The Alumni Panel at the beginning of the academic year is always a moment to reconnect, but this year’s programme went even further. A group of former students gathered for an Innovators Panel, sharing with Year 12 and 13 how the lessons they once carried out of Aiglon continue to shape their lives.

The event opened with a keynote from Muchai Njagwi (Alpina, 2001), now Managing Director of Equity Investment Bank in Kenya. Looking back two decades after his own graduation, Njagwi spoke about choices that matter. “Your subjects, your universities, your paths are not about prestige or pressure,” he told the students. “They are about purpose, about choosing the problems worth solving, about stepping into the work that allows you to live a full life, not a safe one.” His words were anchored in his own journey. “For me my work is not just finance, it’s alignment. It’s where my nature, my craft, and my calling converge,” he explained.

That call set the inspiring tone for the panel that followed.

Different Paths, Shared Foundations

Gabriela Caso de Los Cobos Tapia (Exeter, 2008), reflected on the shifts and restarts that have marked her career. What she learned at Aiglon, she told the students, was not to fear change. “I’ve worked in many different places and industries, and what I’ve realised is you can start again,” she said. “There are moments when you think you’re going one way, and something changes—you have to find your centre again.”

Risk and uncertainty were themes picked up by Talal Attieh (Alpina, 2015), now co-founder and general partner of a New York–based venture capital firm backing tech startups. He admitted he prefers to be “the dumbest person in the room,” because that way, “I value learning the most from the people around me.” For Talal, starting companies is never about certainty. 

“You don’t always know the outcome when you’re trying to build something,” he said, stressing that risk is at the heart of entrepreneurship. “But if you believe in the idea and the team, you take the step anyway.”

The Choices that Matter

For Eloy Gorroño-Piedra (Delaware, 2020), the conversation came back to decision-making. With memories of being in the audience himself not long ago, Eloy urged students to think carefully about decision-making.  “At the end of the day you have to make your own choices,” he said, warning against the trap of chasing comparisons. “Because you’re not in the same situation as the person sitting next to you.”  His words linked neatly with Njagwi’s keynote: clarity, not appearances, makes a path sustainable.

Gabriela Caso de Los Cobos Tapia (Exeter, 2008), now working in sustainability and impact consulting, turned the focus to responsibility.  “You realise that whatever you do, it should have an impact on people’s lives,” she told students. “One of the big turning points for me was realising that impact mattered more than the title or the job description.” That expectation of service, Gabriela added, was something Aiglon made part of daily life.

A Network that Endures

Working today in blockchain and crypto space at The Hashgraph Association, Valentina Andreeva (Clairmont, 2007) spoke about the ties that endure beyond school.  “You find that wherever you go, there’s someone who knows what it means to be an Aiglonian,” she said. “The friendships I made here have carried me through different countries, universities, and jobs.” 

For Valentina, the lessons of perspective and connection gained at school remain central to her professional life. “In my work I’ve seen how important it is to understand different perspectives, and that was something Aiglon taught us every day,” she said, pointing to the strength of a network that extends across continents.

From a more recent vantage point, Arseni Loika (Delaware, 2018) described what it means to carry adaptability beyond graduation.  “What I learned here was how to keep learning, unlearning, and relearning,” he explained. It was a reminder to younger students that their time at Aiglon is less about fixed answers and more about the ability to keep shifting as the world does. “That’s what helps when the world changes so quickly.” 

Closing the Circle

The panel ended where it began, with Njagwi. He returned to the image of himself as a boy in the school library, absorbed in a book that refused to let him go. That moment, he said, was the start of a thread he still follows today. “Do not choose borrowed dreams,” he told the students. “Choose with clarity. Choose with self-mastery. Choose with alignment. Choose with courage of learning how to learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

For today’s Year 12 and 13 students, this showed stepping out from Aiglon does not mean stepping out alone. They leave with the lessons of their education and the support of a community that continues to grow beside them. That lifelong connection is one of Aiglon’s greatest strengths.