Pride Month 2024: The loudest, proudest business schools

Business schools have never been more inclusive. More so even, during Pride Month. For this episode, we caught up with two students — one in Aalto University, another in INSEAD Singapore — to discover how they’re celebrating the LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer/Questioning, and others) community and how they plan to keep the momentum after the festivities.

Listen below, or wherever you get your podcast:

The transcript below has been lightly edited for grammar, spelling and clarity.

Lee Lian: Hello and welcome back to the Extra Credit podcast. I’m Lee Lian, your host and today we’re celebrating diversity and inclusion with a special guest who is right at the heart of the action. Joining us is Emma Walsh, a student at Aalto University in Finland. She’s deeply involved in organising Pride Month events on campus. 

Lee Lian: Hi, Emma, how are you?

Emma: Hi, I’m really good. How are you?

Lee Lian: I’m good, good. I’m really excited for our episode today. Let’s start off by getting to know you a little better. Please share where you’re from, why you chose Aalto University and what you’re currently studying.

Emma: Yeah, so like I said, I’m Emma Welsh, and I’m also half Irish, half Finnish, and fourth year marketing student at Aalto University School of Business, which is an Espoo Finland.

Lee Lian: Why did you choose the School of Business, and why did you choose Finland?

Emma: Yeah, so I’m actually, like I said Finnish, so I grew up here. So then, when COVID hit in 2020, it was an easy choice, it was leave to the unknown or stay here. So I decided to stay here and apply to the best university in Finland, which I got accepted to and business specifically because, honestly, I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do when I’m older. So I chose business, and it was a good choice

Lee Lian: You mentioned you are studying marketing right now, is that at the bachelor’s or master’s level?

Emma: Yes, I’m a fourth-year student. So I’m just wrapping up my bachelor’s and I’ll be starting my master’s next year.

Lee Lian: How interesting. What do you like most about marketing?

Emma: In marketing, I love the human side of it. So I love to understand how consumers would behave in certain situations and seeing how we can kind of influence the consumers with what we do for good.

Lee Lian: I was on the Instagram page for Aalto University School of Business, and it looks great. For our listeners, Aalto is one of the leading business schools in Europe, and it holds the Triple Crown status the AACSB, the AMBA, and EQUIS. Only 1% of business schools worldwide share the same honour. But what I saw and what I liked the most is the school’s motto which Emma talked about just a bit earlier, “Better Business, Better Society,” which ties in really well with our Pride Month team for this episode. So tell us Emma does studying and Aalto live up to this motto?

Emma: I think so, I think and although everyone has the freedom to decide what direction they want to go in with our studies, and especially with the combination of the three different fields of schools, so the engineering, the business and the arts, you can really combine your studies to a master’s in marketing and with your major in marketing and your minor in for example, photography or engineering. So it’s a great opportunity to combine your studies and get a broad perspective.

Lee Lian: What about the “Better Business, Better Society” part of it? How does that come across in your programme?

Emma: I need to think about this for a minute because the “Better Business, Better Society,” it came two years ago so I had already started before that.

Lee Lian: Right right, but I think you know what, I think the fact that you guys have Pride Month celebrations that says a lot about the “Better Society” part.

Emma: Yeah, yeah. I guess we and Aalto and the students all want to influence the world in a good way, whether it be from any field or by optimising things and making things better for people.

Lee Lian: Yeah, yeah. Let’s go into the details then, how does the university celebrate and support the LGBTQ+ community?

Emma: Yeah, so our university really focuses on the code of conduct which every student and staff member should follow. It’s it’s really about the inclusion of everyone, no matter what. The campus also has pride flags for Pride Month all around the campus. So you can see them everywhere in student restaurants and outside and everywhere. So everybody is thinking about it and wants to include everyone. There’s also EDI, so Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion committees and all of the schools in our university. So it’s more I would say about actually just like including everyone and not just like raising pride. But it’s everyone we want everyone to feel included, and then specifically for pride, I would say that different organisations in the university, so we have like an LGBTQ+ community called GAYY that organise different pride events throughout the year and especially in Pride Month so they have different parties and part of participating in the picnic and parade during the Pride Day and different other parties and events.

Lee Lian: You mentioned “code of conduct.” I thought I would circle back to that. Coming from the world looking into Finland, it seems like Finland is one of the most progressive countries in the world. So one of the questions that I have then is, why is there a need to further have a code of conduct that states, “We believe, and we support inclusion for all students no matter what,” maybe you can share some, you know, insight from Finland, for us?

Emma: Well, especially from the KY side, so the business student organisation that I work for. We had our code of conduct implemented in I believe in 2021, which was, unfortunately, I think, a bit too late, but I’m happy that we did it. Before that, I think that people obviously knew to behave well and stuff, but maybe there were some incidents and then the code of conduct was made, and every new student has when they join to be a KY member, they have to agree to sign it. So I think that it’s just reinforcing this idea that if you do something bad, it will have consequences, which is a shame that we have to go to that side but I think that it has really helped that everyone has to read it when they start and actually like understand that their behaviour has consequences to people you know if you are mean to someone or leave someone out because of x, y, z reason that is very mean and it makes people feel really bad.

Lee Lian: Yeah, I agree with that a lot. It may seem small, but it has a big impact. Like you have a student joining, and right from the start, they’re being told, “Okay, this is a code of conduct, and we’re really serious about certain principles.” I like that. I like that approach. You mentioned your business student association, KY. But before that, I’m a bit curious. So, how do you use your skills learned in your marketing programme in organising and supporting Pride Month events on your campus?

Emma: Yeah, so at KY, I have main responsibilities, which include communication and then another one is sustainability. So, which also includes organising pride. So, we really focus when organising pride on raising awareness overall, about pride, themes and events. So, we focus on the communication, so talking about like standing with pride year-round, not just during Pride Month, which is really important, creating a safer space and the significance of pride and it’s theme that year, and so I think that the marketing studies have really helped me to have effective committee occasion and marketing of the event for our students.

Lee Lian: Tell us more about how you’re involved in this association, KY. So KY is the Business Schools association, right?

Emma: Yeah, so it’s like the main association for all business students at Aalto University. It’s kind of a complex structure, but I work on the executive board, so making all of their value-based decisions and it is a full-time job, so I have the communication and sustainability, and I also am working with one of Aalto’s satellite campuses, which is in Mikkeli in Finland. So for their student organisation, I’m like the contact person. We all have different jobs on the boards, and we do our work during the year. So just a few weeks ago, we did an accessibility survey about how we can improve our premises and our services to be accessible for everyone. So that kind of stuff.

Lee Lian: For the benefit of our listeners, could you describe to us your favourite Pride Month event that’s being organised by KY this year?

Emma: Oh, well, I think it is the parade and the picnic that we are going to this year. 

Lee Lian: You’re having a parade? Wow.

Emma: So the Helsinki pride organises a parade each year, and there’s a picnic, and then different organisations can join them. So since last year, KY has been a community partner with pride, and this year, we are working together with three different organisations from Otaniemi, our campus, so students and we are going to the parade together, hopefully getting as many of our students to join and we have our own walking block and then after that, we’ll go to the picnic and offer some free drinks and snacks, and we have some activities by GAYY our LGBTQ community. 

Lee Lian: That sounds like a lot of fun while spreading awareness of course. 

Emma: Yeah, I’m really excited and I’ve heard that a lot of our students are also very excited. Hopefully, there’s good weather so everyone can have fun. 

Lee Lian: When is this happening?

Emma: Yeah, so this is on the 29th of June so this is always in Finland during Pride Month, it always culminates to this parade and picnic so it’s like the final event of the celebrations.

Lee Lian: Well, I can’t be there, but I would love to see photos and videos. Where can we find social media posts about this event?

Emma: Yeah, so you can definitely check out KY’s Instagram, which is @ky_1911. So there you can find some story posts and and feed posts on the event

Lee Lian: Are you the one curating and creating these posts?

Emma: Yeah, so I’ll be posting there so you can go check it out and see how my marketing is.

Lee Lian: I’m sure is great. But you also mention that KY isn’t the only association, organising pride events. Aalto University has a university-wide student club too called “GAYY club” gay club.

Emma: Yeah, yeah. So they have also business student members and their board this year, and engineering and art students so it’s like a mixture of all of our students there. For Pride Month, they told me that they had a party last week, this opening event. I think it was just like a picnic on campus and then the pride parade, and they have their annual event called Gay Day, which is always the last Sunday of June. It’s a big event, it’s free, and there are performances and food and drinks and music.

Lee Lian: And you’re part of GAYY Club as well, right?

Emma: No, I’m not part of the GAYY.

Lee Lian: Right, right. So KY works with GAYY club then?

Emma: This year we have a partnership but we’re all students so we see each other quite often on campus.

Lee Lian: Yeah, I think that’s the best part isn’t it, being on campus, you have an engineering student and you have a marketing student, and they meet, and then they have like this collision of ideas and the kinds of things they can do. I miss university days.

Emma: Yeah, and especially about Aalto and Finish student culture in general is that when you come here, there’s always different organisations that you can join and no matter what you join, it’s the best way to get to know people. I think it’s very unique to Finland’s student culture.

Lee Lian: Yeah, and on that note, tell us, in your opinion, why are these student events important? You are half Irish, half Finnish, so, maybe you can also tell us partially from an international student’s perspective, how important is it to have such events on campus.

Emma: Just a clarifying question. Do you mean pride events or all events in general? 

Lee Lian: Let’s start with pride events first. 

Emma: So pride events are very important to raise awareness. I think most Finnish people here already know that it’s a part of our society to treat everyone equally but unfortunately, it’s not always the case. So we need to raise awareness that everyone can feel included and that everyone has an equal chance to succeed in their studies and in work life. Especially for international people, feeling included, networking, and getting to know people is the best way to integrate into Finnish society. I just hope that everyone will feel included when they come to Finland, and I feel that they can find their place.

Lee Lian: That’s a really nice way of making students feel welcome. Having these events, I feel is just a great icebreaker. Do you agree?

Emma: Yeah, in Finland, you can go to an event, and we wear these student overalls here.

Lee Lian: I heard about that. 

Emma: They’re a great way to get to know people because they all tell a story. So the colour can tell what you study and the badge can tell what event you’ve gone to. So you can just go to anyone and be like, “Oh, so you study that?” or “What do you study, I haven’t seen that colour before?” It’s very easy, I think to get to know people with just starting with something that everyone has in common.

Lee Lian: I find that that is such a cool and unique university culture that Finland has. So, tell us more about these overalls. Do you buy them yourself or does the university give it to you?

Emma: When new students start, most pay for them but it’s like 20 euros so it is subsidised, usually by that student’s organisation. It also is subsidised by a lot of firms so we get sponsors for them so that we cut down on the price for our students. So you buy them when you start, and then you get them, and you wear them to different student events. Then from all the different student events, you get badges, and you sew them onto the overalls. So in the end, after maybe five years, when you graduate, it tells a story of all of the things you’ve been in.

Lee Lian: I love that. So great. So does that mean Pride Month gets its own badge?

Emma: Yeah, well, I think that Pride will offer student overalls and badges. In Finland, it’s quite a known thing so even Taco Bell offers student badges, you know, and our local shop offers student badges. It’s just free marketing also for those different things.

Lee Lian: It’s like when you graduate, and you get this overall filled with badges. That’s like the perfect gift as you leave campus.

Emma: Yeah, and then you can hang it up on your wall or something and then be like, “Oh yeah, in 2016, I was there.”

Lee Lian: So cool, so cool. I love it.

Emma: I think most of our exchange students also and the international students are always very excited to get them and quite often while they may be especially the exchange students don’t really sew the overall badges onto the overalls but they’ll collect them and sew them on to a jacket or a bag or something so that they can remember the events that they’ve been to when they go home.

Lee Lian: I’m looking forward to checking out KY’s Instagram for your pride parade. So happy to see and so happy to know that you guys are in university, but also trying to do good, spread awareness and even though you’re in such a progressive country you’re never losing sight of what are the right principles to stand by.

Emma: Yeah, definitely. We work really hard to make everyone feel included.

Lee Lian: That’s great. Thank you so much, Emma. It has been wonderful talking to you.

Emma: Thank you. It’s been amazing to talk with you, and this is a great opportunity.

Lee Lian: I hope everything goes well in your preparation for the parade. 

Emma: Yeah, fingers crossed.

Lee Lian: Our next guest for this episode is Jeffry Lum from INSEAD Business School. INSEAD is known as one of the world’s best business schools. But as Jeffry will share with us later, INSEAD has a lot going on socially, too, especially in bridging the gap and building a better world.

Lee Lian: Hi Jeffry, how are you? 

Jeffry: Doing great.

Lee Lian: Thank you for joining us today to talk about what your student club has planned for Pride Month. Maybe you’d like to start off with a brief introduction about your club and some of the events that you guys have planned.

Jeffry: Okay, so great. I’m Jeffry, I’m the co-president of OUTSEAD, which is the LGBT club at INSEAD. So as you can imagine, it’s been a really busy month for us. We have planned a full lineup of activities for Pride Month. I’d say that these activities fall under three main categories, we have, the professional, the recreational, and the personal. So for professional activities, we have drinks with the global alumni. As you know, INSEAD is a school that’s represented by a lot of nationalities so our alumni come from all over the globe it’s a great time for us to rekindle some of these connections, or to build some new ones. We also have professor-led workshops about how to navigate queer issues in the workplace so these are very important. For recreational events, we have movie nights where we watch movies that are very relevant to the LGBT community and pride as a whole. We also have our prep party, so that’s going to be a lot of fun. For the personal events, which are the ones that I really appreciate the most. We have a series of talks, that is actually organised by us, but it’s under the Umbrella of Origins, which is started by a student called Katherine. What happens in these events is that we go there, and then we share a very personal experience. For Pride Month, in particular, we are talking about how we experience pride and how we live pride. So we have members from all over the world, we have people from Singapore, we have people from Chile, we have people from Macau, so it would be a great time for the entire student body to learn about what pride really means in different parts of the world.

Lee Lian: What exactly are your top goals for all of these events? I know there are many. I know there are many formats and you know many locations, but if you can pinpoint what exactly are your club’s top goal for these events?

Jeffry: What we really want to do is to start the dialogue about pride. As you know, there are some countries that are really far ahead in terms of having LGBT rights, and some countries that are a bit lagging behind. What we really want to do is to empower every single student to form their own opinion about pride, to adopt and adapt pride to the location that they will be based in and then encourage them to advocate as much as possible for pride.

Lee Lian: Maybe you can give an example of how the Singaporean campus of INSEAD and how the French campus of INSEAD is you know tailoring Pride Month events according to their situation or their location.

Jeffry: Okay, yeah, so this one is a very pertinent one. So what actually happens at INSEAD is that the student body has a lot of freedom to move between campuses, if you are in the MBA programme. So in terms of major differences between campuses, I would say, not so much, because what people I think, really need to understand is that diversity is really baked into INSEAD’s DNA. Again, we have like 70 plus nationalities represented in just one cohort, right? So what happens at INSEAD is that we learn very, very early on how to navigate differences and we do it through deepening dialogue. We don’t do heated debates, because you know, gender is not something that is up for debate at all. We don’t do like a one way discourse or diatribe, where we just go off and, you know, educate people about what’s the right way to think. So what we really do is that we talk to each other and we explore how we arrived here and where we came from our experiences. This kind of deepening dialogue happens on both campuses so there’s not too much difference. Also something else about INSEAD is that we have two cohorts every year. So my cohort is actually graduating in two weeks in France. So most of the student body is actually in France now. The other cohort that graduates in December they are graduating in Singapore so most of them are in Singapore now.

Lee Lian: It sounds like there’s a lot going on. How did your MBA help you in you know being such a vast scale of events you know there are so many events across several countries how did your MBA help you in you know taking part and leading these many events?

Jeffry: Right so definitely, you hear every single INSEAD alum say that is the best year of their life and it’s definitely a whirlwind of a year. What really helps is that we have a really strong support network. INSEAD is a Business Administration school so we are in the business of crafting future leaders and managers. So that comes par for the course for us.

Lee Lian: Now, Pride Month is a time of celebration. You mentioned earlier there are parties, there are movies, there are workshops by professors on certain topics, but the reality is LGBT Q+ discrimination persists all year round. You are from Singapore so it’s known to be on the conservative side of countries, can you share how OUTSEAD plans to leverage the momentum of Pride Month to advocate for positive change?

Jeffry: Yeah, so that’s, that’s actually a very interesting take. Because if you ask me, I’ll consider Singapore, as you know, on the more conservative side of stuff, it’s only very recently that we just repealed the 3778, which is the law that prohibits homosexual activity. So definitely, as you can appreciate, there’s going to be a lot of differences in opinion and you know, people who come from more conservative countries. What I really think is important to recognise is not just how far some regions have to go, but also to recognise the progress that they have made so far. Personally, during the break at INSEAD, I’ve been to some countries in the Middle East and I’ve seen with my own eyes, like how much progress they have achieved in the last decade or so. I don’t feel like they’re getting enough recognition for the work that they have done. Of course, it is also a good time to understand the amount of progress that we still have to make but I think part of it is to celebrate what we have achieved and to set our sights forward about what we still need to achieve.

Lee Lian: Looking forward, you are also graduating soon, how do you plan to stay in touch with OUTSEAD and how do you plan to continue celebrating the LGBTQ+ community once you’ve left campus?

Jeffry: Yes, so I’m actually in a very privileged position where I’m actually Singaporean. So for those not in the know, in Singapore, unless you are a local citizen, you are forbidden by law to take part in any pro-LGBT or any pride parades. So I’m in a very privileged position where I actually can, you know, put my money where my mouth is and actually do stuff. So something about INSEAD is that, the places that INSEAD-ers will graduate and go on to work at, these firms are usually very global, and they are very inclusive, let’s put it that way. So definitely, there’s a lot of private work or personal work that you can do as an individual, but as a representative of the firm of the company that you work at, it’s very likely that you’ll be able to come back to INSEAD and share your experience to promote pride. Something else also is that, again, we have a very strong global alumni network. So it’s time for, after a graduate to join the network and be available and to be a resource that future INSEAD-ers can tap on.

Lee Lian: Tell me more about this alumni network. What do you guys have planned throughout the year?

Jeffry: Yes, so we definitely do have a lot of connections. So for example, students who went on to found a VC, they come in to talk about what it’s like to be a queer investor, what it means to look for companies that really push the envelope when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We have had, you know, the CEO of JP Morgan in France come and give a talk about what it is like to be queer at JP Morgan. So we do have a lot of professional activities lined up but apart from that, we also just have a lot of fun, we connect we talk about experiences, and we talk about real challenges that we face and how to navigate them. So it’s really really helpful to have this resource.

Lee Lian: Yeah sounds like a lot going on. It is such a good resource to have, such a good network to be part of because you guys can share, you guys are going through the same experiences and can share the same solutions so that others can try. I’m just curious I want to go back a bit to your experience in OUTSEAD. You’re going off into the real world again, after graduating, what do you think was the greatest skill and most memorable time from your participation in OUTSEAD? Let’s start with that.

Jeffry: Yeah, so the most formative experience, I would say, is to be able to just speak to so many different people from different parts of the world. You know, I spend most of my time in Southeast Asia and my advocacy, and brand of activism is very Southeast Asian, right? There are struggles that are very uniquely Southeast Asian and I never really appreciated what it’s like to be for example, say in Latin America, right? For example, I didn’t know that over there same-sex marriage has been legalised and socially acceptable for a very long time. In some other places, people are still struggling with discovering their sexuality. People are still very hesitant to come up to their families and being able to appreciate the progress that has been made, and the struggles that people still face is very very enlightening.

Lee Lian: How can we learn more about OUTSEAD’s planned events for the month? Do you guys have any social media accounts? Where can we look for videos and where can other queer students find great content and uplifting content during this month and beyond?

Jeffry: Right, so we definitely do have a club website. If you just Google OUTSEAD you definitely find it for sure. I think apart from social media, the best way to learn more about OUTSEAD is to actually just reach out to someone from OUTSEAD. We are more than happy to tell prospective applicants about what it’s like at INSEAD what can they expect? I think this is going to be more helpful to potential applicants than social media.

Lee Lian: Yeah, that’s great. Thank you so much for offering that Jeffry. We didn’t know that. But do you mean we can just go online and reach out to any of the members there?

Jeffry: You can definitely find us, we are there. Obviously, there are some members who prefer not to be out so they won’t be reachable but those of us who are there feel free to hit us up on LinkedIn or anything.

Lee Lian: Amazing. Thank you so much, Jeffry. I’ve learned so much about INSEAD, OUTSEAD and I’m really, really excited for what’s ahead for you and your advocacy most importantly. 

Jeffry: Thank you so much.

Lee Lian: And that’s it for this episode of Extra Credit. For more Pride Month content, head to study international.com that’s www.studyinternational.com. Once more happy Pride Month to everyone. And until next time, see ya!