On Friday, 21 May 2021, the ILF hosted our first Virtual Alumni Global Networking event. The event began with a welcome address from Professor Andreas Cahn, ILF Founder and Executive Director. He remarked that although the situation in Germany and across the global remain tentative, there is much to be optimistic about in the near future.
Following on, we had a presentation from our guest speaker Professor Chen Li, from Fudan University in Shanghai, China. Professor Chen gave an insightful talk on the topic “Enforcement of Arbitral Awards under the New York Convention in China” and dealt with issues regarding the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards, a subject matter in which she is a leading expert, and was a privilege to listen to her presentation.
Next, Jennifer Barnett, ILF Alumni Manager who moderated the event, introduced our four alumni speakers. Our first alumni speaker, Lora McInturf (Class of 2009), detailed her experience from working in global law firms to becoming an entrepreneur and business owner, running The Inner Advocate. Our second speaker was Eldor Tulyakov (Class of 2011), Executive Director of the Development Strategy Center (Uzbekistan). His career had taken him through politics in Uzbekistan, shaping the national policy on the Committee on Budget and Economic Reforms to his current role. The penultimate speaker was Faraz Alam Sagar (Class of 2007), a Partner at Cyril Amarchand and current student at Stanford Business School. His talk on the post Covid work environment, the good and the bad was a great snapshot of best practices for our current students and fellow alumni. Our final speaker of the evening was Jane Xu (Class of 2014), with her international education, diverse career and tenacity to say yes to opportunity made her an inspirational speaker to end with.
The event participants were then organised into breakout rooms so that alumni across the years could meet old friends and also be introduced to new acquaintances. The evening ended with Dr. Rolf Friedewald, ILF Managing Director, giving some closing words and emphasized the importance of keeping one’s positivity in the current challenging circumstances and wishing everyone good health and success in their personal and professional goals!
The ILF was delighted to welcome over 100 participants to this alumni event.
We would like to thank all our speakers, alumni and students for their participation!
