14.5.2025
Cergy, May 20th, 2025 - Thomas Friang has been named Executive Director of the ESSEC Business School Institute for Geopolitics & Business, founded as part of ESSEC’s TRANSCEND strategy. Friang will report to Professor Anne-Claire Pache, Associate Dean of Global Strategy and Sustainability, and will work alongside Professors Aurélien Colson and Cédomir Nestorovic, the Institute’s academic co-directors.
Friang will help launch and develop the Institute for Geopolitics & Business on all ESSEC’s campuses (Cergy, La Défense, Singapore, Rabat). This Institute will draw on the expertise of the Institute for Research and Education on Negotiation (IRENE), the Center for Geopolitics, Defense and Leadership, and the European Center for Law and Economics.
« For many companies, the current state of the world has put an end to 'business as usual.' By creating the Institute for Geopolitics & Business, ESSEC will provide concrete answers to major questions facing boards and executives. I am delighted to join ESSEC: its excellence in academic research, its pedagogical innovation, and its international presence are tremendous assets for supporting this historic shift in our economies. » says Friang.
Friang has over 15 years of experience in international affairs. Before joining ESSEC, he was an adviser for strategic communications and speech-writing to Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, French Minister of State for Development and International Partnerships in the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs. In that role, he supported the transformation of development aid policy into international partnership policy. Previously, Friang led the Open Diplomacy Institute from 2019-2023, a think tank dedicated to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in a tense geopolitical context. He founded the organization in 2010 and chaired it on a volunteer basis until 2019. In this role, he developed numerous initiatives like the Sustainable
Development Meetings, the French anniversary of the SDGs, and the Y20, the G20's youth engagement group, which he chaired ahead of the G20 summit in Cannes.
ESSEC, founded in 1907, is one of the world’s top management schools and holds the “triple crown” accreditation from EQUIS, AACSB and AMBA. With 7,855 students; a faculty comprised of 194 professors, including 25 emeritus professors, in France and Singapore, recognized for both the quality and influence of their research; a wide range of management training programs; partnerships with the world’s best universities; and a network of 74,000 alumni, ESSEC continues to foster a tradition of academic excellence and a spirit of openness in the fields of economics, social sciences and innovation. In 2005, ESSEC strengthened its presence in Asia and opened a campus, ESSEC Asia-Pacific, strategically located in Singapore. In 2016, ESSEC opened a new campus in Rabat, Morocco. ESSEC’s international expansion allows students and professors to study and understand the economic forces at work in the different regions of the world.
Marie Caroline Saro, External Communications Manager - 01 34 43 36 61 - saro@essec.edu
Julia Smith, International Media Relations Officer - smith@essec.edu
