Madis was one of the first foreign faculty at IEDC - Bled School of Management 30 years ago. He was a fresh wind coming from the North of Europe, and when we were some years later creating CEEMAN, he came to help. He was a CEEMAN Board Member from its very beginning, for 23 years and with high respect we listened to his ideas, examples, practices, etc. He was in many ways the first and the best!
In the book of “CEEMAN, 20 Years of Creating History” there is an interview that Madis gave to Prof. Philip H. Mirvis, the author of the book. This is what Madis said: “Back to 1993, when I became a member of CEEMAN, this was the time of many opportunities and a lot of things happened quite fast. It was the so-called cowboy time. Managers are educated now (2011). Everything has become more systematic. The majority of changes are positive. Greediness is much bigger, both in a good and bad way. Estonian Business School has grown from a training center to a specialised university with remarkable quality. CEEMAN has a great role in academic training and as initiator of new contacts.”
About the future Madis said: “Some unethical acts of the managers of big multinational companies have focused business schools to pay more attention to ethics.” And he added, looking ahead: “The problem of Europe is first and foremost economic. The GDP of China will become number one in the world. All this will cause changes in European values in the next decades. I think that these changes do not get enough attention by business schools today.”
Madis was a visionary and he was the most business oriented of us all.
He was enthusiastic about my news of CEEMAN developing ties and activities in China.
I shall miss the sparkle in his eyes, when he talked about his school, his university, and his ideas about business education. We cherished him as a mentor, a colleague and a friend. We liked the wisdom that he shared with us. This warm feeling and high respect for him will stay forever. Thank you, Madis!
I would like to express my condolences on behalf of CEEMAN Board and members from all over the world to Madis’s family, friends, Estonian business community, professional community, and Estonian society. We all have to stay strong and develop Madis’s ideas further!
Prof. Dr. Danica Purg
President of CEEMAN
Tallinn, 10 September 2016