Student Initiatives

Students at HHL show strong and diverse commitment. In this context, they established a catalog of initiatives and events besides their curriculum. Amongst these extracurricular activities are:

  • Sports Event: European Ivy League
  • Professional Initiatives: Accelerate, Venture Capital Club (VCC), HHL Energy Conference, TEDxHHL
  • Social Initiative: Business Students Without Borders (BSWB)

All these initiatives significantly enrich HHL‘s university life and carry out HHL‘s excellence in educating effective, responsible and entrepreneurial future business leaders! All initiatives are designed as Student Initiatives where our students will apply their skills in successful project management, prove soft skills in communication and team work especially in stress situations and extend the network of HHL.

All members of our student initiatives are recognized ambassadors of HHL who act as responsible-minded representative of HHL.

The initiatives bring together students from HHL and other business schools and university as well as representatives from science, politics and economics for their annual events and conferences. In this context, our students foster HHL’s network and strengthen HHL’s spirit when showing enthusiasm, engagement and having fun when bringing great ideas to life.

Accelerate

Give students, startups, investors and mature companies a platform to network, share opinions and catalyze new ideas in an entrepreneurial surrounding at HHL!

Along with HHL’s entrepreneurial spirit and the extraordinary expertise of HHL in that field the Accelerate@HHL initiative is dedicated to the topic entrepreneurship and related issues such as funding, financing, leadership etc. The initiative is additionally pushed by HHL alumni and HHL extensive network within the entrepreneurship scene who foster and strengthen the HHL entrepreneurship spirit beyond the campus. In the context of the Accelerate initiative, a yearly conference is organized where over 200 guests are welcomed in Leipzig, highly recognized speakers and students from numerous others universities join and discuss hot topics of entrepreneurship.

Get more information about Accelerate@HHL.

HHL Energy Conference

The HHL Energy Conference brings company representatives from the energy sector and people from sciences, politics and experts from consulting together on HHL’s campus in order to discuss hot topics of the energy change and related issues. When having top speakers and guests on campus the annual conference is one of the highlights at HHL which was established in 2009.
In this context, the Energy Conference also welcomes a lot of business school students who not only take part in lively discussions but also in the case study conducted by one of the top consulting firms. The event closes with a special highlight when having a Gala Dinner with all sponsors, company representatives, speakers and students.
Get more information about the HHL Energy Conference.

European Ivy League

The European Ivy League (EIL) is the leading Business School Soccer Tournament in Europe. As one of HHL’s largest student initiative, the EIL has the longest tradition since being founded in 1997. The event combines sports, management content, networking and entertainment. As a highlight, patrons such as Martin Kind, president of Hannover 96, open the annual event that starts with a Leadership Lecture followed by a panel discussion of top panelists from sports and business.
In this context, HHL welcomes top university teams as guest which only compete for the best university team when playing soccer but also make use of great networking opportunities while meeting company representatives and having a lot of fun.
Get more information about this year’s European Ivy League.

The Negotiation Club

In business, as in life, you don’t get what you want, you get what you negotiate for.
 – Chester L Karrass –

Founded in 2018, The Negotiation Club at HHL is a training ground to equip one with negotiating skills to get the best while meeting your opponent half way on the bargaining table. One learns to create value in complex situations, and master the art of developing sustainable relations with negotiating parties.
The initiative focuses on training its members through case study and real life simulations complemented with workshops by experts from diverse backgrounds. We are dedicated to fanning the expertise of negotiation by explicitly bringing forth its relevance. This in turn cultivates highly skilled negotiators who compete in renowned global competitions such as The Negotiation Challenge and Warsaw Negotiation Round. And who become succesful in their own lives.

TEDxHHL

TEDxHHL is a non-profit student organization dedicated to empowering individuals through idea.
TEDxHHL – where x stands for independently organized event and HHL is abbreviation for Handelshochschule Leipzig (HHL) – holds the official TEDx license to host a TEDx conference. Founded in 2014 by students, TEDxHHL has sought to spark inspiring and entrepreneurial ideas within the vibrant student community of Leipzig.
TEDxHHL aims to foster an environment for spreading ideas, with live speakers and TED-Talks videos, serving as a means to inspire deep discussions and connections between individuals from various backgrounds. In turn, we hope that the HHL community will be challenged by the TEDxHHL experience and be motivated to make a positive impact on our world. The TED foundation provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events, such as TEDxHHL, are self-organized.
Get more information about TEDxHHL.

Venture Capital Club

The Venture Capital Club is enriching the entrepreneurship expertise at HHL by organizing workshops and discussions about the financing topic of companies especially from the investment perspective.
Sponsored by VC companies the initiatives brings together students from HHL, representatives from VC companies, and successful founders who give insights into challenges, common mistakes and recipes for success. Especially for young founders and those who want to become an entrepreneur the initiatives is highly inspiring and provides first-hand knowledge and top networking opportunities.
Get more information about the Venture Capital Club.