The past two days have been a whirlwind of fun and excitement — so much so, that I am making up for lost time by combining days 5 and 6 in this blog. On Saturday, we had the opportunity to hear from a recent alum about her experience working for the Civil Service in England. Her work regulating nuclear threat reporting was extremely pertinent to recent events and was really interesting. The bulk of the day, however, was spent meeting with President Weinberg and many other Denison alums from around Europe in a networking event. From conversing with a Lord about biosimilar regulation by the United Nations to discussing the value of behavioral economics in predictive models for investments, I know I personally learned a lot from the event.
Saturday night and Sunday were a time to relax and enjoy the city at our leisure. This looked different for everyone, but I am including a few pictures below to illustrate some of the fun we had. I enjoyed tea, a walk in Hyde Park, and touring the Wallace Collection art gallery. Others enjoyed Sky Garden, the Tower of London museum, shopping, and of course we all enjoyed eating good food.
Tomorrow is our last day of meetings and business visits. I am sad to see our time in London drawing to an end, but the trip has made me more excited to jump back into the classroom and a routine back at Denison in a week!
Hello! Today we visited Ernst & Young (EY) where Danya El Zein, a Denison alum from 2008, spoke to us about her role as a senior manager. She helps multinational businesses perform mergers and acquisitions and offered some insights about how to use a liberal arts education in the workplace. This visit was extra special as President Weinberg sat in on our session after arriving in London earlier in the week!
Up next, the group walked over Tower Bridge on our way to BPL Global which is an insurance brokerage. From there we got a tour of Lloyd’s of London where about $100 million worth of insurance and reinsurance claims are negotiated every day. Learning about political risk and political violence risk and how claims are formed around such risks was especially interesting to me. The featured photo above is the sunset coming through the windows of the Lloyd’s of London building.
The formal “business” day ended with a dinner at Balan’s Soho Society where we dined with Emilios Kyriacou, the Managing Director Citi Country Officer for Greece, Cyprus & Malta. He is a Denison alum and enjoyed hearing how the university has changed and remained the same over the years since he graduated.
Stay tuned for tomorrow when the real networking begins! Denison alumni are flying in from around Europe to spend an afternoon together.
Hello, again! Today was another fun and educational day. This morning we were visited by Chrystal Denys who is a Commercial Specialist for the US Embassy in London. We learned a lot from her about how Brexit will affect businesses throughout the UK and the world as a whole. We then went to Macfarlanes and had lunch with Kelly Koltes who is a Denison alum. She is the Director of Marketing and Business Development and shared about her experience learning how to market legal services to different markets throughout the world.
After our visit to Macfarlanes concluded, we were free to venture forth into London on our own. A group of us took the opportunity to tour the Churchill War Rooms. These rooms formerly housed Sir Winston Churchill, Clementine Churchill, and other British military leaders and their staff in secrecy during the Blitz in London until the conclusion of the war. The night ended with dinner and an evening walk through downtown London where Westminster Abbey and the London Eye could be spotted.
Thank you to everyone who has been reading this blog, please stay tuned as tomorrow is a full day. We will be visiting OpCapita, the London Stock Exchange, and the theatre to watch the production ‘Matilda’. Please enjoy the photos below!
Hello from London! First, I have to preface this post by saying that I have had about three hours of sleep in the last 36 hours, so this might not make sense to anyone save myself. With that being said, yesterday the group met in Washington, D.C. before flying together to London. We left Dulles at 6:30 pm and arrived in Heathrow around 6:30am with a full day ahead of us. A little groggy, we’ve been having a fun time getting acquainted with the city.
Today we checked into our hotel and then went on a walking tour of the city. We learned how to navigate the Tube and saw a lot of tourist sites. We visited Buckingham Palace and saw the Victoria Memorial adjacent. We then walked through St. James Park and saw the London Eye in the distance. Getting hungry, we stopped for lunch at the Covent Garden Market and saw some street performers playing some fun tunes. As if we were not already exhausted, we marched on to the Imperial War Museum where we toured a World War I exhibit and a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. From there, we gave into our grogginess and returned to our hotel for a much-needed nap. The day ended eating North African cuisine at a restaurant with Denison alumni who had a long career as a lawyer for Sotheby’s.
This has indeed been a long day, but as I sign off for the night I am grateful. It’s not every day that you get the opportunity to visit the Queen of England’s residency, hear British accents in surround sound, and spend time with good friends eating good food. That’s a wrap until tomorrow!
The Global Commerce department is spending winter break sipping tea and talking business in London.
