This time the occasion was attended by families and friends, there to honour the graduates.
CMI held its 2021 graduation ceremony on 28 October — the first at its new premises in the Salamanca district — with students present in person and others joining online, since the business school has students in many parts of the world.
The event was opened by Rafael García, CMI Business School’s founding president, who stressed how much conscious education matters and called on everyone to try to be more sustainable every day: “companies, governments, countries and every individual, because this begins at home, recycling the rubbish, cutting out plastics — it begins with small gestures (…) impact is always born of inner change, and that is the real seed that makes everything possible.”
In the same spirit, and committing to the planet’s sustainability, CMI’s co-founder and deputy director Nilsa Mármol Paulino spoke about CMI’s #PlantYourTree policy: “To every student who passes through our classrooms we give a tree (…) with small branches, but with strong roots. It is your task to look after them, replant them, water them — and in just the same way, that is what the education and the knowledge you have gained this year are like.” She concluded: “this knowledge is like the tree, but it is your task to go on learning, to stay curious, to keep reading, to keep informing yourselves. Never stop learning.”
During the afternoon’s proceedings, María José Sánchez Yago, of the Master’s in CSR and Sustainability, was recognised as the student with the best marks of the 2021 cohort, earning a distinction. She told those present, visibly moved: “We were saying in class the other day that rational intelligence used to be highly valued for making decisions and getting things done, and that this then evolved into placing great value on our ability to manage emotions. I think what can really change the world is the ability to give meaning to what we do.”
At CMI we extend our thanks for the trust and the dedication that carried our graduates successfully through their programmes, and we encourage them to put all that knowledge to work in achieving the positive impact the world needs.
