At the beginning of every New Year there is a general feeling of fresh starts and changes and we make resolutions to better ourselves. So I could not think of a better time to give the opportunity for the new generation of AISB alumni to step in and make their mark on the AA.

The 2015 fall semester was a fun one for the AISB Alumni Association and a full one for me personally. The AA team took a different spin on the Bucharest fall reunion. We organised the professional and personal networking reunion with special guest, Marian Staş, who brought in effective conversation topics. 

It was a very interesting night where alumni and current AISB educators discussed the ways in which the Alumni Association can work with AISB to improve the lives of current students. At the same time we talked about how AISB can contribute to alumni networking and how the school can support in raising the Alumni Association to another level. On this thought, the AA is launching a project that we have been working on for the past two years: the AA professional network. I truly hope that this platform will bring us closer together as a community while at the same time giving us the means to develop business opportunities and to o er jobs and internships to our students and new alumni. On this new platform, current AISB students will have the chance to search though all alumni pro les, get inspiration from our successes and failures, and contact us to get advice on what and where to study.

This issue’s cover story is about a great mix between the personal and academic development at AISB and one’s personal journey of coming back to work in the family business in the Romanian culture. I interviewed Bogdan Doicescu, aka Bobo, who can be considered a complete product of AISB, having spent all of his formative years at the school. With a full American education, Bobo shares what it’s like to “walk through your dreams in your home country;” a truly inspiring and captivating story about his time at AISB and his experience in the real estate city of New York. What I like most about Bobo is that he became a person who knows what he wants to do with his life and nothing stops him from doing what he feels is right, like leaving a night club to go to the gym and then going back, because that is one of his passions. I also admire Bobo’s involvement is his family’s business. As he was a very passionate student who fully experienced New York from a professional point of view, Bobo brought new development ideas to the successful business run by his father. More about his story on page 14. 
 

I myself, worked for four years with my father in our family business and I can’t say enough how much I learned and how much experience I gained by working next to someone who’s most important mission is to teach their daughter how to become better. The expectations are endless, but there are some personal bene ts too. Perhaps one of the biggest is the exible hours you allow yourself when you are your own boss, which allowed me to get so involved with AISB  to found and grow the AA. I will always be thankful and honoured to have had this opportunity. I am proud to say that together with a great team I have added a valuable piece to our community. Among others, AISB now has a strong team that gets involved in organising reunions and events with the students, a constitution to be run by, a networking platform, and a magazine with a readership of over 20,000 people.

Having said all this, I recently accepted a new challenge and with new a beginning comes change. I am, for three months now, the General Manager of the Romanian Tennis Federation; a job that requires my full attention with extensive travelling, but leaves me very little personal time. There comes a time in one’s life to move on and let others develop the legacy of AISB’s Alumni Association, which is in its own way a family business!
 

My heart will always be with the AA and I will always be the founding President of our Association as well as rst editor of the alumni WORLDTM magazine. The page has turned, but I will always be here. 

Read the entire WORLD Magazine Winter 2016 edition here.