Today, SISH-Vatel Singapore held our annual Vatel Reception. Brilliantly organised by a team of Vatel MBA students with the support of lecturer Mr Barry, the fun-filled event was a great success. The exclusive event commenced at 3pm at SISH city campus – alumni, guests, students, and lecturers arrived promptly and were greeted with an attentive and friendly Vatel team and a beautifully decorated space.
The Vatel Reception creates an opportunity to bring students and industrial leaders together and provides a networking platform for individuals to interact and connect. Meeting leaders in hospitality is a good way to identify possible opportunities for students who aspire to advance their careers.
SISH’s managing director Mr Chia Tuck Keong began the reception by giving a speech. The emcees, Raphael Cristea (Vatel MBA) and Gredia Tokan (Vatel MBA), did an excellent job of hosting the reception as they successfully engaged the audiences with their well-prepared discourse and jokes. They started the ball rolling by introducing a fun multiplayer game where the audiences have to answer a series of questions on their phone. The short game was particularly informative about Vatel’s history and kept audiences entertained and amused.
The guest speakers for this event were Mr Jimmy Putra, Director of Revenue, Sofitel City Centre, and Mr Wouter De Graaf, General Manager, Sofitel City Centre. Both of them delivered an empowering and heartwarming talk pertaining to their life experiences, leadership, as well as advices for graduating students when they step into the world of hospitality and tourism. Mr Jimmy’s life story about his abandonment as a child, his career journey, and his perseverance in spite of life obstacles is extraordinarily inspiring and provided very thought-provoking perspectives to the audiences. As Mr Wouter says; “Leadership can only be learnt on the line. Not in school.” – the talk ended with the main takeaway to go beyond grades and paper qualification, and to never stop learning no matter how old you are.
After the talk, Ms Sarah Jourdonneau, an alumnus from Vatel France and the Assistant Business Development of The French Cellar, facilitated a comprehensive and interactive workshop on wine tasting. Everyone had a great time sipping on a curated selection of imported French wines and learnt about the differences between the various wine regions, the techniques, and the grapes.
During the networking session, guests and students were treated to a wonderful buffet and delightful activities such as latte art workshop by our very own student Jacky Tran (Vatel MBA) and cupcake decoration workshop by Whips Cupcakes – a local cupcake store that specialises in decorative mini cupcakes. Everyone had an enjoyable time socialising and networking with industrial leaders and guests. The event ended with a lucky draw.
This student-led event was well-received with many positive feedbacks and compliments by guests, students, and lecturers. Most of the comments lauded the smooth coordination and the entertaining elements of the event. Excellent job, guys!
We hope these experiences give students a plethora of ideas, inspiration, and knowledge that they can tap on in their future career and life – and help to broaden their perspective of the definition of success.
The school would like to thank the following students for their collaborative effort in organising Vatel Reception 2018:
Leader Vincent Berry
Emcee Gredia Tokan and Raphael Cristea
IT Anil Kumar
Receptionist Reina Lie
F&B Leader Mehrotra Ashutosh
Kitchen Massey Akshay Sunny and Bhattacharjee Sunny
Buffet Ramani Sakshi
Barista Jacky Tran
Audit Clarence Lua
