Game-Changing Insights from Outside Your Industry

During Unit I of OPM, De Rougemont and her program peers were asked to pitch a business idea to their living group. "I came up with the idea of creating a fashion brand," recalls De Rougemont, who then was working as a group fashion director for Bluebell. "One of my peers said, 'But Sophie, why do you want to create a brand? Why don't you buy a brand?'" Lynda Applegate, one of the faculty members in OPM, also encouraged De Rougemont to explore the idea.

A few months later, De Rougemont found herself presented with this very opportunity. "Thanks to what Lynda and my living group peers told me, I was able to pitch this idea to my family business—and convince them to let me take it on," says De Rougemont, who now serves as CEO of Carven, a luxury fashion brand based in Paris.

Reflecting back on her experience, De Rougemont says that interacting with people from outside her industry was highly valuable. "You meet someone who’s in the saw-blade business, someone who's in chemicals, someone who's in real estate," she says. "They can give you a lot of insight into your business, even though your business is totally different from theirs. For me, it was a game-changer."

To De Rougemont's delight, many of those peers turned into close friends. "I came here without having any expectations for making friends; I was more focused on the academic side of the experience," she says. "But the more you get to know your peers, the more fun the party becomes."

Those connections are holding strong even though the program has ended. "Now, we have a bunch of WhatsApp groups, and they're constantly being fed," says De Rougemont. "Every day, I wake up and have 120 messages. There is a real community."