Officially investing the new rector with the collar of office will be Minister of Education and Research Mailis Reps, President Tarmo Soomere of the Estonian Academy of Sciences and outgoing EBS rector Professor Arno Almann. Estonian Rectors’ Conference representative Mart Kalm, Baltic Management Development Association president Virginijus Kundrotas, EBS alumnus and president of the Bank of Estonia Madis Müller and head of the EBS student union Martin Mee will also be welcoming the new rector at the event. The ceremony will be led by Professor Olav Aarna, a member of the EBS senate.
The inauguration will be livestreamed at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyaGmrOMy5c&feature=youtu.be.
Professor Meelis Kitsing was elected rector of EBS on 25 May and took up the post on 1 August for a term of five years. He says that he plans to integrate EBS even more strongly into the financial education and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Tallinn and Helsinki alike. “I’ll also be continuing down the path of internationalising the university, bringing in the best students and lecturers from other countries,” he explained.
Kitsing previously worked at EBS as a professor and as the head of the university’s chair of economic theory and finance. He has also served as the head of research at the Foresight Centre, as an advisor in the Strategy Unit of the Government Office, as the head of financial analysis at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications and as the president of the Estonian Economic Association. His studies into the political economy of digital ecosystems have been published by Springer, IEEE, ACM, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Press, MIT Press and other publishing houses. He obtained his PhD from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst in the United States, his MA in Law and Diplomacy on a Fulbright scholarship from the Fletcher School of international affairs at Tufts University in the United States and his MSc degree on a Peacock scholarship from the London School of Economics and Political Science in the United Kingdom. Prior to his academic career, he worked in a variety of international companies and served as a member of Tallinn City Council.
Founded in 1988 and operating in both Tallinn and Helsinki, Estonian Business School (EBS) is the oldest university offering business education in the Baltic States. With more than 1400 students, it aims to provide enterprising people with academic knowledge at the Bachelor’s, Master’s and doctoral levels and to promote practical skills for the successful application of knowledge. It is based in Tallinn at Lauteri 3, while its subsidiary in Helsinki can be found at Hiilikatu 3 on the Tehnopolis Ruoholahti campus. Students from 42 countries are enrolled at the university, which employs lecturers not only from Estonia and Finland but also the United States, Italy, Colombia, China and many other countries.
