if we learn how to use the manual of the mind.

Being a writer, I felt the need to write and to know more characters in order to be in touch with the world that I live in. Anyone who reads my book will learn how to succeed in life, regardless of the external circumstances that they may face on a daily basis. The reader will learn that their destiny is determined not by others but by themselves. They will learn how to take the wheel of fate into their own hands and start travelling their journey to a destination determined by their own minds. The mind is a tool that we all own, but some people don’t know how to use it and do not know how to apply all the options of this invaluable internal asset. How do you see yourself ? Are you an entrepreneur, writer, psychologist, media mogul or something else entirely different? I have always dreamt of being a free person and to only do a job that I like doing. And this is the way that it has happened. I have chased the ways to find my own opportunities because I love being a free woman – something that was very difficult in a small country like Albania. The business side and making it pay for a comfortable lifestyle is simply a means to an end. My dream continues to be the same: “Live with writing”. I will do anything that is good to help me follow my dream as a writer. I believe that I am on the right path because psychology helps me to understand human nature better and to go deeper into the true self. Journalism helps me to explore how to find all the connections that bring us to our true story and the mission of our lives.

I had not appreciated until I arrived in Istanbul what an amazing, energetic and vast city it is. Like Regent’s it combines the new and the old within a creative and cosmopolitan context. My host while I was in town was the excellent Kemal Arif, co-ordinator of our latest Regent’s Club. Kemal made me feel welcome in town from the moment I arrived, and it was wonderful to find out about his life and work since graduating back in 2008. Kemal is a natural Regent’s Club co-ordinator; he has maintained a close network of friends from his Regent’s days, and he himself travels internationally and sees the value of the global network of clubs that Istanbul has just joined. What is more, he’s able to identify great venues for the club’s get-togethers – offering the right mix of relaxed atmosphere, giving the opportunity for conversation to flow across the table, and stylish draw, tempting in alumni who might otherwise have chosen a night at home or at one of Istanbul’s many night-time attractions and have missed what turned out to be a great evening. We all met at the Restaurant & Bar Masa and conversation turned not only to our shared memories of Regent’s but also to Turkey today, work and personal life, the future for Regent’s and the importance of our networks. We ate and drank and talked long into the night, and I left Istanbul all the richer for meeting such a welcoming community of alumni – some of whom were meeting each other for the first time, some of whom were old friends and found a new way of keeping in touch through Regent’s Club Istanbul. See you all again soon… David Whitaker Head of Development & Alumni Relations Regent’s University London

You can find more about the Regent’s Club network and how you can join a club in your area on the alumni website www.regents.ac.uk/alumni/regentsclub

If you were to believe the average internet meme, being popular on Instagram is about as useful as being rich in Monopoly. Since graduating from Regentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Business School London with an MA Global Management in 2011, Amata Chittasenee has set out to prove this theory wrong by building her presence on social media, including over 700,000 followers on Instagram. We spoke to her about how she uses the power of social media. What have you been doing since you graduated? Since returning to Bangkok, I have been involved in the beauty and fashion industry as a make-up artist, make-up consultant, beauty guru and blogger. For the past three years, I have been flying back and forth to London on regular basis to be a part of the backstage crew at London Fashion Week. My role was as a make-up artist assistant to Lan Grealis. As a make-up artist in Thailand I work closely with top magazines, in particular with Lips magazine. I have also been working with a range of cosmetic brands as a make-up consultant, marketing and advertising their products. I have also attended many beauty contests as a judge and commentator, for example the Marie Claire Beauty Awards. Currently my primary work is to manage my social 24

media: Facebook Fanpage, Instagram and YouTube. What I do is actually quite hard to describe, mostly experimental and creative. I create looks, I teach, I paint, I have fun dressing up. I experiment with colours and new techniques. I work and try a lot of make-up and cosmetics. I enjoy using make-up and sharing what I love. When people love what I share, it inspires me to do more and do better. I get about a hundred questions every day about what products are good, what is the best, which looks should they wear for whatever the occasion they are going to. I answer them in my very own style, using graphics, cartoons, music, videos and the most importantly pictures. How did you build up such a large following on social media? I started off by using Facebook Fanpage while I was doing a course at Regent’s. At the weekends or when I had a day off I often met up with models and photographers. At the beginning, I just wanted to show my make-up portfolio to my followers. As time went on the page evolved and I started talking more about make-up, my favourite lipsticks, what mascara is waterproof, and so on. Then I started doing easy make-up tutorials on YouTube. Since then my followers and fan base gradually broadened and expanded. Such positive response from my make-up tutorials have been influential in shaping the direction and focus of my future work. I started making more makeup tutorials, talking more about what the next trends would be and where I get my inspiration, and sometimes I wear crazy make-up out and people just love it! Such an overwhelming response from social media draws interests to the offine entertainment industry, which gives me the opportunity to appear on television and in magazines. This has helped to raise public awareness about my social media even futher! How do you use your social media presence to further your career? I want to futher my career with a make-up/art school, cosmetics line, Pearypie Café and how-to book, and social media allows me to promote myself. It’s great having a strategy of using the online opportunities and knowing how to analyse

my posts (contents on Facebook, pictures on Instagram). My social media presence can help me achieve my dream in many ways, but in particular in marketing. At present, I have around 700,000 followers on Instagram and 500,000 on Facebook. They provide an incomparable marketing channel to raise public awareness about my upcoming projects or products. Social media can be used to survey public response and reaction to upcoming products and projects. As an artist and a businesswoman, there are many things I put into consideration to be creative and develop a strategy. My own strategy is all about analysis of my posts and the content I post, how many shares I get and why, and even the timing of each post and its contents. Everything is relevant. For example, it’s important not to publish too many pictures at once; it makes people feel overloaded or they may feel they have been pushed too much to get informed. Which social network is the most useful for you? Facebook and Instagram. Facebook is really easy to use. I can post videos, links, pictures or any content I would like to share with my followers. And the best part of Facebook is that people can share my work. When people share my work, their friends see it and that becomes a new chance to gain new followers who also like what I do. Instagram is a really clever application and highly addictive. What I really like about Instagram is that anyone can appear in the popular page. Its simple use makes it globally popular and connects people through photos. Who would have thought that one day we’d be able to see photos Rihanna took with her own phone 24 hours a day. What advice would you give to any alumni who want to make a big impact in social media? You just need to look for the right inspirations and learn from them, and you’ll find lots of good things. Be the best version of both a leader and follower, both in the real world and online.

Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more information about the MSc Digital Marketing & Analytics on our website here www.regents. ac.uk/study/postgraduate-study/programmes/msc-digitalmarketing-analytics.aspx or by contacting the programme development co-directors Lorna Walker walker@regents. ac.uk or Anabel Gutierrez gutierreza@regents.ac.uk

how can modern marketing courses stay relevant?

The marketing profession is changing at an incredible rate, and the catalyst for this change is technology. Big data, mobile, content marketing, social media and web analytics are fundamentally changing what it means to be a marketer. This new technology offers a great opportunity for marketers but it also represents a challenge – there simply aren’t enough people with the skills needed to work effectively in these roles. The gap between the skills that marketers have and the skills that they need is growing. It’s a challenge for both marketing employers and academics teaching marketing – how do we ensure that marketing graduates have the skills they need to work effectively in these new technology and data-driven marketing roles? Recent research from IBM shows that chief marketing officers see technology as the single most important force shaping marketing now. But it’s estimated that by 2018 the US will lack around 1.5 million managers and analysts with sufficient technical and digital know-how to make effective decisions. The picture in the UK is similar. Universities need to make sure that marketing graduates have the skills that employers need, but what these skills are is changing. Marketing is sometimes viewed as a “soft” subject in which skills such as creativity, team working and communication are what’s needed, but those skills alone are no longer enough. At Regent’s University London we recently did some analysis of the jobs that employers were advertising to our students. We found that over the last couple of years there has been a clear move towards marketing positions that require graduates who can code, who are comfortable with numbers, who understand analytics and who are comfortable using social media as a professional rather than purely personal communication tool. There’s a clear trend towards marketing jobs becoming much more technical and data-driven. In 2013 almost a quarter of all the jobs we advertised to our students specified that applicants should have social media, digital or analytics skills. That’s not a quarter of just the marketing jobs we advertised. It’s a quarter of all jobs, and this percentage is rising all the time. There’s a growing skills gap in digital marketing now and employers are struggling to fill it. Should they try to recruit students who already have the requisite skills or should they train people up within their organisations? In an ideal

world marketing graduates would offer the whole package, but in reality employers tell us that this is very rarely the case. Agencies in particular are struggling to recruit the numerate graduates that they need to work effectively on behalf of their clients. Their options are either to take on statistics graduates and train them to become marketers, or to take on marketing graduates and help them develop their analytics abilities. Neither option is ideal. They would much prefer to recruit marketing graduates who are already numerate and technologically adept. This means that graduates who have these skills are extremely employable and demand for them in the marketplace is high. George Schmidt, an alumnus of Regent’s University London who is now digital marketing and eCRM manager at L’Occitane en Provence, confirms this, saying, “Recruiters are increasingly looking for technical experience – analytical and data-handling skills are becoming indispensable in PR, retail marketing, even customer service and sales… Employers are looking for people who understand both the technical and business side of things – to bridge the gap between marketers who often lack a realistic view on digital and technical teams who may not have enough exposure to customers or business targets. Moreover, as a digital background is becoming a must-have as opposed to an additional skill set, today’s digital marketing interns, e-commerce executives and customer data managers will have the best chance to develop into tomorrow’s chief executives and business directors.” There are currently many more jobs requiring these skills than there are people to fill them, so any graduate who combines an understanding of the fundamentals of marketing along with technical, digital and analytics skills will be very much in demand. At Regent’s we’ve responded to this skills gap by launching a new MSc in Digital Marketing and Analytics, put together in partnership with industry practitioners and designed to develop graduates who can hit the ground running in any kind of digital marketing or analytics role. It’s an exciting time to be a marketer and the opportunities for graduates with the right skills set are considerable. 27

Alumni Profile Jackie Zulich Why did you choose to study at Regent’s University London? After completing my undergraduate degree in Business Communications specialising in Financial Risk Management in Cape Town, South Africa, my priority was to gain more experience and study overseas. I spent a short time in New York studying design and then in Australia. Each choice seemed to lead me to discuss with friends who had been to Regent’s University London that this was where I wanted to be. What appealed to me was the small environment in a cosmopolitan city where I would be at a private university and be given personal attention from each of my lecturers.

vision of what I wanted. I set up a business that provides a personal, bespoke buying experience specialising in South African diamonds at competitive prices.

During my year at Regent’s I gained confidence. I had to do numerous presentations and do endless research. I met people from around the world from different cultures – which gave me a fresh new way of looking at the global picture regarding the future of business.

The UK is also largely moving towards online, as prices are more competitive than the brickand-mortar shops. Our website and Facebook page are both gaining followers daily. We are able to supply top-quality diamonds at the same low prices that online retailers offer.

I wrote my thesis on “Women Entrepreneurship in South Africa”. This was crucial in inspiring me to eventually practise what I had been studying and put my skills to good use in the “real world”. I had by this time forged very important friendships at Regent’s. These are people that to this day are still my best friends. They inspire me to reach out and push myself to new levels in the business world. During my studies at Regent’s I saw the possibilities that I could apply in the South African diamond market. I set up my own business called Princess Diamonds (www. princessdiamonds.co.za). My father had a background in the diamond business and I knew I could sell diamonds to a younger clientele and appeal to their own sense of worth in our ever-changing world. I had a

How does the diamond retail industry in the UK compare to that in South Africa? South Africa is well known to have very high standards in the diamond industry and South African diamonds are known to be some of the best in the world.

How do you compete with other wellknow retailers such as Tiffany’s? Our business model is unique in that we offer a personalised bespoke service but we still have competitive prices. So it has the benefits of both: the quality and service of Tiffany’s while offering the same competitive prices as the online retailers. My sister and I take appointments and guide the clients through a process of choosing the right stone and designing the ring. We work closely with the best goldsmiths where each piece is made by hand and the end product is high-end luxury. The diamond industry has faced some criticism for its exploitation of workers and unethical practices in the sourcing of diamonds. What is your view on that and how do you ensure that your business is ethical? We feel very strongly about this and make sure we have the highest level of principlebased values when we source our diamonds. We only buy diamonds from suppliers that abide by the Kimberly Process. (The Kimberley Process is a joint governments, industry and civil society initiative to stem the flow of conflict diamonds – rough diamonds used by rebel movements to finance wars against legitimate governments.) We follow a rigorous control system regarding the sourcing, the grading and the quality and at the end of each process each client receives a certificate that is certified by EGL or GIA to verify each stone.

The Diamond Industry supports the South African economy. It creates numerous job opportunities, so we feel that we are encouraged to promote South African diamonds. Our diamonds are ethically sourced and we thoroughly check the background of our suppliers. I therefore feel that on the whole the diamond industry creates more jobs and supports the economy more positively than negatively (with only 0.001per cent of diamonds in the entire world being conflict diamonds). What business skills/knowledge do you need to acquire to enter the trade? In order to become a diamond dealer it is essential to do an EGLor GIA-recognised diamond-grading course. You need to build up trust in the industry amongst the other diamond dealers. A large number of diamonds pass through my hands on trust alone, given to me on approval. If the diamond dealers do not know you they will not trust you to hold or sell diamonds. To be a diamond dealer you also need large start-up capital in order to buy your stock. Then finally you need a large network. 90per cent of my clients have been sent to me via word of mouth by friends from all over the world (including my connections from my time at Regent’s).

Jackie Zulich graduated from Regent’s Business School London in 2009 with an MA Global Management.

Alumni Profile Niko Michault How did Regent’s inspire you? I studied at EBS London and the international aspect of the course that included international students, languages and study periods abroad was key for me. My approach at work has continued to be influenced by this. For instance my goal over the past year and a half has been to develop business for my artists on an international level. Understanding different cultures and being able to speak four languages at a business level has been key to successfully negotiating contracts riddled with the difficult technicalities of copyright ownership at an international level. Is piracy killing music? The idea that piracy is killing music is so far-fetched. To think something so menial could possibly kill something as powerful as music is beyond me. The fact is, the industry has been heavily disrupted by the internet as have most other businesses. I think it’s of many people not being able to adapt to change that has been the biggest problem. More people than ever are consuming and enjoying music across the world. Figuring out how to fairly monetise that is the biggest challenge today.

Did you have any favourite venues when you were a tour manger? What made them stand out? In London I love the Barbican Centre. Nothing compares to it. It’s a complete journey of the senses and they cater to music lovers not trend followers so their line-up is always unique and top quality. I have also worked on a few shows at some very historic venues, the likes of the Royal Albert Hall, Stravinski Auditorium and Le Trianon, which were all moments to remember. Did you have any recommendations of new artists to listen out for? Obviously my own – but also anything new coming from Latin America. It is going to be the breeding ground for the next generation of global artists in my opinion. There is something going on there right now that is not happening anywhere else in the world. There are too many artists to list. What advice do you have for other budding entrepreneurs? Start as early as possible and persevere. I am a strong believer that being in the right place at the right time does not work, it’s more like be in many places all of the time and keep on doing what you want to do until it works. Having said all of that, I’m still figuring it out for myself so maybe ask me that again in a few years. And finally, what connections did you make at Regent’s University London that you still keep in contact with today? How did they help you, if at all, in your business venture? I still keep in touch with most of the people I met there. Some of them very closely, some of them less so. None have come into play at work just yet but I’m sure eventually they will. I work in music which I think is probably not the norm for students at EBS London, but the entrepreneurial and international spirit has definitely stayed with me throughout my career.

Niko Michault graduated from European Business School London (Class of 2006), BA (Hons) International Business and Management Studies.

Odd as it may seem, it took one persistent psychiatrist, two major breakdowns, a year at Regent’s University London and a decade of illness to convince me that I needed therapy. Even though my second “depressive episode” in 2004 saw me bedridden for nearly a year, I put off signing up with a therapist for several years afterwards. All that time I was prejudiced about therapy just as I had been ignorant about depression. Therapy is one of those situations where the customer is always wrong, one voice used to say. It seemed like a slippery, unquantifiable indulgence in a world where others were struggling just to stay alive. I would mock talk of “journeys” and “selfdiscovery”. And, if I was honest, I was frightened of what it might reveal of the darker recesses of my mind. Such scepticism was all very well, but I had to admit I wasn’t getting any better. In the end it was my psychiatrist who persuaded me. A person, unlike a pill, he advised, can listen to your story when you are well enough to tell it and give you a fresh perspective. There was a limit to what he and his prescriptions could do. 32

A second breakthrough came when I signed up to the Foundation Course at Regent’s University London. Studying therapy was safer than having it myself, and I admit I had become more and more interested in psychological treatments. And, of course, one of the requirements of the course was that I had to undergo therapy myself. My tutors were persuasive about the importance of working with a therapist. We gain our sense of self from our interaction with others. Therapy is about a relationship between people, and being in contact with established practitioners and therapists of the future eased me into the one-on-one relationship of therapy. I was impressed by the brilliance of my teachers and was able to begin to see my prejudices for what they were. Therapy, I found, was very close to the solace I had sought in the past from poetry. Throughout my seventeen-year experience of depression, I have derived comfort from healing and consoling poems. When I was first very ill, in a foetal curl on the floor, I was only well enough to concentrate on just one line. I love the beginning of Emily Dickinson’s poem “Hope” for example: “Hope is the thing with feathers/ That perches in the soul”. When I was well enough to read, I would devour a whole poem, which could provide a different, more positive narrative in my head.

Rachel Kelly’s memoir about how poetry helped her overcome depression Black Rainbow: How words healed me – my journey through depression is published by Yellow Kite books, £16.99. All author proceeds are going to the charities SANE, with whom she is working on a #healingwords campaign inviting people to send the poems and prose that have helped them to fundraising@sane.org.uk, and United Response, with whom she has launched the “Postcards of Hope” campaign at www.postcardsofhope.org.uk. Follow her at @rache_Kelly

Hospital, where reading and creative writing were among the treatments prescribed for mental illness. Recognition of the healing power of words began with the psychologists Freud, Adler, Jung and others and led to the founding in 1969 of the Association of Poetry Therapy. Now we have figures in the literary and philosophical worlds who advocate their own brands of healing words. The novelist Daisy Goodwin has a ‘Poetry Therapy too can provide a different narrative. Doctor’ section on her website, while Alain de It is about two people, in a Botton’s The School of room, and, importantly for Life has recently begun me, in the moment. Poetry, courses in mindfulness similarly, was two people, sometimes across a centuries- and poetry. William wide gap, sharing an intimate Sieghart, the founder of discussion, yet in the present. the Forward Poetry Prize, invites audience members at literary festivals to request This has become one key ‘Poetry Prescriptions’ to suit to my recovery: learning to their specific emotional and stop regretting the past or psychological needs. worrying about the future, but to enjoy the present Now thanks to therapy, as moment. Short, accessible well as my beloved poetry, poems pinned me in time. and drugs on occasion, I have my Black Dog on a firmish My therapist encouraged me in my use of poetry and leash. Before I undertook therapy, I had always been recommended breathing exercises as another brilliant harsh on myself, but also prone to take the slightest way to stay in the moment criticism from others to and reduce my anxiety. heart. Both characteristics, Primitive societies made combined with an use of cures involving the spoken and then the written overanxious and perfectionist word: invocations and runes. nature and a tendency to take on too much in my roles as wife, mother, and career girl The ancient Egyptians led to my breakdowns. wrote remedies on papyrus, which was then soaked in Yet it was therapy that has water and the liquid drunk taught me to be easier on by the patient. The Greek myself, and to find a more playwright Aeschylus wrote, compassionate voice. I only “Words are the physicians wish I hadn’t had to endure of the mind diseased.” By 1751 Benjamin Franklin had two terrifying depressive episodes before I came to founded the first American that realisation. hospital, the Pennsylvania

Have you ever wondered how to interpret a dream, snap out of a bad mood, set a goal and actually achieve it, or make your relationships work? Our weekly drop-in workshops provide an opportunity to explore the matters of the mind, psychology and personal development in an informal and friendly atmosphere. What could be more fun than learning and discussing the issues that really matter in our lives over a glass of wine, beer or juice? The workshops are facilitated by highly experienced professionals who will provide practical tips and discuss the latest research findings. With all this, Pub Psychology sessions are not only enjoyable experiences but can help you take the helm of your life and steer it in the direction you want. For further details please message the organiser via Meetup www.meetup.com/ Pub-Psychology/ or contact Regent’s alumnus @Yannick_Jacob via twitter

Regentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s alumnus Jon Gracey (MA Writing for Screen & Stage Class of 2013) has shared with us an exclusive excerpt from his new book on how to stage a successful show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Things to think about

Booking A Venue

— Free or paid? There are several “free” programmes that you can be part of, which means that you don’t pay for your space and audiences don’t pay for a ticket. Paid shows are more formal and audiences pay for their tickets upfront. You can always do a free show and a paid show – they may well feed each other in terms of audience, and There’s a pretty solid list of Edinburgh venues the free show will give you some cash to live on our website crackingthefringe.com that on, but consider the physical and logistical took us ages to compile, so go check that out. constraints and remember that you’ll have to It’ll give you an idea of what there is to offer, advertise and pay for registration on both. and an overview of what the main names are; — What time of day is your show suited to? there’s going to be lots of talk of Underbellies Some shows are built around specific meal and Assemblies over the next hundredtimes, others are sexy late-night cabarets, odd pages, so you’re best off getting a basic some are for children; make sure choose understanding of what’s out there. the slot that suits your desired audience. Evening shows (generally between 6 “It’s important to realistically estimate how well you’re 10pm) are prime-time, so be prepared to going to sell. Picking an overlarge venue which you’ll pay more for hiring your space than for a never sell out is just going to waste you a lot of money. daytime or a late night show (after 11pm). Check the tech specs as well and the venue’s rules on — What are the tech requirements of your re-gelling and refocusing [lights], you’ll hit problems show? Do you require storage for props, when you arrive if you want to change the whole rig set or costumes? Arriving for your tech and find that you can’t. This is the same with wings rehearsal and discovering you’re too big for and stage space.” your venue can be a nightmare way “This year [2013] there was a to start your Fringe. Think about Rachael Finney ventriloquist who was playing in a room your lighting and sound needs Pleasance Venue Staff that had pillars in it, and some seats free venues often have minimal couldn’t see the stage...people argue it’s tech available, so you have to be not that important to see a ventriloquist’s prepared to do your show without When? act, and some would argue it’s the most full blackout capabilities (or often important thing about it...so yeah, it’s without a lighting rig at all), fairly Ideally, you’ll have your finding the right room…” primitive sound set-up and likely venue confirmed before noise-bleed. the early bird Fringe Benny Davis — What kind of shows does your registration deadline Musical comedian, The Axis of Awesome ideal venue put on? Some venues usually mid-late March. have specialties: some are mostly This gets you a discount theatre, others focus on comedy, on your listing in the some are anything-goes. Read the Fringe Guide, (one of the main ways of advertising The Edinburgh Fringe Roadshow venue’s website, look at previous shows or send an email to get a feel your show in Edinburgh - It’s a series of seminars the for the kind of company you’ll be which is well worth it – in official Fringe organisation takes keeping: some audiences will go to 2014 this discount netted specific venues because they know you a saving of almost to London, Brighton and various what they’re getting. Your venue £100. So start your hunt places overseas. Worth dropping plays a role in your marketing so in the October/November by if one happens to be in town. picking the right venue you’ll start before the Fringe you’re selling your show to the right people. looking to perform in, in — Where is the venue situated? Look at the order to find an appropriate venue and have a map. Be wary of booking a venue too far better chance of getting the one you want. from The Royal Mile (officially known as the High Street – The Royal Mile strictly speaking is the whole length from the Castle One of the first things you’ll need to do is to secure a venue. There are hundreds of options, each suited to different stages in your career and the requirements of your show. It’s one of the most important decisions you’ll make, so don’t rush it.

Extra resource

to Holyrood Palace, even though everyone uses it to mean the section between the Hub and North Bridge). The Mile is a good (though by no means the only) place to sell your show; you don’t want to have to sell a half hour walk to your venue along with it. Other Fringe hubs are Bristo Square (where the Gilded Balloon, Pleasance Dome and Underbelly are) and the Half-Price Hut (on Princes St at the other end of town) – so they’re also productive places to flyer and persuade people to come to your show, if your venue is close by. There are lots of venues on Leith Walk, but it can be a struggle to entice punters in that direction.

hasn’t filled it, etc – most venues are quite flexible and would prefer all slots to be taken than to have gaps in the programme. How? Once you’ve decided what venue you want, you need to apply. This process depends entirely on the venue you choose. Generally, the venue’s website will provide the requisite forms. Some of the larger venues may wish to see you before signing you up, or at the very least see evidence of your quality – be it a script or filmed performance.

— Are they organised? Find a few people who have done shows in the venue in the previous year and send them an email to find out whether it’s well-run or a shambles. If the venue is not returning your calls and emails early on, it’s probably not a great sign. — What kind of support and facilities do they offer? Do they have a press office to help with marketing your show? Do they produce their own brochure? What kind of run and distribution does it have? Do they have technical staff, a cafe, a bar? Will they accept deliveries of posters and flyers on your behalf before you arrive in Edinburgh? — Be aware that under Want to read more? Buy the whole the Scottish Executive regulations, onstage thing (with 39 more chapters, including smoking is not permitted flyering technique, free shows vs. paid in any venue. shows, designing your poster, nailing — What’s your budget? Don’t your Fringe listing and LOADS more) pick a big venue if you don’t feel confident you can at www. crackingthefringe.com/buy-our-book.html sell it out at least once. It’s much better to sell out a 20seat venue than to half-fill a 40-seat venue. — Do they charge any additional costs? These might include a pricey technician fee during your tech rehearsal, a fee to be listed in the venue brochure or other hidden extras. Make sure you ask the question. — Is disabled access important to you? Many Fringe venues aren’t well-equipped to deal with wheelchair access. — It’s not unheard of that bargains take place. For instance, you might get a consideration/ discount for performing a show in a morning slot as well as an evening shot. You might get a big space for a small price if the venue

Sufficiently teased?

An actor’s life for me Joseph Hayward British actor and Regent’s alumnus Joseph Hayward reflects on his journey to New York City and reveals his secrets to maintaining a successful acting career. New York taught me everything I know. I have totally transformed, both as a person and artist. It harbours incredible talent and offers the world’s best resources and teachers, who constantly inspire me. You must hustle, hustle, hustle. Ambition is built into the very architecture of this city. It had been a life-long dream of mine to live here, so at 19 I auditioned for the illustrious American Academy of Dramatic Arts and was offered a place on their acting programme. This incredible opportunity allowed for a swift transition to New York. I would only suggest moving to a major city if you have something waiting there for you. This could be a new job opportunity or acceptance into a university. What I’ve discovered is that the actors who survive and thrive from relocating have always been in a position to build up a new network. Going to drama school in New York introduced me to a community of aspiring actors, directors and playwrights. Without this community I would not be as successful today, because most of the work I generate is through people I know. My network has continued to expand, and now I’ve been fortunate enough to work with top Broadway directors and producers on an array of theatrical productions. At present, I am assisting Tony Award-winning director Jack Hofsiss on a new play, which we hope will transfer to Broadway soon. I am eager to start producing some of my own work. One of my closest friends is an incredibly talented playwright, and I shall be directing her new play later this year. We’ve already begun workshopping the play

with actors, and it has been fascinating to approach the work from the other side of the table. I’ve always been interested in directing and have a great deal of experience as an assistant/ associate director, so it feels great to finally be able to apply all the knowledge that I’ve learnt. Producing your own work is really empowering and liberating. You feel as if you’re taking control of your career. It’s also a great way to get noticed if you’re struggling to get an agent or book auditions. You can’t just sit around and wait for the phone to ring; it isn’t healthy or smart. Instead, you should channel your creativity and passion into a new project. I would encourage any actor considering relocation to examine their financial stability first. If you’re moving to a city like New York, Los Angeles or London, you’ll need to factor in the higher costs of urban living. Spend some time researching banks and credit unions in the city, noting interest rates and checking fees. Search for affordable housing. Keep in mind that this could take some time and be a process of trial and error. Commit yourself to a reasonable budget; you don’t want unpaid bills delaying the start of your career. My final piece of advice to any actor reading this would be: don’t give up. Acting is fun, don’t forget that! If you ever feel yourself becoming bitter or resentful about the industry, I encourage you to invest some more time into your hobby. Most people who maintain a successful career in acting do so because they have something else in their life to return home to that is completely separate and is unaffected by it all. It may be the hardest industry in the world to crack, but if you’re determined and prepared to take extraordinary measures then opportunities will present themselves. Remember, it won’t kill you, it may occasionally embarrass you for a second, but you’ve just got to get up and make that leap.

Ebba Nogeman Kรถrner (Top) Danilo Antoneli (Bottom)

Danilo Antoneli Receiving the Kevin Spacey Foundation Bursary has been a big deal for me. Nearly a year ago I heard about the Bursary on Twitter and thought it was a long shot, but I gave it a go anyway. The next thing I knew I was on a plane to the auditions and in August 2013 I found myself living in London, going to class in Regent’s Park.

Ebba Nogeman Körner I decided on Regent’s when I came here for an open day and just loved the setting and the atmosphere. I felt really comfortable with the professors and the other staff. Winning the scholarship to study at EBSL was only the first step for me. I always want to get involved in new projects and my student life has been very active. I became the student untion vice president after periods serving as the events officer. I feel I’m a natural leader and the student union gave me the perfect outlet to develop my skills, particularly in event management. My study period abroad was divided between Pace University, USA, and Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. I own and direct Innovate for Africa together with my two business partners. Innovate for Africa is, in essence, a business plan competition for African entrepreneurs. Our aim is to organise competitions that will inspire and stimulate creativity and innovation amongst entrepreneurial individuals associated with African universities and colleges. I was delighted when we were awarded Entrepreneurial Team of the Year 2012. I will finish my studies this year and so I’m planning what I want to do in the future. I want to work within the corporate events sector initially and in the long term make further use of my entrepreneurial interest.

I have worked in the arts industry since leaving high school but never had the opportunity to study acting or theatre. The course excited me; we explore many different cultures and theatre practices around the world from Bali to Japan, India and Russia. I have travelled and worked in different parts of the world as a performer in Disney’s The Lion King and I am continually fascinated by the different cultures, aesthetics and cultural traditions I experience. Our study environment at Regent’s University London is hands-on and very demanding, which is different to my experience when I read for my Communication degree in South Africa. So far we have done so much varied and challenging work it has been overwhelming. From designing and staging a Japanese horror story to hosting a talk show for the Film Studies department, I have continually been diving headfirst into exciting new territory at the university. In November I got to meet Kevin Spacey when he presented a masterclass at Regent’s. He was warm, friendly and open and very happy to see the group of us that his Foundation is supporting through the programme. He offered us some invaluable career advice drawn from his own experiences in acting, and two interesting ideas he mentioned will remain clear in my mind. First, everyone thinks they deserve a better gig, and second, you don’t always have to get the job. Audition to make a good impression and one day you will get the job. After university I would especially like to share what I have learnt with theatre practitioners and performers back home in South Africa. Of course I have my own big ambitions – I’d be overjoyed to one day act in the UK and would be even happier to help teach and direct others in performance. I didn’t come into this field to become a star or anything like that; I find my reward when something I help to create satisfies my own artistic ideals or shows people something that ignites their imagination by showing them what they have never seen before.

About the project The “Regent to Regent’s” photography project marks the first collaboration between Regent’s University London and Regent High School, a comprehensive state school located in Somers Town, Camden. The project saw Years 12 and 13 BTEC Art and Design students from Regent High School visit the university to collaborate with photography students at Regent American College London (RACL) to produce a collection of images that explored what “Regent to Regent’s” meant to them through the medium of photography. Suggested project ideas were: › an imaginative documentation of the journey between the two academic institutions; › an exploration of the contrasts/similarities of the locations of the school and university. Parkland vs high-density housing. Leisure vs residential; › portraiture that interrogates the cultural differences/ similarities in the demographics of the two student bodies. Following an initial briefing session at the university, both sets of students worked over a period of two weeks to produce a collection of images exploring the “Regent to Regent’s” theme. At the end of the project, the students from the two institutions shared and discussed the images that they produced. Many students from Regent High School and RACL said that they found the experience highly rewarding and enjoyable. For many students from Regent High School it was their first opportunity to collaborate with undergraduates, and the project provided them with a taster of university study and life. The sixth form students also found it valuable to learn alongside international students studying for part of their degree in London. The work displayed is a collection of the most evocative images, as chosen by the students and staff who took part in the project.

About the partnership The Regent to Regent’s Partnership between Regent High School and Regent’s University London is the first of its kind for the university. This formal partnership is in direct response to the university’s commitment to extending the public benefit that it provides by sharing its educational offering, knowledge and expertise through outreach programmes. The ties between Regent’s University London and Regent High School are very strong. Both institutions have aspirations to cultivate their students to become global citizens and there is a strong matching of curriculum and location. It is the common link of location that this photography project explores and celebrates. The “Regent to Regent’s” photography project will be the first of a programme of engagement activities between the two institutions About Regent High School Regent High School is an 11-19 coeducational comprehensive school based east of Regent’s Park in the Somers Town area of Camden. The school maintains a specialism in the visual and performing arts, alongside strengths in science. Regent High School’s broad curriculum includes: languages, art and design, business and psychology. Regent High School is in the process of a £26m rebuild that will include a purpose-built theatre and four art studios with external terrace, and is due for completion in autumn 2014.

More Information? regenthighschool.org.uk

@RegentHighSch

The Regent’s Network is a cre ative company comprised of an d run by Regent’s University London alu mni and students. Their aim is to help ignite, develop and promote creative projects by generating a network of passionate and proactive professionals an d students. Founders Arianna Be adie, Hadley Campbell, Rosalind Hoy and Emily Thomson explain what it’s all about. How did the Regent’s Network get started? After graduating from the Regent’s School of Drama, Film and Media with a Foundation in Acting in 2012 we felt disheartened by the lack of opportunities there were for us to utilise the skills we had learnt during our time at Regent’s University London. London seemed like a closed shop to us and we became frustrated by this, wondering how we were ever going to act again. We began to realise that the best way around this was to create our own opportunities, but unlike other collaborative groups we recognised that we aren’t alone in this predicament and wanted to involve the community that trained us in the first place. And so the Regent’s Network was born. How does the Regent’s Network work and who can get involved? Anyone with a creative passion can be involved in the Regent’s Network, no matter your skill set, as long as you’re a past or present student of Regent’s University London. If you have an exciting creative idea, all you have to do is get in touch with the Regent’s Network and present us with your idea, and we will aid in the organisation needed to turn that idea into a full project. Alternatively, if you just want to exercise your creative skills (acting, directing, writing, singing) you can simply inform us of your talents or interests and we will then inform you of any upcoming projects or events that you may be interested in

participating in. All we ask is for dedication to the projects and events you participate in. It’s that easy! Have you any upcoming projects? The most exciting thing about the Regent’s Network is that we will constantly be creating work. Following our performance at the Regent’s Arts Festival in April, we hope to hit the ground running with as many new members and as much new material as possible. During the summer we are putting on a Theatre Jam and by the end of the year we hope to be well underway with a full-length play wholly developed by Regent’s Network members. These are just our immediate plans, but Regent’s University London is our oyster and we can’t wait to get working! How can I contact the Regent’s Network? The best way to contact us is by email at regentsnetwork@ gmail.com, but you can also find us on Twitter: @regentsnetwork, and on Facebook: facebook. com/theregentsnetwork, where you can keep up to date with our latest projects. Alternatively you can come and chat to us after any of our performances or projects.

Wolfgang Möckel European Business School London Class of 1991 I started my own business in New York City in 1994. KWM Exclusives Inc. specialises in running the US office of European companies with a focus on precious jewellery, working as a liaison between the jewellery manufacturer and the US retailers and magazines. Services range from handling sales and customer service to public relations events and advertising. Caroline Williams (née Wallner) European Business School London BA (Hons) International Business and Management Studies Class of 2001 I spent 7 years as a carbon commodities broker in London before I had my daughter in 2011. I now work from home with my app business Happy No Nappy (www.happynonappy.com). I created a how-to guide for “Elimination Communication” after successfully practising it with my own daughter. Amber Raney-Kincade American InterContinental University London Class of 2002 I started my own business as a marketing consultant (www.raney-kincade.co.uk) teaching seminars and providing business consultancy on marketing, social media and networking. I am also a tour guide in London and have started a business providing walking tours and itinerary planning to those coming to London on holiday (www.AmericanTourGuideInLondon.com). Zaid Al-Adham American InterContinental University London Class of 2005 I have had a long stint in the media and entertainment industries, beginning with being accepted for an internship with CNN International in London right after graduating in 2005. I moved on to work for some of the largest media entities in the United Arab Emirates as well as my home country, Canada, culminating in hosting

and directing my own television show on Middle Eastern satellite channel DMTV (entitled Treasure Hunters). I am now making the move towards starting my own multimedia business. VZ Entertainment, based in Dubai, will cover all aspects of media production and include focus on e-commerce and social media marketing for small to mediumsized businesses and start-ups in the United Arab Emirates. The project, a collaboration between my creative experience and my father’s business expertise, will start in May or June of 2014 and hopefully move on to wider markets and larger projects with time. Kenya Armbrister Webster Graduate School London Class of 2005 I recently found out that I have a 1 in 705 chance of becoming an astronaut for Mars One. Mars One is a nonprofit foundation whose mission is to establish the first human settlement on Mars by 2024. Last year 200,000 people applied for a chance to permanently settle on Mars, but in December 2013 only 1,058 were chosen to advance. To advance we had to prove that we were mentally and physically fit. Once the interviews have taken place Mars One plans to hold regional and global competitions for a chance to enter the Mars One astronaut training programme. If successful, Mars One will then choose the best team for the first mission to Mars. Every two years an additional four people will be sent until there are twenty in total. I’m very excited to have advanced this far and I am looking forward to meeting the other candidates for this once-in-alifetime dream. For further information please go to kenyaarmbrister.wordpress.com. Thanks for your support!

Can Duyguluer Regent’s Business School London MA International Management Class of 2006

Paloma Del Rey Regent’s School of Drama, Film & Media MA Writing for Screen & Stage Class of 2012

I have been working in the Coca-Cola Company as a procurement specialist.

I am currently living in Madrid, trying to keep up as a freelance writer. I have been working on two scripts for film that I would love to sell one day soon. Fingers and toes crossed. I am also looking for work as a features writer for English publications anywhere in the world. So if anyone knows of someone or a company or contacts please let me know. I am also six months pregnant and I am expecting a little boy. I have called him Aaron. I have taken on many new challenges, but the biggest so far is adapting to being a mother-to-be and a writer at the same time, so any assistance or advice for the above will be so greatly appreciated. My baby is due on 21 June. Wish me luck!

Uossif Alzwayi Webster Graduate School London MA International Relations Class of 2008 I worked for the UPS Libya as operations manager from 2010 to 2013. I am now working for the Oxford English Academy in Tripoli as marketing manager. I met my wife at UPS and we got married in 2013. She is now working for Apple’s official contractor in Libya. Stephanie Gasche European Business School London MA International Business Management Class of 2010 Together with my brother I have recently founded my own start-up named Fleissige Biene (German for “busy bee”) in Austria. We launched www.fleissigebiene. com in January 2014 as a service portal that virtualises neighbourly help. Having lived in various countries I know what it is like not to know your neighbours (or their kids), thus not being able to ask them for assistance i.e. in the garden, walking the dog, finding an electrician and so on. Fleissige Biene connects neighbourhoods in all of Austria. Megan Boehnke Webster Graduate School London MA Global International Relations Class of 2011

Dan Rinot Regents Business School London BA (Hons) Global Business Management Class of 2013 I am working full time for one of my family’s steel factories located in Israel. I started my own steel trading group with other Regent’s students whose families are highly involved in steel manufacturing and distribution, www.estee-group.com. Sandra Vega Neri Regent’s American College London Class of 2013 I have started a new business venture in London called AyQueChula (www.ayquechula.com), bringing contemporary Mexican fashion to London, and a business consulting firm to help Mexican business connect and trade in the UK (www.lamarcamexico.co.uk).

I have started my own consulting firm, Boehnke Water Consulting, primarily focusing on transboundary water security and conflict, specifically in the Middle East and North Africa. I look at the issues from many different stances including legal, economic, globalisation, war and diplomacy and with regard to US foreign relations.

We were delighted to host the fourth annual Alumni Dragons’ Den this April as part of the Regent’s Arts Festival. For the first time, the event promised entrepreneurial students not just the platform to express their ideas but also the chance to win a cash prize being offered by Equity Stakes and NACUE An audience of alumni, students and staff gathered in Herringham Hall to watch entrepreneurial students pitch their innovative business ideas to our panel of dragons. Our panel of experienced alumni entrepreneurs and investors would then judge the creative ideas of our students. This year we were joined by two new alumni dragons to rate the pitches alongside the experienced Judy Piatkus and Hardeep Rai. The first was Noelle Reno who launched her first fashion business while still an RACL student and now combines a number of roles including being a presenter for Fashion TV. We also welcomed Luke Levene who started his career in animation, directing and producing commercials and music videos for artists such as Marc Ronson and Lily Allen, before founding several of his own companies. A packed audience saw pitches from seven Regent’s entrepreneurs and as always the quality of ideas was high. At the end of the judging there was a tie between two of our students, which led to a tense period of deliberation amongst the judges. The winning pitch came from Regent’s American College London student Maximus Poumie. His project is called “I Speak African” and was created as a response to his frustrations at the lack of knowledge and education about Africa and its inhabitants. His goal is to recreate the image of Africa. He explains some of the motivation behind the project: “I have spent most of my life moving around from one city to another and eventually one country to the next. My family are from Cameroon, but in order to preserve a successful life for me my parents decided to move to the US one month before I was born. Although I have spent a large part of my life in New York, my mother never failed to remind me of this heritage and I am very proud to be African and of my Cameroonian heritage.” You can find out more about his project and get involved via Facebook www.facebook.com/ispeakafrican. After the event there was a drinks reception for the contestants, dragons and alumni to meet and mingle. The topics of conversation were new ideas, running your own business and above all the creativity and diversity of the Regent’s community. You can see a full gallery of photos from the event on the official Regent’s Alumni Facebook page www.facebook.com/RULAlumni/events.

Alumni Events Regent’s Club Keep checking the alumni website and Facebook for new events as we will be announcing fresh meetings in Dubai, New Delhi, Zurich, Paris, Moscow and Sao Paulo very soon. www.regents.ac.uk/alumni/regentsclub www.facebook.com/RULAlumni/events

Regent’s Club Munich Summer Meeting Thursday 3 July 2014, from 19:00 Hugo’s at Lake Starnberg - www.undosa.de The latest meeting of Regent’s Club Munich offers the usual mix of familiar faces and interesting conversation but with the added extra of sand and even sun loungers. Join your Regent’s Club coordinators, Fabian Kraenzlin and Judith Pottgen, at this popular bar on Lake Starnberg for a twist on the successful Regent’s Club formula. Regent’s Club Washington July Meeting Tuesday 15 July 2014 from 19:00 Venue tbc All alumni are invited to the capital for a new meeting of one our established Regent’s Clubs. Your host for the evening is Regent’s Club coordinator and WGSL Graduate, Patrick O’Keefe. The evening will also be an unofficial reunion for graduates of the MA International Relations programme as both Yossi Mekelberg and Dr. Neven Andjelic will be joining from Regent’s with some of their current students. Regent’s Club London September Meeting Thursday 5 September 2014 from 18:30 Prolong your summer by meeting up with friends at our next meeting of Regent’s Club London. Make a date in your diary to catch up with old friends and make some new ones from our vibrant alumni community. All alumni from Regent’s University London are welcome to attend. The venue will be announced next month on the alumni website.

Alumni Reunions

EBS London Reunion Class of 1984–94 Saturday 18 October 2014, from 18:30 Regent’s University London We are inviting back all alumni who graduated between 1984 and 1994 for celebratory reunion dinner. We hope you can join us to celebrate 30th anniversary of the graduation of the first cohort of EBS London graduates. There are number of significant milestones for this exclusive group to celebrate and we hope you will enjoy returning to Regent’s for this date. The evening will start with a champagne reception and will be include a full evening of entertainment culminating in a dinner with all your old friends. Tickets are available via the alumni website so book yours without delay. Book your tickets at www.regents.ac.uk/alumni

Your world of difference

Enhance your career opportunities Return to Regent’s to gain specialist skills and boost your employability › Business, finance and management › Luxury brand management › Oil and gas trade management › Global and specialist MBAs › Digital marketing and analytics Find out more about study options and the Regent’s Progress Fund ~ an award for alumni continuing studies at Regent’s

Attend the Postgraduate Open Evening on 8 October Register at regents.ac.uk/OpenEve T 020 7487 7505 E exrel@regents.ac.uk W regents.ac.uk/postgrad

To have the experience of meeting people from all sorts of different backgrounds and from all sorts of different cultures, changed the course of my life. I met people who have been important features of my life in the last 25 years. Philip Ozouf Treasury and Resources Minister, Jersey European Business School London Class of 1993