a. The Centenary Book

A book celebrating our one hundred years’ anniversary was published in March 2003. It recounts our distinguished history, as well as the many smaller events that have coloured the School’s hundred years of existence, from its foundation by Ernest Solvay up to our most recent projects, including the creation of new Chairs, the multiplication of programmes and the inauguration of the Emile Bernheim Centre. It is a centenary that recalls the motivations, memories, successes, failures and ambitions of the men and women who created, developed and modernised the Solvay School of Commerce, re-baptised today as the Solvay Business School.

The book tells about some of the key players in the school’s history, through the biographies of some of the outstanding professors and lecturers remembered for their contribution to teaching at Solvay, as well as past Presidents and some of our students.

The six chapters of this richly illustrated book take us from the very creation of the School to the development of the Master’s in Executive Education, the internationalisation of the School with the creation of its flagship programme, the Solvay MBA, and the international programme, as well as the importance of scientific research, the doctoral programme and the significant rise in the number of Chairs and new perspectives, opened up by the Solvay Business School fund-raising campaign.

You will, of course, also find souvenirs of the student folklore (the “baptisms”, the Saint-V, the Solvay Cercle, to name but three) and the on-going work of the alumni association (SBS Alumni). A number of pages are devoted to alumni’s careers, illustrating the wide and varied contribution of those graduating from the Solvay Business School, in Belgium and abroad.

The Centenary book has been written by Muriel Constas, Kim Oosterlinck and Didier Devriese, using archive material from the ULB as well as from private collections.

b. The Centenary Cartoon book

To mark our Centenary, Jean Van Hamme, a Solvay alumnus (SBS Alumni 1961) and author of, among others, XIII and Largo Winch very kindly agreed to adapt the first two volumes of Largo Winch into a single book, in which we discover the hero during his time at the Solvay Business School. We should like to express our appreciation to the publisher Dupuis, to Jean Van Hamme and to the cartoonist Philippe Francq. There are three versions of the cartoon book: a special “Centenary” version (at €15), a de luxe edition (€ 30) (no stock)and a super luxe version (at € 100). In accordance with the wishes of the authors and their publisher, the cartoon books can only be obtained by subscription.