As CEO of Housing Investment Partners (HiP), Putu is a champion of affordable housing in South Africa. He was appointed as CFO in February 2017, at which time the shareholders were considering closing the business due to lack of profitability.

He was appointed as CEO in December 2018. Under Putu’s leadership, HiP went from a loss of ZAR 17 million (€ 1 million) in 2016 to a profit of ZAR 9 million (€500k) in 2019.

The ‘missing middle’ in South Africa earns too much for free social housing, but too little to qualify for a standard bank home loan. HiP provides home loans to the so-called ‘missing middle’ with gross monthly income above €200 and up to €1,500. Most customers are in public service, for example policemen, nurses and teachers.

HiP uses an innovative salary-linked repayment product that alleviates affordability issues in the beginning of the loan, with the repayments gradually increasing over the life of the home loan, as the client's income increases. In total, Putu raised ZAR 806 million (€47 million) for the provision of affordable housing home loans.

Nominator and former RSM classmate Alla Alimova says: “Putu has the biggest heart – and laugh – that I've ever experienced in a person. He's driven by not only his personal economic gain, but primarily by making the community better.”

By founding consulting firm LaNubia, Rigo recognised and leveraged technology to build a diverse and unique work environment that connects colleagues and contractors around the world, helping them to learn from diverse backgrounds and skillsets, and share ideas.  
Another big achievement in Rigo’s career is the build of a consortium with academic partner JADS to start an innovation lab in Curaçao with focus on artificial intelligence and data science.

When conceptualizing LaNubia, Rigo combined his work experience, drive to disrupt the consulting industry, and entrepreneurial spirit to reconceptualize the traditional, hierarchical, consultancy into a positive, creative, collaborative and modern format.

The innovation lab in Curaçao also aims to have a huge social impact by providing educational options for students and business professionals. It hopes to stimulate economic growth for the island to create a foundation for export of educational and IT services.  

He also supported two RSM MBA teams during the MBA'21 Living Management Project, introducing and inspiring the students to see his vision for LaNubia, to better understand technology's impact on the future of work, and to see and embrace opportunities for business growth and entrepreneurship.

Rigo actively hires and trains other RSM alumni. He encourages all his employees to embrace RSM’s values in their work and life, to never stop pursuing positive personal growth, and to embrace changes with enthusiasm and agility.  

Nominator Aldo Silvano, fellow MBA alumnus says: “I’m impressed with Rigo’s dedication to driving technological innovation and adoption in the business community, boosting RSM’s recognition and reputation worldwide, and desire to build a positive and accepting workforce.”

After building sustainability from the ground up at Vodafone Germany, Ryan was tasked with making Peek & Cloppenburg Düsseldorf (P&C) a leader in sustainable fashion in July 2021. 

For P&C, which has over 15,000 employees and 150 stores in 16 countries, Ryan is developing the company’s first-ever sustainability strategy to act as a catalyst for change within the fashion industry. 

As Head of Sustainability at Vodafone Germany (16,000 employees), Ryan took on the responsibility for carbon reduction, implementing circular economy solutions for e‑waste, and supporting sustainable innovation for Vodafone's operations in Germany. In 2020, the company had reached 100 per cent renewable energy, reducing its CO₂ emissions by 92 per cent, with the goal to become climate neutral by 2025 and net-zero emissions by 2040.  

Ryan has made several public appearances on sustainability-related topics, including high-profile German podcasts and invitations to the German Ministry of Environment. He was also a board member of digital association Bitkom, with a focus on digitalisation and sustainability.  

As member of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers, Ryan also works with inspiring young people, trying to make a positive change to local communities within a global context. 

Ryan: “I cannot simply sit back and wait for others to fix the problems that we have, but need to take responsibility myself and try to do the best I can to have a positive impact on the world. I’m happy I can do that every day.” 

Teodor has a gift to imagine the world as it should be and a commitment to community service, says his nominator and fellow IBA graduate Frederick Rustler.

As an entrepreneur and founder of OVO Europa, a development company that builds sustainable communities, Teodor was named one of the Best Entrepreneurs Under 35 by the Dutch Financial Times, featured on Voice of America and TEDx, and has been selected as one of Romania’s 30 Under 30 by Forbes Magazine.

As a student, Teodor rallied the support of Rotterdam City Hall, volunteers and technology companies to co-found Restart Network, a non-profit venture that built careers in IT for underrepresented minorities in the Netherlands. He also co-founded Turing Society (now Turing Students Rotterdam) which hosts lectures and programmes about coding and technology.

He taught martial arts and created a community of students through Erasmus BJJ, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu club he co-founded with Erasmus Sport. His student ambitions resulted in Restart Network being able to donate €15,000 to RSM’s Hummingbird Fund, empowering current students to have a positive impact through entrepreneurship.

Teodor: “The idea that most significantly impacted my worldview is that ‘we are the people we have been waiting for’. At RSM I forged strong friendships, found bright minds that challenged me, and kind people that supported me. And five years later my significant other and I are still very happy – we met during a lecture. So I certainly have a lot to be grateful for.”

As one of the top mentors in RSM MentorMe, Pak is on her way to be the first mentor in the platform to reach 100 consultations and has done an outstanding job investing dozens of hours helping students understand their career needs.

She does this next to her busy job as director of corporate strategy at Evonik Industries in Germany, showing the power of female professionals that manage an intense schedule and also find time to help others in their journey.

Being an ambitious professional, new mother raising a bi-racial daughter, living and working internationally, she says it’s fulfilling to push students in the right direction: “So many of our own experiences help start a dialogue, bringing more awareness to our societal issues and how we can work together to overcome and thrive through them.”

Pak also contributes as an advisor to Impactmania, which connects people and projects to accelerate cultural, social and economic impact, to inspire, involve and connect current and next-generation’s impact makers. She does the same for The Exchangables, a non-governmental organisation with focus on vulnerable youth, encouraging the development of skills through individual and group focused activities such as exchange programmes, training, workshops and seminars.

Pak is not planning to stop guiding RSM students to reach their full potential and goals: “It’s wonderful to learn about other people’s journeys, concerns, and curiosities. It has given me the opportunity to balance, reflect and add new perspectives to my own life, work and organisation too.” 

Philip is the driving force behind RSM’s Italy alumni chapter. He’s always looking for ways for fellow alumni to stay connected with each other, the school and alumni from other business schools.

Next to his impressive career – after the MBA his consulting career started at Bain&Co and he is now principal at goetzpartners – he just started his own venture with liquor syndicates too. Yet, he always find time to stay connected with RSM while juggling his career, own company, RSM alumni network in Italy and fatherhood.

The events Philip has organised have had big impact: for example a pan-European event on Milan Expo (2015) and a Joint Business School Ball (2017, 2018, 2019) where each year about 200 business school graduates travelled to Milan to participate at this unique festivity. Philip is currently also in the process of linking the Italy chapter to a business school umbrella association.

His dedication and energy doesn’t end there. Philip also makes an impact to the RSM community by sharing his expertise and advice with current students via mentoring platform RSM MentorMe.

Philip says RSM helped him to build the skillset needed to pass the strict selection process of a top consulting firm. He added that as president of the RSM MBA Marketing Club, he learned that full commitment to a cause can help deliver more than large budgets with dispersed responsibility. “Even with a low budget and support from a couple of fellow students the club was able to successfully engage with 19 companies. It really shows how collaboration, creativity and caring for each other can take you far.”

As a board member in the European Parliament’s Knowledge4Innovation Forum, Jara contributes to bring together policy makers and stakeholders in debates about the future of innovation and frameworks for support mechanism in Europe.

And, as founder of innovation and collaboration platform Collabwith, she enables access to resources across academia, industry, startups and policymaking.

Her new book on innovation and collaboration in the digital era was published in 2021.

At RSM, Jara was director of the EMBA Women Alumni Network. “This helped me to successfully lead the change for all women who want to innovate, become entrepreneurs, become investors or create their own venture capital. This will create a better society, planet, industry for all.”

She does the same thing through Collabwith and the European Parliament’s joint-initiative. Jara started a series of debates on how to empower women through investment to increase innovation by financing opportunities in Europe for the Innovation Summit organised by Knowledge4Innovation Forum in the European Parliament. Her team from Collabwith also prepared an entire day dedicated to women and investments with several preparatory debates and dedicating the EU top 50 awards to female entrepreneurs.

A report from these Summits aims to encourage governments, policy makers, finance institutions, venture capital, universities, accelerators and everyone to take action for a more balanced economy when it comes to women, diversity and inclusion.

“Jara opens new doors for more female entrepreneurs to benefit from funding,” says her nominator, alumna Cristina Elena Penciuc. “Her work on European level addresses a structural and systematic error of funding and societal design where women need to function in a world designed by and for men.”

Breaking through the glass ceiling as an Asian female, June has become the vice-president of marketing for the Lenbrook group in Toronto. She also co-founded the RSM Alumni Chapter in Canada.

She uses her voice to help those who don't have a voice within the tech community and gender equality.

She is involved in minority women’s rights by giving a voice to the marginalized via her writing, which is featured on the YWCA blog, and advocacy in the male-dominated tech industry around issues like race and gender.

To gain new perspectives, June recently completed a master in law. She realises biases in technology create yet another hurdle for many marginalized groups. “I hope to be able to apply these learnings in my work as an instructor and consultant, where I often work with start-ups and scale-ups on bringing innovations to market.”

This puts June in a unique position to influence the thinking and strategies around how technology is designed and applied to problems at an early stage.

“There is no single way to solve a problem and often looking outwards to see how others are tackling issues can spark ideas that would have otherwise never surfaced,” June says.

June understands not only the struggle of women but also the struggle of minority women. She make a huge impact but is very humble.

“We have no shortage of problems to solve, from climate change to geopolitical conflicts, and the more people we can bring to the table to study these problems the more likely we are to have solutions that are not short-sighted or isolated in their benefits.”

After identifying that many SME players don’t have access to assistance by financial services, Adrian Gunadi founded Investree.

When Adrian reached top level management in banking, he started up the peer-to-peer lending financial institution, which became one of the biggest P2P in Indonesia and attracted international investors. Investree reaches SMEs to grow and promote gender-balance empowerment.

He says he leveraged the leadership skills he gained at RSM to advocate flexibility, diversity and agility.

Through Investree, Adrian provides financial inclusion and digital business solutions for SMEs in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. Investree’s mission is to use data and technology to make financing more accessible and affordable to SMEs while also connecting them with lenders who want to support them and gain an attractive return.

Adrian says gender equality can provide a chance for everyone to express their creativity and contribute to economic prosperity. “Gender equality is linked to peace, and helps businesses and is good for the economy. When women receive the same education and job opportunities as men, they can improve any organisation they join.”

Aiming to increase women's participation in the economy doesn’t only boost gender equality, but it also makes the economy better, Adrian says. That’s why he made it his mission to create a business to tackle financial gaps for SMEs, especially those run by women.

“Driven by this goal to provide equal growth to everyone, I hope to contribute to positive change in the world,” says Adrian.