Our Founder and CEO, Argyris Skouloudis, talks about Alumni Reach, and the power of Networks.
How and when was the company founded?
Argyris: Alumni Reach was founded in Athens, Greece, in 2019. We’ve been fortunate to win a number of industry accolades, including from the EIT Digital Venture Competition, which we won in 2019, and the 2020 MITEF Greece Startup Competition, where we were a semi-finalist. 2021 was a great year for us. Our team grew to eight members and successfully completed three more PoCs (proofs of concept) with leading organizations in Greece. We are now planning even more expansion and are confident we can do it while increasing revenues.
What is the idea behind the company’s mission, and how is it relevant to today’s context?
Argyris: The mission of Alumni Reach is to solve the problem of disconnection between companies and their employees who leave to pursue new ventures. We realized these alumni carry a unique perspective of their former company and its position in the market. We decided that companies who see their alumni as a growing corporate network could benefit immensely from new hires, new clients, business intelligence, and brand ambassadorships.
In today’s market, branding is everything. Few companies can afford to have their outgoing employees damaging their brand. Therefore, setting up a corporate alumni network does two critical things, it helps companies stay cordial and connected to former employees, and it taps into their knowledge and dynamism for help in making major decisions.
Please explain how you envision the power of networks and how companies can benefit from them?
Argyris: Everyone knows networks are essential for individuals, but we don’t often discuss their importance to companies. A company is a culture, and when an employee leaves, they take a piece of the culture with them. And they often know when something new will be positive or negative for that culture.
For example, when a company needs to hire a new employee, they could go through the usual steps of posting a job online and interviewing candidates. Or, they could tap their local alumni network and get direct, tailored recommendations from people who know if someone will be successful there and will be a good fit.
Networks can help in this way by recruiting new clients, brainstorming new projects, vetting new branding decisions, and spreading new media across all of their other networks, which can often amount to thousands of brand new eyes, clicks, and sales.
How does the platform work, and what has it already accomplished?
Argyris:Â Our platforms are hosted on private clouds, meaning they are secure, flexible, and easily scalable. We offer a wide range of easy-to-use tools for alumni profile assessment, recruiting, engagement and networking. The Alumni Reach platform is not just a once-and-done sort of tool. It offers a wide variety of features to keep members as engaged as possible and help grow the network, increasing the value it adds to the company and its employees.
Since we started, we have run several PoCs with leading organizations in Greece and fine-tuned our platform. I am incredibly proud of the progress we’ve made so far and am excited to see all the success we aim for in the near future.