For the first time, the annual celebration at CBS will have a theme: Nordic Nine, the nine capabilities that CBS is implementing in all aspects of its teaching to prepare students for the future. Thirty students have been invited to the annual celebration, where executives from CBS and CEOs from the business world will attend – 400 in total.

To help the students mingle and conversation flow at the party, a workshop about Nordic Nine was held for students.

Pia Baggesen (left) and Thomas Simsby. Photo: Emilie Jacobsen

“The students will be seated at different tables at the party, and to make certain they are not found wanting while talking about Nordic Nine, we arranged the workshop to help them prepare,” says experience strategist and campaign specialist at Executive Support and Communications Thomas Simsby, one of the workshop organisers.

A key aim of the workshop was to help the students who will be attending the annual celebration. Another is to kickstart a dialogue with students about what Nordic Nine is and how it can best be implemented.

“Until now, we have been working on the structure of Nordic Nine. Now it’s time to start the dialogue with the students affected by the Nordic Nine. The workshop is the first of its kind where we are trying to find the right format to have that dialogue while also preparing the students who will be participating in the annual celebration,” says project lead Pia Baggesen, the second workshop organiser.

Professors show how Nordic Nine can be used in practice

At the workshop, Dean of Education Anna Thomasson gave her take on why Nordic Nine is so important for CBS, and three CBS professors talked about how they use the nine capabilities in their teaching. The point is not that all nine capabilities are featured in all courses, but that two or three are in play in each course and that the study field will cover all nine capabilities.

“Nordic Nine is a way to reflect and research a topic further or from a different angle than you might normally. The researchers are trying to show exactly how this can be done,” says Thomas Simsby.

They hope to reuse the workshop format another time and hopefully scale up so more people can participate.

“Nordic Nine looks beyond what we are learning”

Albin Blomkvist, Master’s student in Strategy, Organisation and Leadership at CBS. Photo: Emilie Jacobsen

The workshop participants found it a great way to learn about the topic.

“I have just been elected onto the board of directors of CBS Students, so the Nordic Nine workshop has come at the perfect time. It embraces what the board is working on, where we represent the students. At the moment, I don’t feel I know enough to have an opinion about Nordic Nine, but I hope that will change after today,” says Albin Blomkvist, a master’s student in Strategy, Organisation and Leadership.

A Nordic Nine workshop was held to prepare the students participating in the annual celebration. Photo: Emilie Jacobsen

For Astrid Schou, the most important part of Nordic Nine is that it looks beyond what she and her fellow students are learning in class to make them more appealing to employers.

“I think Nordic Nine is a very interesting initiative that helps students become more attractive to the corporate world and have a greater reach than we would before,” Astrid Schou says. She is an International Business and Politics student as well as a member of her study board.

Neither of the two students will be attending the annual celebration but showed up out of interest. The annual celebration will take place Friday 17 March 2023. Internal and external guests will be invited directly.