FIAA
Opening Remarks — FIAA Executive Series, 15 September 2026
Christoph Jacob, President FIAA e.V.
Good afternoon, dear ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, and a very warm welcome to the Sofitel Frankfurt Opera.
My name is Christoph Jacob, and as President of the Frankfurt International Alumni Association, short FIAA, it is my great pleasure to open this afternoon and evening together with our partners, the MIT Club of Germany and the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management.
Before we begin, I want to ask you to look around this room for a moment.
You see graduates of some of the world's leading universities and business schools — from Boston to Milano, from Shanghai to St. Gallen. People who have studied, worked and built careers across three or four continents, and who have chosen Frankfurt as their home.
That diversity is what makes this room special. And it is precisely why FIAA exists.
Because when people with different experiences, different networks, different competences and different ways of thinking come together, something powerful happens:
That is the promise of FIAA.
We are building a community in Frankfurt where the world's best education meets the world's most important questions — where alumni don't simply maintain old connections, but create new ones; where we learn from each other, challenge each other and, ultimately, help each other succeed.
Our motto captures this in four words:
Connect. Support. Inspire. Lead.
And tonight, we are here to do all four. But especially the last one: to lead.
Because leadership in 2026 requires us to look beyond the comfortable narratives of the past.
For decades, Europe told us a rather simple story about China: We in Europe innovate. They in China copy.
That story is over.
In artificial intelligence, batteries, electric vehicles, robotics and industrial automation, and sustainability technologies China is no longer simply catching up. In several fields, it is moving extraordinarily fast — and in many of them, it is setting the pace.
So what do we do with that reality?
We can respond with fear. We can build walls. We can retreat into the belief that our old advantages will somehow protect us.
Or we can respond with curiosity, confidence and strategy.
I believe the second path is the only one that can lead us forward. That does not mean naïve openness. We need to understand the risks, the dependencies and the geopolitical realities — and we will discuss those tonight.
But it does mean we are having the confidence to learn. China once learned enormously from Europe and from the United States. Today, there are areas where we have an opportunity — perhaps even a responsibility — to learn from China.
Learning from someone else is not weakness. Refusing to learn is.
And collaboration is not a sign that we are less competitive. Quite the opposite. Strong players collaborate because they are confident enough to learn, adapt and remain strong.
That is also the spirit of FIAA. We bring together people who have succeeded in different systems, studied in different places and see the world from different perspectives — because the challenges ahead of us will not be solved by one country, one university, one industry or one generation. They will be solved by people who are willing to connect across boundaries.
And that is why I hope you will not see FIAA simply as another alumni association.
See it as a platform. A platform to meet people you would otherwise never meet. A platform to exchange ideas you might otherwise never encounter. A platform to open doors for one another. And, perhaps most importantly, a platform to turn conversations into action.
Tonight is a perfect example. On stage, we have four outstanding people who understand these issues from very different perspectives — as economists, researchers, academics and practitioners who engage with China and the transformation of the global economy.
Sara will guide and moderate them through the evening. But the real value of tonight is not only on this stage. It is sitting in this room. It is you, and so I have one request for you:
Please don't be only a polite audience. Be a demanding one. Ask the question you have been thinking about but perhaps would not ask in your own boardroom. Challenge the panel. Challenge each other. And don't be afraid to disagree.
Because the best FIAA evenings are not the ones where everyone leaves with the same opinion. They are the ones where people leave with better questions, new perspectives and new connections.
I expect nothing less tonight.
Let me close by thanking our hosts here at the Sofitel Frankfurt Opera, their entire organizational team, and their General Manager, for welcoming us this evening. Thank you to the MIT Club of Germany and the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management for partnering with us.
And most importantly, thank you for being here — and for being part of the FIAA community.
Please join me in welcoming the General Manager of the Sofitel Frankfurt Opera, Mr. Steffen Opitz. Welcome, Steffen. The stage is yours.