Alumni Stories

CEU alumnus Fridon Lala (SPP ’19, Kosovo) doesn’t waste time. After graduating from CEU, last June, he returned to his native Kosovo, where just months later he was elected Deputy Minister of Regional Development. 

No sooner had Fridon taken office than a one-two punch of political uncertainty and the Covid-19 pandemic struck. It’s made for some challenging days. However, his time at CEU – including his Student Union presidency during the LexCEU crisis – prepared him well. 

“Somehow, I think these things follow me,” he said. 

This March, when Austria mandated the public wearing of face masks to fight Covid-19, alumna and Vienna resident Yan Schall (EMBA ’18, USA) became worried. Not least for local CEU students. 

“It looked like we would have to wear masks for a long time,” she said. “But you basically could no longer find them in the shops.” 

With quarantine imposed, CEU Vienna had shut its doors. But once campus reopened, Yan thought, students would need masks. Lots of them Yet masks were increasingly unavailable in the Austrian capital. 

So, Yan took action.