IE Business School – International MBA

Hi Steven! Welcome back to IE! What were you up to over the holidays?

Hi! Well, after missing the MBA Christmas party because I felt sick, I went back to Belgium and met up with some old friends and family. With a friend, I went to Ireland where we traveled around visiting the local pubs and celebrated New Year in Dublin. Back to Belgium, I did some course work to prepare for the upcoming projects.

What kinds of projects did you work on?

One of the things I was doing was for our Strategy class where we analyzed the Belgian beer market with our group. I was appointed as the leader for this one (we have a group leader for each project we do) and contacted some people in Belgium, one of which was the director of Belgian Brewers. He explained that the Belgian beer market is quite saturated (contrary to the international beer market, where Belgian beers are still very popular) so the only way to capture more market share is to differentiate or produce at low costs, which ultimately kills the market. There’s also a trend that people are consuming less beer, but when they do they want it to be something special, so many companies are trying to explore these opportunities. He gave me some contacts within the main Belgian brewers to further explore.

And how are your entrepreneurship ideas going?

Well, my team and I have been developing a new business idea called Gongolo that will help you decide what to wear for a particular occasion on the basis of what you have inside your wardrobe. The website will allow you to digitally upload your wardrobe and the software behind it will suggest appropriate outfits and related tips of what to do and what not. Of course, it’s going to require some good programming and it’s in the early stages, but according to our market research there seems to be a legitimate need. Check out our pitch below!

Good luck with that, Steven! See you next week.

From a strictly financial point of view – how much significance should companies place on the amount of women on its board of directors? Despite a considerable amount of research attempting to link the contribution of women to business performance, the results remain inconclusive. However, this is not to say that companies shouldn’t strive for greater diversity in their executive positions. With this in mind, Patricia Gabaldón, Professor of Economic Environment at IE Business School, argues in a recent article that diversity in boardrooms “offers more innovative and more complex solutions” to the problems that companies face today.

Professor Patricia Gabaldón

Professor Gabaldon also rightly points out that instilling women into positions of power through quotas has its limitations and that  “the presence of women on boards needs to be reinforced not only for the sake of creating more equality per se, but as a way of making corporate governance better and more inclusive for the firm.” However, a more pertinent question is not why more women should be on boards, but why there aren’t more of them already. Professor Gabaldon picks out two reasons for this: one being women’s special link to the family and the other that not enough women fill the executive profile.

Indeed, there are many reasons why we don’t have more women in executive positions, but perhaps the most fundamental is the inherent conservatism within the corporate world. Barely a day goes by without someone speaking of disruptive technologies and the changing business landscape, yet in the nitty gritty of the boardroom, perhaps change won’t be so forthcoming.

Please click here to read the article in full and leave us your comments to see what you think.

Liad Rubin is one of the founders of Mashpan and an International MBA graduate. He has six years of marketing experience including working for Israeli tech start-ups. Liad is making things happen @mashpan.

The early days – first team meeting. Zubin Chagpar, Liad Rubin, Geoff Gibson.

More than 8 months ago we, three MBA students, came up with an idea to help people find and better organize their documents, links and messages that are scattered over different services including Facebook, Dropbox and Gmail.

We took our idea to Venture Lab, IE’s accelerator program, which aims to develop ideas from IE alumni and students. The labs ten sessions touched different aspects of growing a business. During the lab we transformed the idea to a solid business proposal through endless feedback from other teams and with the support of IE’s professors and mentors.

In addition to being enthusiastic about our idea, what pushed us forward was the competitive structure of Venture Lab. It began with just being accepted into the program, continued with getting into the semi-finals by presenting an improved business proposal and ended with pitching our idea at Venture Days, competing against finalists focused on online endeavors. This structure forced us to develop fast, improve our business model and show something tangible, a prototype.

Best startup award

We spent many late nights of coding and endless pitch rehearsals, to eventually be selected as the best online venture by a jury of highly recognized entrepreneurs and investors.

Looking back, it was an amazing experience and the venture lab served as a great platform to test the potential of our idea and take it to the next level.

Now the fun begins anew…

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IE professor Peter Bryant

Entrepreneurship professor at IE Business School, Peter Bryant, has contributed to an article on Economist.com about how “collective memory loss” is a posing a real challenge to companies.  The article argues that a sense of collective commitment and possessing a shared identity is imperative to having motivated employees who are willing to go the extra mile.

Click here to read the article in full. 

Professor Lucy P. Marcus

IE Business School professor Lucy P. Marcus recently spoke with with Monocle’s radio show “The Globalist” to discuss the changing nature of the boardroom, how the responsibilities of directors are evolving and the necessary diversification of board makeup to make success possible. Professor Marcus has also been nominated for a SHORTY award in recognition of the insights she contributes via her Twitter account. 

Please click here to listen to the interview in full. 

The IE Consulting Project (IECP) is offered during the elective period and ends with a presentation to senior management at a Fortune 100 company. During the International MBA program students have the opportunity to participate in several real consulting projects. Watch the video below to learn more!

Edurne Pasabán

This past December, Edurne Pasabán came to visit IE Business School and shared her experience with our International MBA students. Edurne Pasabán is a successful and well-known mountaineer and the first woman who climbed all fourteen eight-thousenders. We are very happy that our students got the opportunity to get in touch with such a successful leader who knows what it means to work with a team in the most difficult times as well as the importance of good communication and clear objectives. We are looking forward to welcoming Edurne back soon at IE!

Please click here to view our photo album of Edurne’s visit. 

Human Resources representatives from a variety of sectors share some job-hunting tips and the characteristics they believe make a successful professional. Here’s what they said…

Last day of school

Eliran Drucker, IMBA November 2010 graduate, pays tribute to his time at IE. 

Eliran and his classmates

You don’t value your freedom when you are a student. Any deliverable seems like a major issue that intervenes with any minute of awakens during your day, you are full with guilt and your conscious works extra hours. On the other hand, can you imagine having at least one week off every three months and whole August free when you are a full time employee? It just hit me while I was seating in my graduation ceremony of IE’s International MBA program – this year is over and although I was appreciating my time as a student during the program, I’ll probably value it more when I get back to work. It’s not only about the freedom, it’s about having an exceptional opportunity to live in an amazing city with a group of excellent people always around you.

My friends – the next generation of global senior executives were walking on stage getting the applauses they deserve, the spirit of our intake was preserved even at that moments, such a great people, it is hard to believe we won’t have the opportunity to sit in the same classroom again. We finish by saying the Spanish traditional “viva el Rey!” and went to meet our beloved ones.

Graduation Ceremony

In the after-ceremony cocktail, you learn who shaped each one of your friends. Their parents are standing right next to them, proud and supportive and funnily enough, talking and behaving in a very familiar way… The partners, the real heroes of this story, have been totally depended on our schedule and deliverables, celebrate with us. They had a significant part in this accomplishment and for a short while (until the next demanding job) they got us back.

Then, for the first time in this year, I managed to come back from a party at 7am like a real Madrileño. The key is efficient use of the open bar and huge amounts of goodbyes… we are so  used to seeing each other frequently on different venues and occasions and it feels strange that starting tomorrow, we might be thousand miles away. Why can’t we all work at the same company?