22/05/2024
Every month, IE Business School invites prestigious figures from a range of fields to speak to Executive MBA students and alumni to share their wide-ranging experience and insights.
Studying at IE Business School gives you access to much more than just a stellar academic experience; we add value to every one of our programs through a wide range of curricular and extracurricular activities. Through hands-on experiences that provide firsthand insights into the business world, students broaden their knowledge, expand their networks and gain expertise that helps them stand out in the competitive job market.
For students of the Executive MBA, there is a varied program of events and opportunities to take advantage of. These include masterclasses on key business issues, personalized career coaching from executive coaches and options for international residential weeks as part of the Global Immersion Week and the Global Network for Advanced Management Week. On top of this, students have the chance to attend our monthly Executive Spotlight Series events, where we invite top business leaders to speak at IE Business School. Each session is followed by a networking cocktail with the speaker and your colleagues, creating valuable connections. Stay updated on the latest in business, technology and more—all included with your program at no additional cost.
Sharing his business insights
In a recent event, we welcomed Erik Hiep, Founder and Managing Director of international management consultancy The Next Level. As a professor, Erik has been sharing his decades of experience and wealth of knowledge with IE Business School students for more than 15 years. In this talk, he delved into the importance of having a clear and winning strategy as a business, then shared what he considers the key factors for success, particularly against the backdrop of dynamic and volatile global markets.
Erik gave his insights into how to stay relevant and how to be convincing as a leader—themes that attendees were keen to know more about, particularly from a speaker of such caliber. As Erik sees it, success comes down to three key things: being an expert in the subject matter of your field; being likable so that people buy into your ideas; and being unique. “You need to stand out and make it inspiring, which is the opposite of boring,” he said.
A cast of prestigious speaker
Other notable guests that have joined us on the Executive Spotlight Series are Uri Levine, Founder of Waze, a community-driven navigation app; José Carlos Díez, a renowned Spanish economist; and Daniel Naranjo, Vice President of Execution in LATAM at behavioral science consulting company BeWay. Daniel, who is also an adjunct professor at IE University, is a behavioral scientist. He shared fascinating insights into how to boost leadership, innovation and strategy through techniques based on psychology and behavioral economics.
Uri’s talk was full of invaluable insights for entrepreneurs, based on his extensive experience as a founder of more than ten startups, including two unicorn companies. He also gifted attendees a copy of his book,
“Fall in Love with the problem not the solution.”
José Carlos, who also writes for El País and is renowned for his focus on economic innovation and sustainable development, shared his experiences from his long and diverse career as a columnist, board advisor, CEO and associate partner of various organizations.
Building valuable connections
Not only are these speaker events an opportunity for students to boost their business acumen and learn firsthand from experts, they also offer a valuable opportunity to network in an exclusive and stimulating environment. Students of the Executive MBA are already successful professionals in a wide range of fields and industries, creating a diverse pool of talented peers to connect with during the program. On top of that, events like our Executive Spotlight Series allow students to meet other experts face-to-face, opening doors to a multitude of professional opportunities.
With an exciting range of career-boosting extras to add to an innovative and curated learning experience, Executive MBA students can know that they’re putting themselves exactly where they need to be in order to take their careers to the top. As Erik Heap said during his visit to IE Business School, “Before winning, you need to set yourself up for winning.”
