33 business leaders from home and abroad joined the 2012 Tsinghua INSEAD EMBA Program (TIEMBA Program), starting their eighteen-month education at SEM.

The participants come from sixteen countries. They formally registered into the Program on June 3, 2010.

Initiated in 2007, the Program was co-held by the EMBA Program of SEM and INSEAD. It is the first EMBA program in mainland China that grants dual degrees. The Program builds on the strength and prestige of both schools and recruits students on global scale.

In the past four years, the Program has attracted participant students from over 30 countries in the world.

On the opening ceremony of the 2012 Program, Professor QIAN Yingyi, Dean of Tsinghua SEM, delivered a speech to the audience. He reviewed the history of Tsinghua University and the EMBA Program, and welcomed TIEMBA students who happen to come to the campus on the occasion of Tsinghua University’s centenary celebration.

“By joining the program, you have already entered an EMBA alumni network composed of senior students in 34 countries,” said Dean QIAN Yingyi, “This will be a life-long resource that ensures the company of alumni wherever you go in the world.”

Professor Javier Gimeno,Dean of the EMBA Program at INSEAD, gave four suggestions to the new students. The first is to thank their family and friends for their support in participants’ course of study; the second is to challenge and “unlearn” existing knowledge in the Program; the third is to set grand long-term goals that answer the needs of society; and the fourth is to cherish lasting friendship with classmates.

Jay Teborek, a senior TIEMBA student, also encouraged participants to fully appreciate the value in each other in his speech.

“I was aware of the intensity of the Program when I received a thick pack of documents from Tsinghua,” said SHEN Chunhui, a new participant representative. He expects hard work and passionate learning for the eighteen months to come.

The opening ceremony was moderated by Christopher Scott Ruggles and Melanie Kathleen Bower. After the ceremony, students visited Tsinghua campus and held a knowledge contest about the university.