It Takes a (Global) Village
Experience might be hard won, but when is it most enjoyable? When it’s shared. That’s why so many Aiglonians choose to share their experience with the next generation, as speakers, mentors and friends.
“If you go to school with people from all over the world, then throughout your life you get to connect with people all over the world,” says Pamela Huizenga (Clairmont, 1986). And it’s this simple truth of Aiglon – “when you are living together 24/7, during a very influential, formative time of your life” – that is at the heart of the deep bonds of our interconnected community. It’s a global connection that creates unique opportunities for personal and professional development – opportunities that benefit both those passing on their experience, and those on the receiving end of this intergenerational exchange.
The Aiglon bonds support a network that extends across the world, maintained in friendships made for life, but also in online platforms such as Aiglon Life, alumni events in global cities and an informal mentoring programme that has helped many recent graduates get started in their career. For Pamela, it meant sharing the experience of more than 40 years in the jewellery trade with fellow Aiglonian Vanessa Catano (Exeter, 2009) on an internship.
“It opened a door for me,” says keen gemologist Vanessa. “It was my first time seeing boxes of gemstones, all in layers of different sizes. Lapis lazuli, black opals, they really caught me. I didn’t know their value, I just thought they were beautiful.”
Vanessa had arrived in Pamela’s studio in 2012, aged 21, just a week before the industry’s biggest trade show, Couture, in Las Vegas, and was immediately put to work. “It was amazing,” remembers Vanessa. “I wanted to understand everything about stones and making jewellery. I had so many questions, but I realised I couldn’t ask Pamela to explain everything. I had to learn it for myself.
“At the end of the summer, I called my dad and said, ‘There’s this place called the Gemological Institute of America where you can learn about gemstones…’ and he really didn’t think it was a good idea for me. I had to persuade him, and I started the course by paying out of my own money.”
Vanessa is now a product manager and buyer for a large American jewellery firm, and points out that not everyone in the industry is as open as Pamela. But Pamela says she was delighted to spend time with someone as passionate as she is. “I’m a firm believer in sharing knowledge and experience,” she says. “I think it makes everyone more successful. I had a lapidary mentor when I was younger and learning how to cut stones. Vanessa’s internship was new to us both so we had to work together, but Vanessa was an absolute sponge, so it was such a pleasure.”
Another graduate who benefited from the interconnected community was Amin Hassanali (Alpina, 2019), after he met Sacha Pictet (Delaware, 2003) at an Aiglon networking event in Miami in October 2023. “I had just left a very sales-oriented job in wealth management that wasn’t me at all,” says Amin, “when I got talking to Sacha. I always go to those events if I’m nearby, because I know I might bump into someone I haven’t seen for ages, but also because Aiglonians have a track record of helping each other.”
After the initial conversation, the pair stayed in touch online, and just four months later, Amin was working at Sacha’s venture studio and sustainable asset management firm, RWC, shadowing Sacha as a junior associate. “The company is growing,” says Sacha, “and we have more work than available brains! So it’s great that we have Amin now, adding much-needed support.”
Both agree that Miami is “big and flashy”, and people can be quite materialistic – the opposite of the Aiglon ethos. “So it’s refreshing to meet up with Aiglon people,” says Sacha. “Being educated at Aiglon makes you a particular way. We’re a bit of a sect, but a good sect. I think it’s the balanced holistic element – sports and service on top of academics. It has this ability to create graduates who want to eat the world!”
Sacha is part of a network of friends who stay in touch with each other and the school. As well as meeting up in Villars for a ski weekend and school tour every five years, they organise their own events around the world. “We were the younger generation, and now we’re not!” says Sacha.
“Recently, we recreated a High Ex we had missed at Aiglon – the Great St Bernard expedition. Five of us 35-year-olds stayed at the refuge managed by Catholic priests and they told us off for being too loud playing cards. We had reverted to being school kids! Except we had a bottle of pear liquor, and one of the monks joined us to play cards for the rest of the night.”
One Aiglonian who is definitely still a member of the younger generation is Kamran Karic (Alpina, 2024) – but he is nevertheless already seeing the benefits of the school’s global community. Kamran is setting out on a career in medicine, and had sent an email to New York-based plastic surgeon Dr Dilip Madnani (Belvedere, 1992), who he knew regularly welcomed graduating Aiglonians for work experience.
“I want to give back to Aiglon, and I also want to help others make difficult decisions,” says Dilip. “When I went into medicine, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, so if I can help by providing experience and feedback, then I will. Kamran knew a girl called Marie who had spent some time with me and interned, and when he was in touch to ask if he could come for two weeks last summer, of course I said yes.”
“Dr Madnani and his team were amazing,” says Kamran, who is now studying Neuroscience at NYU Shanghai. “I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do and where my place in the world would be, but during my time there I fell in love with plastic surgery, and understood how much I wanted to be a doctor. Dr Madnani says performing surgery is a privilege, and it was very inspiring how kind and civil he is with his patients, when they are so vulnerable. He makes them comfortable in their own skin, and afterwards they are so happy and grateful. I want to make people happy like that.”
Kamran also attended some panel events at school when alumni spoke about life after Aiglon, and found them really useful. “Dr Madnani joined an online panel about skincare during our medicinal chemistry once, and that was super interesting. And there are bigger lessons I’ve retained from Aiglon, ones that you learn on expedition, for example, during the hard times and the fake peaks: just keep going; never give up.”
Kamran believes there is a unique connection among Aiglonians. “I talk to my Aiglon friends every day, and I know I’ll be in contact with them for the rest of my life. Alumni quite often visited the school when I was there and chatted about ‘their’ Aiglon and ‘our’ Aiglon. But because we have the same values, not much has changed.”
Article originally appeared in Issue 23 of the Aiglon Magazine. Words by Megan Welford and illustrations by Andrew DeGraff.