Exclusive Interview Sommet Education – Dr. Pierre Ihmle, Chief Academic Officer.

Glion, Les Roches & École Ducasse Hospitality Institutions.

A seamless journey from studies to career.”

Boutique MICE Business Multimedia Productions, tailored content provider, interviews Dr. Pierre Ihmle, Chief Academic Officer and at the forefront of the development of the innovative, transformative and ingenious solutions that Sommet Education offers to its multicultural and multinational students coming from more than 100 countries. Future hospitality and lifestyle business leaders, professional career´s climbers and millennial students. 

The BMB podcast in global Boutique MICE markets, prime hospitality and the business world within the spectacular scenario that reflects the pioneering work that this upper- class corporate group and elite hospitality institutions have to offer to leading brands, leading decision makers and specifically, allow the international audience to better understand the benefits that the three unique brands that the Sommet Education group has under its exclusive portfolio offer to the luxury and hospitality industry worldwide.

Motivating, encouraging and intelligent answers collected directly from Dr. Pierre Ihmle, Chief Academic Officer of Sommet Education Group.  A clear example of bespoke, personalized experiences, as well as a definitely successful business management story.

Our mission is to deliver great education, to create and transform students in exceptional leaders.

  • Sommet Education, Leading Hospitality Education Group enclosing the highly reputed education institutions specialized in hospitality management and the culinary arts: Glion Institute of Higher Education, Les Roches and École Ducasse ranked among the world’s top three for hospitality management & education institutions.
  • Sommet Education with campuses in Switzerland, Spain, China, France and the United Kingdom.
  • Committed to delivering an exceptional student experience and developing future talent for the experience industry. Professional training, as well as private courses for food enthusiasts, across 9 campuses in 5 countries and through partnerships with overseas universities.

At our global institutions, we strive for excellence in what we do. Education, hotel management, and culinary arts with École Ducasse, which is a recent acquisition of the Sommet Group.

  • Sommet Education is the only education network with two hospitality institutions ranked among the world’s top three for hospitality education and among the world’s top three for employer reputation.
  • The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has partnered with Sommet Education for an innovative Hospitality Challenge. The initiative will grant 30 scholarships for world class education programmes and support career climbers and switchers, entrepreneurs and innovators to develop themselves and their projects and so help drive tourism’s recovery.
  • Their venues, dining facilities, F&B outlets and exclusive services are an important consideration for business meeting tourism and corporate clients.

“My priorities as Chief Academic Officer are: First to make sure that students come and want a distinguished education. Second that we develop programs; essentially here what we do at Sommet Education Group is to create programs that our multicultural and international students like.” “ That is bringing not only a magnificent education but a great experience.

Dr. Pierre Ihmle, Chief Academic Officer of Sommet Education Group.

“We are focusing as an education provider very much on the experience of our students so that we want to assure that all three dimensions are fully covered.” They are embedded in to practice, because you learn by doing, prominent academics, to make sure they do understand what’s happening.”

“Transferable skills such as interpersonal skills, teamwork, knowledge about themselves, how they behave so that they can improve and become leading managers and good citizens of the world.” “Three dimensions: bedding and immersion in to practice is very important, great academics and substantial development of soft skills.”

“Since March when teaching face to face was not allowed by governments, Sommet Education as an institution had to switch to remote learning, to ensure our students continue and progress.”

“We delivered all our classes in a remote fashion, it was frankly quite challenging for our faculty. We all had to adapt: Students, instructors, professors, the institutions had to adapt to the new situation.“For faculty we saw it coming but it all happened so quickly therefore we built and created new educational solutions.”

“Sommet Education´s Students were extremely surprised of the quality and delivery of different courses.“The engagement of faculty, that’s what we do right, we have a very personal approach teaching and we continued it online.”

“We did more for students that just teaching, as executive hospitality and luxury management faculty we created a leadership series of programs such as: Leading Hospitality Through Turbulent Times, we were inviting experts from the industry, important business schools like IMD, Oxford Business School to talk to our students. Guaranteeing essentially a feedback from the industry, from different actors on what was happening. What we thought is we were all involved in a historical moment, we wanted to make sure that our students got that.”

“Sommet Education faculty and executive management team were amazed by the enthusiasm of our students to get these additional certificates that they could include in their CVs.” “We provided a whole range of diverse certificates such as Revenue management, Hotel evaluation, Spa excellence and profitability among others. We had about 5.500 students following.”

Bespoke programs for organizations: The Sommet Education Global Talent Development portfolio is a collection of premium, customized learning opportunities that are focused on professionals working in hospitality, the experience economy and other customer-centric business sectors.

•Courses are especially relevant for anyone looking to take the next steps up the managerial ladder. Each of the 12 discrete topics has a face-to-face element, supported by digital learning modules with the flexibility to be accommodated into busy lives.

•Students can opt for Sommet Education´s standard format courses or take the opportunity to have course content tailored to their selves and or their organization’s needs.

• Courses can be delivered at our global network of campuses, on-site at your business premises, or at an external location of our student´s choice.

“We wish to grow even more, top position. Quantity and Quality goes hand in hand in executive education, because if we grow, there´s more opportunities to our students to go from one campus to the next; having campuses in Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, France and China, Sommet Education students have the great opportunity to go from one campus to the other.”

“When we grow, it increases the number of opportunities, the exposure to students, rising and expanding the visibility as well as it helps to attract better faculty and finer partnerships with the global hospitality industry.”

Full Interview with Dr. Pierre Ihmle, also available on YouTube: