Dreamers Take the Stage: ESE’s Graduation Ceremony and 30th Anniversary Gala at Town Hall by Bottaccio

London, 4th July 2026 — On a single summer day in the heart of London, the European School of Economics celebrated two milestones at once: the conferment of degrees upon its newest class of multinational graduates, and thirty years of a school founded on one radical idea: that vision and reality are one and the same.

The setting could not have been more fitting. Town Hall by Bottaccio, the landmark London venue on King’s Cross, was brought to life by two of ESE’s own distinguished alumni, a fact that ESE President and Founder Elio D’Anna made sure the audience appreciated before the degrees were awarded. The graduates were, quite literally, celebrating inside a building their predecessors had imagined into existence.

A Ceremony of Being, Not Just Having

At 11:00 am the academic procession entered the Graduation Auditorium, and Master of Ceremony Kristin Sharpe opened the Convocation with a tribute to the people behind every degree: the families who “trusted what they perhaps couldn’t see,” the faculty, the staff, and the visiting professors who “gave form and flight to ideas the students themselves didn’t even know they had.”

Then came the address that no ESE graduate ever forgets. Elio D’Anna, President and Founder, took the stage not to deliver an academic lecture “My talk will never be an academic talk. I am a practical man, a businessman” but to hand each graduate the formula at the heart of the ESE philosophy:

“The world is as it is because you are as you are. Vision and reality are one and the same. Inner states and outer events are one and the same.”

For thirty years, ESE has called itself a school of being, not merely of having. Elio repeated the distinction that has shaped more than 6,000 graduates: “Having depends upon Being. The European School of Economics is a school of Being, having is consequential.”

And he left the Class of 2026 with more than a motto, a battle cry, the line that now precedes every leap its graduates take:

“After your degree, please do not go around begging for a job. We create leaders. You have to be the author and dreamer of your own reality. Be a king, and the kingdom will come.”

True to the ESE model, where students are considered partners, not pupils, Elio spent the ceremony in conversation with the graduates themselves, asking each one about their internships, their ventures, and their dreams.

The Consul General of Italy: “Dream Big”

The Italian heart of the school, born over thirty years ago “with English rigor, an American sense of practicality, but 100% an Italian heart” was honoured by the presence of Domenico Bellantone, Consul General of Italy in London.

“Today we are not only celebrating the award of degrees,” the Consul told the graduates. “We are celebrating commitment, hard work, and the courage to invest in your future.” Marking the school’s 30th anniversary, he noted that lasting three decades in a fiercely competitive educational world, and growing into an international university with more than 6,000 graduates: “shows us that talent has no borders, and that great ideas can come from anywhere.”

His parting message was unambiguous: “Dream big. Your degree will open doors, but your values, your curiosity, and your willingness to keep learning will take you farther. The future belongs to those who have the bravery to shape it.”

Keynote: Ralph Chami and the Economics of Life

The 2026 Vision and Reality Award was conferred upon Prof. Ralph Chami: one of the world’s most authoritative international economists. Based in Washington, D.C., Chami spent 25 years at the top of the International Monetary Fund, where he served as Assistant Director and collaborated with the World Bank and numerous governments, before co-founding Blue Green Future. Admired by visionary entrepreneurs including Sir Richard Branson, Chami has become the leading voice of a movement to replace what he calls the “economics of death”, models that assign value only to what is extracted, consumed, or destroyed, with a regenerative economy that values life itself.

His keynote was the intellectual centrepiece of the day. “Today you receive a degree,” he told the graduates. “Tomorrow you inherit a world, and not an easy world.”

Chami told the story that changed his life: an encounter with a 100-foot blue whale in the Sea of Cortez in 2017. “She opened her eye and she looked at me. I felt she was saying: I see you, Ralph, but do you see me?” A dead whale, he explained, fetches $40,000 as meat; his research at the IMF showed that a living whale delivers over $2 million in services to the planet across her lifetime. “What kind of economics values nature only when it is dead or extracted? Perhaps the greatest accounting error in human history is not what we calculated incorrectly, it is what we never counted at all.”

His charge to the Class of 2026 read like a manifesto for the next thirty years of business education:

“Put nature on the balance sheet. Put dignity in the marketplace. Put stewardship at the heart of finance. Put regeneration at the center of growth. And put love — yes, love — back into economics. Because in the end, we only protect what we value, and we only truly value what we love.”

In Their Own Words: The Class of 2026

If the philosophy of ESE needed proof, the graduates supplied it: not in theory, but in businesses launched, jobs declined, and lives redirected.

Eladio M. (Spain) – BSc Marketing: “I was working at a very big consulting company with a good future ahead of me. The day after our talk with the President, I quit. Since October I’m on my second business, and I’m working on a third project.”

Anabella B. (USA) – BSc Finance, heading home to El Paso, Texas, on what she’s taking with her: “What I took home from Europe was the lifestyle. It taught me how to live a healthier, more present way — it showed me how to slow down with life.” Asked what she wants to build next, her answer doubled as advice for the whole cohort: “To take every day as it comes, to enjoy the human experience, and to keep dreaming.”

Valerio Miloti (Italy) – BSc Finance, now an investment analyst at a hedge fund: “The school gave me the opportunity to get close to the working environment, not just the theory — and I think the school deserves a lot of the credit.”

Alejandro S. (Guatemala) – BSc Management, asked about his role in the aviation company where he works, answered simply: “I am the owner. I created my own — it’s called Aviation Pro Max.”

Anusha S. (India) – Short Course in Hospitality Management returned to India and turned a Florentine habit — afternoons in a tea room near campus — into an enterprise: “It’s been only five months since I started, and we generate close to 30–40,000 a month. We don’t really have tea rooms in India, even though we’re among the biggest exporters of tea. This is what ESE taught me: no opportunity is too big, no opportunity is too small.”

Lizelle E. (South Africa) – MSc Marketing: “As Nelson Mandela said, it always seems impossible until it’s done. Moving to Florence didn’t just change my education or my career — it changed my life. It changed the way I see myself, the world, and what is possible.”

Mohamed M. (Libya) – BSc Finance: “In a world that constantly asks us to be realistic, dreaming is not a weakness — it is power. The future is not something we wait for. It is something we create.”

Nicola R. (Austria) MBA Entrepreneurship & Leadership: “Even if you doubt yourself and would never imagine standing here — you can do it, if you keep believing in yourself. Never let fear rule your decisions.”

Andrew Charles Morley (USA) MSc Marketing: “When I first made the choice to come here, I had a dream — but that dream and vision were very vague. I took the risk of going out into the unknown, not really sure what to expect. In the end, it was a dream come true that I couldn’t have imagined.”

Antonella V. (Venezuela) MSc Marketing, on the independence the school reinforced in her: “I’ve always known I wanted to go a different way from what society tells you to do. I don’t like being told what to do.” Her closing line could double as the ESE motto: “The most important thing is to think with your own brain and make your own decisions.”

Wail N. (Israeli) – MSc Management: “ESE literally changed my life. It’s a school of dreamers — and yes, we are dreamers, and you made our dreams come true.”

Tekla T. (Georgia) – Short Course in Hospitality Management, now part of the ESE Madrid team: “The diploma is not the most important thing I take from here — it’s who I became here. Never underestimate the power of believing in someone else, because it can change a person’s life. I know, because it changed mine.”

Oluwafemi F. (Nigeria) – Short Course, Luxury Real Estate, a real estate professional who balanced running his company with attending ESE: “I can tell you categorically that ESE is one of the best institutions you can find anywhere in the world. At ESE they don’t push a course onto you: they assess your capacity to learn and find what works for you.”

The 30th Anniversary Gala: A Partnership of Luxury and Distinction

As evening fell, the celebration moved to the Inner Space of Town Hall for the 30th Anniversary Gala Dinner:  a reception, live music, and seated dinner dedicated to three decades of educational innovation, cultural diversity, and the ESE visionary philosophy.

The milestone evening was proudly sponsored by ESE’s premier partner, Town Hall by Bottaccio: a venue with deep ESE roots, having been founded by two of the school’s own distinguished alumni. This year’s Gala was run in direct collaboration with Town Hall as it launches its exclusive Members’ Society, making the evening’s networking opportunities unparalleled for ESE alumni.

Town Hall has rapidly become a sanctuary for world leaders and innovators, recently hosting figures such as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and the UK Prime Minister, alongside global giants including Google, YouTube, and OpenAI. The gala’s guest list rose to the occasion: among those present were Mike Figgis, the Oscar-nominated director of Leaving Las Vegas and Internal Affairs, and his wife, the renowned composer and pianist Rosey Chan,  confirming the evening as a world-class gathering of creative and entrepreneurial minds.

It was, in every sense, a homecoming: a school that teaches its students to make “the visible out of the invisible,” celebrating thirty years inside a venue two of its graduates dreamed into being.

Thirty Years of Pragmatic Dreamers

From its campuses in London, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Milan, Genoa and Florence, the European School of Economics has spent three decades forming what its founder calls “pragmatic dreamers” — leaders who understand, as Elio D’Anna told this year’s class, that “the slightest change in your inner being will move mountains in the world of events.”

The Class of 2026 now joins an elite global alumni network spanning continents, industries, and entrepreneurial ventures. If this graduation day proved anything, it is that the network’s newest members arrived already living the philosophy: founding companies, declining safe salaries, and — in at least one memorable case — building the very room the ceremony was held in.
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FAQ

What is the European School of Economics? The European School of Economics (ESE) is a private international business school founded over 30 years ago by Elio D’Anna, with campuses in London, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Milan, Genoa and Florence. It offers BSc, MSc, MBA and short course programmes validated by the University of Chichester and Richmond American University London, and counts more than 6,000 graduates worldwide.

When and where was the ESE 2026 graduation ceremony held? The ESE graduation ceremony and 30th Anniversary Gala were held on Saturday 4th July 2026 at Town Hall by Bottaccio, Bidborough Street, London, a venue founded by two ESE alumni.

Who was the keynote speaker at the ESE 2026 graduation? Prof. Ralph Chami, a financial economist with 25 years of senior experience at the International Monetary Fund and co-founder of Blue Green Future, received the 2026 Vision and Reality Award and delivered the keynote on regenerative economics — an economic model that assigns value to living nature.

What is the philosophy of the European School of Economics? ESE’s philosophy, articulated by founder Elio D’Anna in “The School for Gods,” holds that vision and reality are one: the outer world mirrors one’s inner being. The school describes itself as a “school of being,” treats students as partners, requires an internship every year, and encourages graduates to create their own ventures rather than seek employment.

What makes Town Hall by Bottaccio significant to ESE? Town Hall by Bottaccio was founded by two ESE alumni and is the school’s premier partner. The venue has hosted Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, the UK Prime Minister, and companies including Google, YouTube and OpenAI, and is launching an exclusive Members’ Society in collaboration with ESE.