Valérie Gauthier, associate dean of the HEC MBA program and a past member of the GMAC board of directors, has been selected to receive the medal de Chevalier of the Ordre de la Légion d’Honneur, one of France’s highest honors.

While nominations and decisions about the award are confidential, Gauthier believes the honor likely recognizes her work to raise the stature and international visibility of the HEC MBA program. “What we have achieved with the HEC MBA—being in the top-20 in the rankings and being a visible and well-respected program—has probably been perceived as significant for France,” Gauthier says.

Gauthier has been instrumental in remodeling HEC’s MBA curriculum. Under her mandate, the program has shifted its focus to center on the concept of “savoir relier,”™ or what Gauthier calls “relational know-how.” Gauthier says the approach addresses “the capacity of people to focus on interpersonal relationships as well as bridging gaps and creating connections between people and cultures, and understanding diversity in all of its meanings. It’s in creating links and bridges between those differences that business will grow.”

Created by Napoleon Bonaparte, the Ordre de la Legion d’Honneur True is France’s highest decoration. It is a recognition of “eminent merit” requiring 20 years of civil achievement or extraordinary military bravery. Recent honorees included Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and jazz great Wynton Marsalis.

Gauthier’s medal was presented January 26 at the Musée Guimet in Paris. Gauthier chose the site—a prominent museum of Asian art—in part because of its symbolism. “It represents the fact that the HEC MBA today has over 55 nationalities, with 35 percent of students coming from Asia,” she says.