ALUMNI COMMUNITY
Meet Tanja, who loves to
spark innovation and growth
At Hult, supporting our mission of developing a new kind of
business school for the global generation, we pride ourselves on
unlocking students’ and employees’ full potential. Alumna Tanja
Levine, Vice President at Hult Ashridge and the perfect embodiment
of the Hult DNA, explains her passion for driving the expansion
of Ashridge’s transformational impact on multinational firms
and executives.
Over the last six years you’ve held various
roles at Hult and Ashridge. Can you tell us
more about your Hult journey?
It has been an incredibly unique experience.
I love our core value “Nothing is impossible”,
as it is what Hult stands for. There is a
relentless drive to add value, innovate,
and disrupt alongside a genuine
passion to provide transformational
educational experiences.
I have been fortunate enough to take on
various regional and global roles. I started
as Head of Europe for our Executive MBA
program, and then helped launch our
global Corporate Relations Outreach team.
I was also part of the MBA redesign team
who integrated the core soft skills employers
told us they were looking for into the
curriculum—a redesign that won an AMBA
Innovation Award.
I was so inspired by the Executive MBA
program we were promoting I ended up
enrolling on the program myself! There is no
denying that it was intense, but graduating
from our program while working in a global
role and raising my two sons is proof that
“Nothing is impossible”.
Over the last three years I have worked
at Hult Ashridge overseeing the growth of
our executive education services in Central
and South Europe. My current team is made
up of seven different nationalities with wide
cross-regional and industry experience. This
is what makes us relevant in today’s highly
competitive marketplace.
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You’ve contributed to many development
projects at Ashridge since the operational
merger. How do you see these
developments making an impact on our
rapidly changing world? Ashridge has been expanding its footprint
around the world over the past couple of
years, particularly in Europe. Can you tell us
more about this expansion and explain how
alumni can benefit from it?
The best way of explaining the operational
merger is “1+1=3.” Hult learned so much
from Ashridge and vice versa. The combined
power allows us to better serve our clients
on a much more global scale. A lot of
cross-fertilization has already taken place,
and some of our experiential programs are
already offered as alumni elective options. Following the strategic alliance, a really
interesting new network of local contacts and
corporate clients opened up to Hult. Ashridge
enjoyed the strongest client revenue
percentage growth rate globally in Central
Europe last year, so we decided to invest
more in that region. We now have greater
local presence including Country Directors in
Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, and
Spain. We serve clients such as Ferrari, eBay,
the World Economic Forum, NATO, LVMH,
Lufthansa, MunichRe, Swarovski, Buhler, and
Bayer. Our ambition is to double Ashridge’s
business in the region by 2020—expanding
our client base further and serving our clients
in unique and innovative ways to ultimately
accelerate our clients’ success and growth.
NATO was one of the clients recently on site
for a senior leadership development program
that included our flagship ‘Leadership
Experience’ based on Hult Ashridge
research. All participants wore heart rate
variance monitors while undergoing a
‘leading at the edge’ simulation that included
having actors and media camera crews
storming in.
For another global consortium group we
are running a purpose and legacy program
at a wilderness retreat in Antarctica.
This program aims to tie in themes of
environmental sustainability and the UN
millennium development goals. In many
ways we aim to create leaders who make
a positive impact.
Alumni can support Hult Ashridge by
connecting us with key HR and business
stakeholders at their companies to explore
transformational programs around leadership,
cultural change, and disruptive innovation.
Alumni can benefit from Ashridge by
attending local corporate network events and
joining innovative open programs with our
corporate partners, such as the Ferrari digital
disruption course.