On
Thursday, 3 May 2012, the Ninth Alumni Conference was held in the UIC main
lecture hall, where about 75 former UIC students from different sectors
congregated. Xavi Amat, the president of
Alumni, was tasked with giving each of the speakers the chance to make a
contribution during the conference.

Throughout
the whole session, the speakers agreed that it is essential to reinvent
yourself if you want to get ahead in today's workplace and survive the crisis. Gloria Gratacós, director of public relations at the company Gratacós,
addressed the crux of the matter by saying, “If you want to be indispensable
and irreplaceable, you have to be different”. She gave the attendees some words
of advice, which included “having passion, treating your work as a hobby and
knowing what you contribute to others”.

Meanwhile,
Xavier Berneda, director of marketing at the company
Munich, said, “We have to stop talking about invoicing and start talking about
employees”. Because, he said, “People are the foundation and the driving force
of the future”. He spoke about the sense of belonging to a group and looking
after clients as if they were celebrities, and gave examples of how the Munich
brand managed to achieve its current successful sales figures.

In her welcome speech, Marianna
Zanuy, the director of Alumni, said, "People are
the focus of all of our activities here at the UIC; not only while they are
studying here but throughout their professional and personal careers". She
went on to highlight the effort and enthusiasm with which the Alumni team stays
in contact with all former students, and talked about the conferences it
organizes together with the various faculties on general topics of interest and
on more specific subjects aimed at particular professions.