Alumni Engagement

There are more than 700 Columbia alumni in Chile, many of whom are engaged with either the Columbia Alumni Club Chile, which was created in 2018, or with the Columbia Business Alumni Club of Chile, which has been active for many years. Both are very dynamic and are permanently organizing site visits, roundtable discussions and social gatherings. Most recently, the Columbia Alumni Association of Chile was formalized and is now a legally recognized entity in the country.

The Santiago Center has partnered with the Columbia Alumni Association of Chile in producing programs such as "NYC in the 50s and 60s: A Conversation with Alumnus Joseph Ramos." Further, in 2020, the Columbia Global Centers made available on the Santiago Center website seven innovative projects related to Covid-19’s impact in Chile, which were conceptualized and implemented by Columbia Alumni.

These activities are in addition to those led by the Columbia Business Alumni Club of Chile, which has partnered with the Santiago Center to produce business-related programming, including:

• Demystifying Cryptocurrencies, Blockchain and Digital Tokens (2021) to discuss the future of digital currencies and financial decentralization (for further details, see “Events” section of the answer to question #7).
• Retail Industry in Crisis: Trends, Winners and Losers (2020), featuring Mark Cohen, Director of Retail Studies at CBS, who reviewed the retail business in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic sweeping the world (for further details, see “Events” section of the answer to question #7).
• Perspectives on Latin America and Chile from Canada’s Leading Pension Fund (2020), a conversation head of Latin America at CPP Investments, one the largest pension funds in the world, in an event moderated by CBS alumnus Alberto Garrido and chaired by CBS/SIPA alumnus Georges de Bourguignon, at the time President of the CBS Chile Alumni Club and member of the Santiago Center’s Advisory Board.

The Santiago Center has also sought to expand its reach to Alumni in Peru. As such, it has developed events with Columbia Alumni Association of Peru such as "Peru's Superfoods, Agrobiodiversity & Food Security," as well as with the Columbia Business School Alumni Peru Club in "Perú: Perspectivas Económicas en el Contexto de las Elecciones Presidenciales."