Interview Jean-Nicolas Mannoni, Director of Development at ICD Business School.

Introduce yourself

I'm Jean-Nicolas Mannoni, I'm 35 years old, I have 2 children, I graduated in 2013 with a double master degree. I joined the ICD Business School in 2013 and I have worked in several positions within the school, where I have developed a sincere passion for teaching and in particular for higher education in the commercial field. I have worked in corporate relations, pedagogy, communication, admissions and development.

What is your job? What is the objective of your job?

I am now the Director of Development at ICD Business School Paris. I work with the communications team to improve our communications to make them more visible and more adapted to each of the many communities we work with. I also work with the admissions team to improve the school's recruitment, by improving the visibility of the school, the knowledge and reputation of our high quality programs, and our support mechanisms for students who wish to join the programs of the ICD Business School Paris. Finally, I work with all the other departments to develop new programs and new services to offer to students and future students to better meet their expectations, those of companies and ultimately two issues, the employability of our students and therefore their professional qualities, and the social impact and therefore their citizenship qualities.

How did you get into this profession?

10 years at the ICD Business School allowed me to discover the environment of higher education, the jobs that make up a school. I discovered the companies in my first functions in the establishment, I understood the importance for them to be partners of the ICD Business School for the quality of its graduates that they recruit out of confidence in the establishment. I then discovered the programs and pedagogy through my experiences as a teacher and program director. The engineering developed by the teams, the teachers and the faculty are the strength of these programs with clear objectives, innovative methods to make the experience effective and enjoyable for the learners. It is with this refined knowledge of the issues and tools and the confidence of the school's management that I was entrusted with the development of the school, its programs and its services to plan and support the development of our beautiful school.

What is your day-to-day activity within the school?

The mission covers several strategic and operational aspects.
I participate in the elaboration of the school's long and medium-term development strategies.

I organize the deployment of this strategy in the shorter term in an operational manner with the team with whom we define and program the actions necessary to achieve our objectives. I try to facilitate situations and find efficient solutions for all the stakeholders of the project.

I also work on business intelligence to study the development of programs, and on intelligence on services in other industries to improve those offered to our students.
Finally, I promote this school, which is rich in its DNA, its programs, its total commitment to its students, its mission, and its commitment to improving business.

Who are your contacts?

I interact on a daily basis with all of the school's teams, the school's management, my team, of course, the teaching teams, the corporate relations teams, the students, the associations, the companies... The communication aspect of my job, and therefore also the information aspect, leads me to follow everyone's news in order to share it internally and sometimes externally. The development aspect is very transverse, the launch or evolution of a program involves all of the school's departments, in order to define the right balance of the program, the periods spent in companies, the international periods. I therefore call on all the teams on a daily basis to propose, tomorrow, ever more innovative programs that meet the needs of students, companies and society.

What is your favorite part of your job?

Before the job of development director, it is the "school" job that I appreciate. I have a very high opinion of this profession, which is essential for young people, essential for society, and which obliges us to deliver an excellent quality of service with responsibility and ethics. These are the values carried by the ICD Business School, the IGS Group, and I am personally convinced that they generate so much commitment on my part and that of all the teams.

More specifically, as a development director, it is the project dimension that is at the heart of this position that is exciting. We work with the teams on projects of varying lengths but with a strong entrepreneurial dimension. Each project is based on the seriousness of the research carried out, but there is always an element of uncertainty which often requires rapid decisions to adapt our actions. It is this collective challenge that we take up with the team that makes this job so exciting.

Why do you like working in the student environment?

Students are so inspiring. We are lucky enough to be in contact with the future professionals of society, to be immersed in their ideas, their dreams, the innovations they envision for society and professional uses. We are finally at the heart of the movement, we accompany it, we encourage it, we benefit from it through this daily proximity with our students. It is always an invigorating pleasure to arrive on campus and see our students, active, serious, (sometimes less serious and for the better!), and to see all this energy deployed, all these desires, all these hopes for the future. It's a water of youth to sum up the pleasure of living with students on campus.

What measures has your department put in place to support students during their studies?

With the communications and admissions teams, we support students from the moment they want to join us, during their studies and then after they graduate. Before they join us, we often help them identify the job they want to do later on, the training they need to do it and the steps to take. During their studies, we offer students orientation services in new programs with particular specializations. After their studies, we support them in their careers with information on the professions from the Institut Prospectif des Métiers du Commerce, or opportunities offered by partner companies and our alumni.

Do you have an anecdote or a missing memory?

One memory that is always pleasant is the organization by the students of a surprise ceremony called the "JN Awards" which congratulated students and teachers in several categories, more or less serious or creative. Beyond a nice reference to my first name, I saw it as a very touching gesture of recognition, especially since I had the pleasure of winning 3 trophies that evening, which were kept all nice and cozy at my house. This recognition is, in my opinion, the key to a teacher who is committed to training the best possible willing and truly engaging students