Women in Business from IESE

Aya Sakai, aiming to break Japan’s glass ceiling. Success Stories

IESE Standout — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 14:02:12 +0000

Aya Sakai is a winner of an IESE Future Female Leaders Award 2024. She is currently on an MBA program at IESE in Barcelona, Spain, having previously worked for the Development Bank of Japan.

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A recent Kyodo News survey revealed that only 13 of Japan’s top 1,600 companies have female CEOs. What’s more, only around 15% of the country’s private-sector executives are women, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Aya Sakai is determined to help change those statistics.

“My mission is to be a leader in the Japanese renewable energy industry, which is a very traditional, male-dominated industry, and by being a leader in that industry, maybe I can change Japanese society a little bit,” says the current IESE MBA student (Class of 2026).

Her decision to do an MBA at IESE was an important step toward accomplishing that mission. “The opportunity to learn leadership skills and to work with teammates from international backgrounds in an intense environment will really help me when I go back to Japan,” she says.

A focus on renewables

Before embarking on an MBA, Sakai worked for the Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) in Tokyo and in London. One aspect of this organization that she valued highly was that it pursued not only profit but also social impact; that part of its mission was to support and help its customers.

As is common in many Japanese companies, Sakai gained valuable experience in many different departments and sections, from financial analysis to human resources, which was quite a challenge for her, having to quickly get up to speed in new fields every one or two years.

This employment policy did, however, give her the opportunity to work in the renewable energy sector, leading her to the conclusion that it was what she wanted to focus on in the future.

Much of the innovation in the renewable energy sector is being developed in Europe, another factor that attracted Sakai to studying in Barcelona. She wants to learn more about green energy technologies in Europe that can help change the energy landscape in Japan.

Teamwork and leadership

While at IESE, Sakai is also getting used to working with people from a wide variety of different backgrounds and cultures, something she has not had to do before. In her team there are students from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Spain and the U.S., in addition to classmates from Japan, all with different management methods and communication styles, which naturally presents certain challenges.

For Sakai, the solution to those challenges is respect, both for people and for processes. “Individually we each have strengths and weaknesses, and we can all learn from each other,” she says. “And we have strict team rules, a contract that nobody breaks, and that helps us work together effectively in a comfortable manner.”

As an undergraduate, Sakai was a trainer for an American football team, where she enjoyed working for and with other people and achieving good things as part of a great team. And great teams need great leaders.

In her time working in different departments at the DBJ, Sakai had many different bosses. The best leaders, in her opinion, were “insightful, considerate, visionary and hardworking.” Bravery and having the courage to be disruptive are also values that she thinks are important. “A woman who dared to take the challenge of being the first female director in our company is someone I really respect,” she says.

A role model

As the winner of an IESE Future Female Leaders Award 2024, Sakai sees herself as being “a role model for younger female generations” in Japan. “In an environment where there are few female leaders or few female managers, women may feel a little uncomfortable. I want to show them that you can do it. Hopefully, my achievements and the good that I do will encourage and empower some people,” she says.

An achievement from her professional career up until now was, while working for the HR department at the DBJ, managing to increase the number of female applicants for certain roles that had been traditionally carried out by men. “Establishing a good work-life balance can be difficult in Japanese companies; maybe that’s one reason why there are so few female leaders,” she explains.

Less successful was her attempt to introduce reforms so that more men occupied positions that were seen as jobs for women. But that was a useful learning experience about how to manage change.

Looking to the future

Sakai is driven by a desire to “do good things for society,” especially in renewable energy. She envisions a future where the widespread use of clean energy technologies, some yet to emerge, will help achieve net-zero emissions, allowing people to enjoy the benefits of energy without harming the environment.

Sakai’s journey is set to be one of breaking barriers and inspiring change in a traditionally male-dominated society. Her experiences at the DBJ, her commitment to the renewable energy sector and the leadership skills she hopes to perfect at IESE reflect a powerful ambition not only to rise as a leader but to pave the way for future generations of women in Japan.

As she works to challenge the status quo, she embodies a new wave of leadership that is insightful, courageous and inclusive. Her example underscores the importance of diversity in driving industrial and societal change.

Are you a young professional woman with big accomplishments and even bigger goals? Apply to the next IESE Future Female Leaders Award. IESE will select a small number of young professional women who embody IESE’s mission, are focused on developing their careers and on making a positive impact in the world. The next IESE Future Female Leaders Award will take place on Jan. 28-30, 2025, on IESE’s Barcelona campus, coinciding with the Women in Business Conference.

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Scoolinary, a recipe for bringing people together. Success stories

IESE Standout — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 08:04:34 +0000

Five entrepreneurs have turned their passion for gastronomy into Scoolinary, the world’s largest online cooking school. The Scoolinary team is: Vicente Fortea (production director), Maria Parareda (director of content), Martin Caleau (director of technology), Lorena Hidalgo (director of marketing & communication) and Jordi Ber (CEO). All of them are part of IESE’s School of Founders (SoF).

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It has been said, “Cooking is the alchemy of love.” In 2020, that alchemy came together in the form of Scoolinary, an online cooking school now adding one new course per week to its growing catalog of more than 300 courses, with 6,500 lessons, 550 hours of video and 2,000 recipes and counting.

Scoolinary was conceived in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, when half the planet was locked down at home. A lot of people suddenly decided to try their hand at cooking all kinds of new recipes, watching video tutorials online. Remember the global craze for bread baking?

At the time, serial entrepreneur Jordi Ber was looking to create “a purpose-driven, global, scalable project aimed at people accustomed to working with their hands.” In that moment, his business vision found its focus: cooking.

The right ingredients

To turn the idea into reality, Ber knew he needed to gather the right ingredients. He tapped Maria Parareda, founder of Creative Signatures, another startup related to online cooking classes. She joined as content director. Mutual friends put him in touch with Lorena Hidalgo, a skilled marketer and cook, and Vicente Fortea, a chef and gastronomy consultant. They became key members of the team. For tech expertise, Ber recruited a former colleague, Martin Caleau, with whom he had launched Habitissimo in 2009, a platform for finding home tradespeople.

The goal was for “one plus one to equal three,” says Ber. Although each resided in different parts of Spain — Madrid, Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca — the team had no problem organizing themselves remotely.

“We wanted to leverage our individual expertise and backgrounds to cover all the main pillars of the business,” says Parareda. “Although not all of us knew each other personally, our extensive experience in the field allowed us to work well together.”

For financing, they used some of their own savings, but this wouldn’t be enough to create all the quality content they needed. On top of their own funds, they secured investments from business angels and venture capitalists. And they obtained a loan from Enisa, the Spanish government body dedicated to supporting entrepreneurial endeavors.

Scaling the business

Scoolinary has amassed 28,000 paying users — a figure in line with the team’s growth expectations to date. Users are able to take their passion for gastronomy to a whole other level under the guidance of chefs who are internationally renowned, Michelin-starred and/or listed in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants ranking. For example, users can learn to cook shellfish with Spanish chef Paco Perez; create technically precise dishes and aesthetically beautiful plating with Manhattan-based Australian chef Shaun Hergatt; or delve into the world of spices with Anjalina Chugani, a specialist in Indian cuisine.

The team’s initial plan was to provide a training tool for the hospitality industry. “But we soon realized there was a great deal of interest from foodies and cooking enthusiasts in general, both from amateurs as well as knowledgeable chefs,” says Hidalgo. Pivoting in this direction has allowed them to achieve continuous growth.

Scoolinary has gone from being available only in Spanish to operating in other languages. “From the beginning, we were clear that we had to be able to internationalize the project,” says Caleau.

Artificial intelligence has been key to their scalability, allowing automatic subtitling and dubbing into other languages. Natural language processing enables AI assistants to answer queries or provide 24-hour assistance.

The power of tech

The pervasiveness of digitalization in society works in their favor. In addition to new AI tools helping to generate content, streaming platforms like Netflix have demonstrated the viability of subscription-based business models. Social media channels like Instagram have made haute cuisine go mainstream, spawning the phrase “phone eats first.”

Ber cites the Basque Culinary Center (BCC) as an example of “the democratizing power of technology.” Located in the northern region of Spain famous for its gastronomy, BCC is a nonprofit foundation that receives corporate sponsorship so they can offer courses, conferences and collaborate on culinary innovation projects and do research on gastronomy and nutrition. With the addition of an online component, people can now access training from wherever they are for as little as 6 euros a month, as opposed to attending in-person courses costing thousands of euros.

As tech accelerates content production and specialist knowledge becomes more universally available, the curation of content becomes paramount, so they can deliver content that is ever more relevant and accessible to users.

In the medium term, they expect to continue growing in the markets where they are already present, particularly in the Spanish- and English-speaking ones. “We will keep investing in the product, working hand-in-hand with the best to produce more and more content on global cuisine,” says Caleau. They also plan on increasing the experiences they offer, such as awarding qualifications, as they cultivate an ever more culturally diverse community united by cooking.

Learning to be leaders

The five Scoolinary partners are currently participating in the School of Founders, which IESE launched in 2022 to equip entrepreneurs with the skills, knowledge and mindsets they need to transform their startups into large, purpose-driven companies. For Ber, it’s “an opportunity to improve as leaders, spend time together and grow as a group.” He considers such training to be vital, since “one isn’t born an entrepreneur but it’s something that can be learned.”

Fortea highlights how enriching it has been for him “to learn from other business experiences and discover that other entrepreneurs from diverse sectors have faced many of the same challenges that a project like ours entails.”

The five teammates share a vision of conscious capitalism, as advocated by the School of Founders’ Director Sebastian Ross. In this sense, they try to amplify the voices of marginalized professionals in the hospitality sector, and they plan to offer scholarships for training. In addition, they donate a percentage of sales to initiatives that mitigate climate change, acknowledging the impact of food production and food waste on the planet. Scoolinary has obtained B Corp certification verifying the company is meeting high standards of performance, accountability and transparency.

“We believe the creation of companies and jobs should generate wealth but also make a positive contribution to society,” says Ber. A healthy recipe for doing business today.

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Sarah Buckley, finding her voice, telling her story. Success stories

IESE Standout — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 07:22:09 +0000

Sarah Buckley is a winner of IESE’s inaugural Future Female Leaders Award 2023 and a recipient of an IESE Forté Fellowship, for women who demonstrate exemplary leadership.

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“Dream big, do right” is the motto of Mounds Park Academy in the U.S. state of Minnesota where Sarah Buckley went to high school. It could also sum up Buckley’s life philosophy. “As future leaders, we have the responsibility to explore how business can be a positive influence on the world,” says the current IESE MBA student (Class of 2025).

Before embarking on her MBA, Buckley got degrees in accounting and worked in financial planning and analysis, first for The Walt Disney Company and then for Netflix. “What attracted me to Netflix was the idea of being part of something creative. You see the power of storytelling and the impact that can have on someone, connecting with people of diverse backgrounds all around the world.”

She worked closely with the company’s creative executives, making decisions on whether to invest in new projects and managing all the financial implications and risks until the film appeared on-screen. It was, she says, “a beautiful blend of the numbers and the analytical with the creative side and the strategic lens.”

Out of the comfort zone

Initially based in Los Angeles, California, Buckley jumped at the chance to transfer to Netflix’s EMEA office in London as a way of broadening her horizons. There she witnessed firsthand the complexities involved when an expanding business goes global — from the need to adapt content to different cultures, to hiring local talent who understand the nuances of local markets. “It was interesting to see the mindset shift across the company as it grew.”

In 2022, the year she took up the EMEA assignment, Netflix reported its first subscriber decline in a decade, so managing budgets to produce the same top-quality content with fewer resources became the big challenge for her and her colleagues throughout the region. While cultural differences were inevitable, Buckley found the best strategy was to be completely straightforward and honest — “to communicate the goals and understand where local executives were coming from, so we could find the best solutions.”

This is the same approach she brings to the MBA classroom: “Being in a class filled with people from all over the world forces me to find new ways to communicate and connect with diverse groups of people, so we make better decisions together.”

Listening to and trying to understand a diversity of opinions, constantly challenging yourself to step outside your comfort zone, expanding the way you look at things and approaching problems from multiple angles are what Buckley thinks make a good leader, today more than ever.

Values-driven leadership

Leadership for Buckley is also a question of being true to your values. As she says, “The best leaders I’ve met haven’t been driven by extrinsic motivations of money, success or title, but have been those who led in a way that prioritized people, enabling them to achieve their full potential.”

The way leaders conduct themselves is fundamental, she adds: “Most important is having empathy for others, making sure we’re treating each other with kindness and respect.”

Buckley believes “some of the best ways we can drive positive change in the world are through business. How can we do business in a way that’s sustainable, ensuring every decision is aligned with the right core values?”

She’s passionate about empowering women to find their voices (“Women are sometimes made to feel they have to be extra qualified, competent and experienced just to be in the room”) as she advocates for equality in business.

The power of mentoring

Throughout her career, Buckley has been grateful for the feedback and encouragement of female mentors, who she says have had an extremely positive impact on her, both professionally and personally: “Seeing powerful, intelligent, capable women in leadership at Netflix has given me a model of the qualifications and competencies I need in order to deliver the same kind of value.”

Buckley appreciates the support IESE gives to female leaders, not just during the two years of the MBA but throughout their professional lives. For her, a mentor is someone who can “selflessly guide me in aligning the steps on my path with my future long-term goals, which can have more of an impact than any technical learning.”

Eventually, she would like to start her own business, becoming the kind of female entrepreneur driving social change that so inspired her on her own path. Like many of her generation, she wants to work toward solutions to climate change, particularly improving the health of the world’s oceans through a sustainable blue economy, something that struck her the first time she went scuba diving. “I felt an overwhelming sense of inspiration to take a more active role in the preservation of our oceans. Especially for those who never saw themselves as the loud one in the room, like me, I’d like to help others make their voices heard. Inspiring others as they have inspired me would make me forever grateful.”

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Fernanda Lopes Larsen, planting seeds for a better world. Success Stories

IESE Standout — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 07:25:39 +0000

Fernanda Lopes Larsen (IESE Global Executive MBA 2023) is Executive Vice President Africa & Asia of Yara, whose mission is to feed the world and protect the planet. She received the WIN Inspiring Women Worldwide Award.

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When Fernanda Lopes Larsen moved to Norway in 2012, she wasn’t expecting to have that much trouble fitting in. After all, this was the fifth country for the Brazil-born civil engineering graduate, after studying in Austria and working in Germany and the United Kingdom. How hard could it be?

“It was the biggest culture shock of my life,” she says. She recalls feeling out of place, both professionally, in a traditional company with a corporate culture very different from the ones she had worked in before, and personally, as a self-described “loud, extroverted Brazilian woman.”

Even so, since landing a job at the Norwegian fertilizer company Yara, she has quickly moved up the ranks to become a member of the senior management team. She is now based in Singapore, as Yara’s Executive Vice President for the African, Asian and Oceanian markets.

“I credit the struggle and hardship of the early days with making me the leader I am today,” she says. It taught her to stick her neck out for causes she believes in. Today, as a diversity and inclusion campaigner, she is on the front line of conversations about sustainability and social equality.

Rethinking the system

“If I’m still at Yara, it’s because of its strong mission,” she says. “We’re here to feed the world and protect the planet.”

The company has a strong commitment to decarbonizing fertilizer production and supporting an agricultural transition to being carbon-neutral and nature positive. Fertilizers are essential if we are going to feed a growing global population, particularly under the added stress of climate change. But food production is a heavily polluting industry, responsible for an estimated quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

What does an agricultural transition look like? “It’s recognizing we have to find a new way to farm,” she says, explaining that Yara’s approach is built on three pillars.

First, as ammonia is the foundational ingredient of most fertilizers, it starts by producing ammonia in a cleaner way — decarbonizing its production by using renewables instead of natural gas. There’s also what’s called blue ammonia, which captures and stores the CO2 generated during ammonia production, making the process virtually carbon neutral.

Beyond cleaning up production, the other two pillars are embracing regenerative agriculture and promoting farmer prosperity. Regenerative agriculture involves practices that enable farmers to increase yield and nutrient efficiency, reduce water consumption, and protect the soil. Prosperity is also key, because making progress on emissions should not have to come at the expense of smallholder farmers, some of the poorest people in the world, and responsible for at least a third of the world’s food production. It also means addressing the 30% of food that goes to waste, often because of the difficulty in accessing marketplaces. “Improving systems that will help farmers access knowledge and offtake markets can help lift them out of poverty,” she says.

Lopes Larsen has seen the global conversation on sustainability evolve greatly over the years she has been with Yara. What’s the view from Asia, where a Green Deal akin to that of Europe is starting to be discussed. “It’s not a solid, unified voice yet,” she says. But those voices are growing louder, particularly at recent ASEAN summits.

Regarding Singapore, “I always say that many of the solutions to transition the food system to something more consistently sustainable may, ironically, come from a country that doesn’t grow much itself: currently 90% of its food is imported. But what Singapore does is invest massive amounts of money in science, technology, agritech and sustainable agriculture: the government has a strategy to produce 30% of its food by 2030.”

Although there’s still much work to be done, Lopes Larsen believes overhauling the food system and reducing its effects on the planet is possible — but it requires radical change. And advocating for change, on a personal as well as professional level, is something she feels passionate about.

Using her platform for good

Another area where she has been working for change is in diverse representation in management. Despite Brazil’s reputation as a racial democracy, she recalls being one of a small minority of Black students at her university. Moving to Europe raised her consciousness, and she began to develop the vocabulary to describe the systemic racism that she witnessed and experienced.

“Being a Black woman in the corporate world has really increased my awareness of these issues,” she says. “Because being Black is not something that I can (or want to) switch off in the morning when I go to work, in order to fit into the environments that I am part of. I want to bring my full self to work — and that includes my culture, my ancestry and my Brazilian upbringing.”

Her activism in this space was galvanized by the shocking death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in the United States in 2020. “It’s a little embarrassing for me to admit that it took an American dying on camera, when Brazilian kids die in favelas every single day, but there was something about an innocent Black man killed for the entire world to see that was transformational for me.”

Together with a colleague, she went to her CEO to demand action on improving the corporate world for young Black leaders. “I thought I would get fired, but I figured, what is the point of being in a leadership position if I cannot use this platform?”

Instead, her CEO responded with his full support, and a program for Black leaders was established to help them navigate the corporate world better, something Lopes Larsen says she wishes she had had when she was starting out.

“I’m proud of how my company responded,” she says, “and I wish more people would speak up and use their platform. Ultimately, the goal is that we can all go to work being ourselves and have equal access to opportunities.”

Speaking up and moving the conversation forward is important, because so much still needs to be done. “Look at the composition of the boards of the world’s top companies,” she says, pointing to their general lack of diversity. “And so many companies are still not taking the climate emergency seriously.”

In this sense, she cites as inspiration two Brazilian compatriots, Luana Genot and Adriana Barbosa, “who through their relentless advocacy work have empowered and opened the doors of opportunities to countless Black Brazilians” in the corporate world. She met them at the Davos summit, which she attended for the second time in 2022.

“For those who think the World Economic Forum event is just an elite gathering, they couldn’t be more wrong. I’ve met fantastic CEOs, entrepreneurs, public officials and third sector leaders who are humble, purpose-driven and committed to resolving the most urgent issues we face as a planet today: food security and climate change. I’ve had the privilege to meet some of the most amazing minds, particularly women, who are at the forefront of the fight for racial equality, social justice and prosperity.” She also connected with African presidents, business leaders and entrepreneurs “who share a passion for Africa that is worth emulating. I have never felt so much pride in my African ancestry and so much sense of belonging.”

Lopes Larsen remains ever hopeful: “I think the corporate world is a major actor. We have the intellectual competence, and we employ a lot of people. So when the corporate world moves, other parts of the world will as well. Nothing will deter me from continuing to advocate with the tools I have at my disposal.”

And though she may never see the fruits of her labor in her or her daughter’s lifetime, she says, “Honestly, I don’t need the flowers, I just want to make sure I am helping to plant the seeds.”

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Favour Okolie, leading by example. Success stories

IESE Standout — Thu, 11 May 2023 09:58:46 +0000

Favour Okolie is VP of ONE Foundation and an alumna of IESE’s Master in Management (MiM) Class of 2023.

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An example can be very powerful. So it was for Favour Okolie. She had seen talks by Ibukun Awosika, a well-known Nigerian businesswoman and motivational speaker who, like Okolie, was a chemistry graduate.

“I admired the fact that she was a highly successful Nigerian woman — the first and only Chairwoman of First Bank of Nigeria — and she had a family. And then I found out she was on the International Advisory Board of IESE, so I figured I had to apply to this school.”

Which Okolie did, earning a scholarship for IESE’s Master in Management (MiM) in Madrid.

What inspires Okolie is not so much what people say as much as what they do. And she knows that if she wants to inspire others, particularly other young African women, then she must do something inspirational herself.

Passion alone isn’t enough

Okolie got her first taste of inspiring others when friends approached her about starting a nonprofit together. The result, ONE Foundation, provides training, mentoring, networking and funding for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. Initially, Okolie helped organize courses, but as the organization grew, she soon found herself out of her depth. She realized she needed to acquire more skills to match the growing demands of their stakeholders.

“People came with high expectations and wanted advice for how to run a business, which I had insufficient knowledge about,” she recalls. “That was when I realized that if I really wanted to help others, I needed to empower myself. It’s not enough to be passionate. To really be able to help people, you need knowledge.”

Closing the knowledge gap is something that Okolie believes doesn’t just apply to herself but holds the key to overcoming the challenges faced by aspiring entrepreneurs across Africa.

Admittedly, a lack of reliable infrastructure, like electricity, adds an extra layer of difficulty: it’s harder to develop a grand business vision when you’re in basic survival mode. Still, if people are able to see “the potential they have,” Okolie insists, “the moment their mindset shifts, those physical obstacles stop holding them back from engaging in entrepreneurial activity.”

There’s no limit to what a young person, gainfully engaged, can do, she says, adding that an inspired young entrepreneur is the greatest antidote against them falling into hopelessness. Education in its broadest sense (not just in STEM subjects like she pursued) is ultimately about empowerment.

“If I really want to help others, I need to empower myself.”

Favour Okolie, IESE MiM-23

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Seeing yourself in others

In Nigeria, where Okolie comes from, entrepreneurial women are a common sight in local markets, selling goods to make ends meet. But move into the corporate sphere and high-ranking female executives are few, and even rarer at the board level. Although the situation is improving, with trailblazers like Ibukun Awosika helping to break down barriers, Okolie says there is still a long way to go.

Again, the shift has to happen in the minds of young people, particularly young women, which for Okolie requires seeing more female role models in positions of leadership who are also honest about the unique tradeoffs for women of having a career.

“There are male entrepreneurs that I admire and can learn from,” she says, “but when you see someone like you achieve something, it hits you differently. Your brain has no excuses left.”

For her part, Okolie wants to provide more educational resources and possibly even scholarships to help create a sustainable pipeline of female entrepreneurs in her country. Her blog to encourage others in this direction carries a title that fittingly captures her life philosophy: Love, Courage, Inspire.

In addition to her ongoing involvement with the ONE Foundation, Okolie has developed a community project for high-school students in rural southern Nigeria — called Project Inspire Akpabuyo — to, like the name suggests, inspire them with career possibilities and expand their horizons.

She plans to extend this work by collaborating with large companies upon completion of the MiM, as well as doing consulting, all with an eye toward fulfilling her larger purpose: “That I show love to every person I meet, encouraging them and inspiring them to fulfill their God-given purpose and potential. This is how we change the world.”

IESE has developed a wide range of courses and activities through the Women Win platform to support women like Favour in their personal and professional development and aspirations to lead.

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Elena Betés. From dreaming of a different culture to founding Rastreator. Success stories

IESE Standout — Mon, 06 Feb 2023 17:05:32 +0000

Elena Betés is CEO of Dide.org, Vice President of Education at Red Ventures, founder of Rastreator, and holder of an IESE MBA. She has two children.

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Elena Betés, founder of the insurance comparison platform and broker Rastreator, believes that, in her career, the “failures have been much more important than the successes.” “The reason for this is that I have learned a lot from them. Above all, I’ve learned how to endure,” she clarifies.

But something very important happened prior to those failures: she realized that the environment of a major international consulting firm like Arthur Andersen was not for her. She had experienced the glass ceilings and confirmed that was not her world. “I wanted to live in an environment where I was the one making the rules,” she recalls.

It was at that point that she decided to do an MBA at IESE, because she thought that was the best way to learn how to start a business or, at the very least, to clarify her ideas about what it meant to set up a business. Betés’ first company, PuntoSeguro, was created with funds from her friends, family, and classmates from her master’s degree. It was the first online insurance comparison platform and broker created in Spain.

“The business did not scale as quickly as we were expecting and, in addition, I linked it to another identical company that I started in Germany, backed by a European conglomerate, and it went bankrupt,” explains Betés. It was a moment that caused her to reflect and wonder “whether I really wanted to keep trying.”

Once she had decided, however, she changed her mentality. “I stopped being afraid of failing and started to feel as though I didn’t have anything left to lose.” The way in which other people were betting their money on the projects that she wanted to lead also began to fill her with confidence: the best part was just around the corner.

Founding Rastreator

And then came Rastreator, or rather, Betés founded it, at arguably the most difficult moment. It was 2008, and the international financial crisis was spreading everywhere like a giant tsunami. The British multinational Admiral partnered with her in a venture which, at the start, relied on two major milestones: strong growth in Spain and a technological center in New Delhi, which Betés herself created. Mapfre invested in Rastreator in less than a year.

“It really was the opportunity that we had been looking for,” confirms the director, “to develop a unique culture in which both employees and clients were treated as authentic individuals.” It wasn’t enough to offer excellent service, or to focus on the consumer. Betés wanted to go one step further.

Based on the success of Rastreator, Admiral entrusted her with the development of similar platforms in the United Kingdom and France, and committed to financing the international expansion of Rastreator, matching the investment that she was able to get from other investors. “I was able to get €20 million, and they contributed another €20 million,” she points out. Later on, in 2020, the platforms that the director had founded and developed were sold for €500 million.

But not all these ventures were victories. In 2015, Admiral joined forces with Mapfre to move into major markets such as China, Turkey, India and Mexico. “And in all of these markets,” recalls Betés, “we were only really successful in Mexico. China, for example, became one of the failures that I have learned the most from in my career.”

“Failures have been much more important than successes in my career, because I have learned a lot from them. Above all, I’ve learned how to endure.”

Elena Betés, CEO of Dide.org, Vice President of Education at Red Ventures, founder of Rastreator, and IESE MBA.

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Failure as fuel

Betés believes that failing has been one of her biggest “sources of inspiration.” And these ideas helped her convert her defeats into major drivers to continue moving forward:

1) Failures help me understand the future of the business. They are necessary.

2) Nothing starts or ends with a defeat. The game goes on until you concede.

3) Failures are the challenge life has given me. A challenge that I know I can and will overcome.

4) Defeats only weaken you when you don’t learn from them. Or when you believe you have nothing to learn.

This is real leadership. Real people, sharing valuable experiences and lessons learned from mistakes they’ve made.

A culture of people, for people

Betés recalls that, for her, it was not enough to launch a successful business, or to learn from her mistakes. She was just as passionate about creating a culture that respected “the authenticity of who you really are, promoting a flexible work-life balance, the conviction that obstacles are just challenges that can always be overcome, and the importance of attitude over aptitude.”

When the moment came to launch and expand Rastreator, she knew for sure: “I wanted a culture where we were all obsessed with excellence, and with being the best, but where we also knew why we were doing what we were doing, and everyone was doing it in their own way, not necessarily being uniform.” No one needed to be the same as anyone else, or dress like soldiers, or sleep in a dorm in order to feel like they were part of a winning organization that shared their dreams.

And these dreams came through in a shared culture that not only encouraged talent, but also a very concrete customer concept. And this is where Betés opted to put herself on the front line: “I decided to get stuck in, speaking directly with some of our users, offering them a telephone conversation with the CEO of Rastreator, during which I asked them to tell me what they expected from us and how we could help them more.”

But what about the leadership culture? What example did Betés want to set for her own staff, for the other directors, and for thousands of women beyond her company, whether they were directors or not?

In this sense, Betés has her priorities straight, “demonstrating that you can be both a good mother, although you sometimes miss some first teeth, and a groundbreaking leader of a multinational company that launches successful products onto the market at the same time.”

“The Elon Musk model of sleeping in the office is not only unnecessary in a world where you can work remotely and automate processes, it also isn’t sustainable for anyone,” she adds.

Betés spends her time seeking to find the best way to develop talent. As Vice President of Education at Red Ventures in the United States, she became ever more aware of “the need for diversity in companies,” in addition to the role women play in “making the difference, and creating new worlds and cultures in environments that were, until recently, exclusively male.” Due to her support of this cause, Betés won the International Women’s Entrepreneurial Challenge (IWEC) award in November 2022.

Recently, Betés became CEO of Dide.org, an edtech tool with the mission of becoming a global leader in educational inclusion. The tool detects a child’s strengths and weaknesses, allowing learning problems to be identified in a holistic way and facilitating actions that can be taken according to individual needs.

All these objectives and concerns are shared by IESE, which has developed a wide range of courses and activities through the Women Win platform to support women like Betés in their personal and professional development and aspirations to lead.

The post Elena Betés. From dreaming of a different culture to founding Rastreator. Success stories appeared first on IESE Standout.

How is mental load being shared at your company? Ideas to boost equality

IESE Standout — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 08:26:18 +0000

Resource organization, decision-making, risk control, accounting, logistics and operations, sustainability, communication, stakeholder relations…As an executive, you’re certainly very used to dealing with all these issues every day at the office. But it’s also very likely that, at home, those same responsibilities mostly fall to a woman. This is what is known as mental load, or the effort of having to think about everything that needs to be done, work that is often both invisible and undervalued.

According to a 2019 survey conducted by P&G in Spain, three in every four women bear the burden of mental load. Furthermore, 63% of mothers claim to have an infinite mental to-do list, compared to 25% of fathers. Eighty-seven percent of mothers are primarily responsible for everything running smoothly at home, and 69% say their partners chip in, but only when asked to.

Another study, published in the American Sociological Review in 2019, identified four clear stages of mental work that fall directly on women: anticipating needs, identifying options, deciding among the options and monitoring the results.

Mental load: A powerful brake on women’s professional careers

According to experts, although there is no biological trait that leads women to exercise the role of planners and organizers better than men, cultural biases perpetuate mothers in the role of CEO at home.

In addition to affecting their well-being, the fact that women are assuming the bulk of the domestic responsibility has important consequences in their professional careers. On one hand, it becomes much more difficult for women to balance their personal life with an ambitious career: when women are overwhelmed at home, they feel like they can’t take on the demands required to advance their careers. After becoming mothers, 58% of women reduce their working hours, take sabbaticals or directly leave their jobs (compared to 6.2% of men). This obviously causes them to receive fewer promotions and salary raises and widens the pay gap.

Plus, this culture is broadly entrenched in the policies of many companies. Thus, it’s often easier for women to get flexible or part-time jobs, while men’s careers are traditionally more rigid, linear and removed from their personal lives.

Keys to promoting equal opportunities for women and men

To help women and men enjoy the same development opportunities at a company, managers must understand that they constantly juggle the demands of their office and home lives. We propose three measures for you to implement in your organization.

1. Foster mutual support between team members

Although they may appear to be two completely disconnected worlds, the truth is that our home life affects us at work and the experiences we have at the office have a direct impact at home. According to a recent study by IESE Professor Mireia Las Heras, employees who have the support of their colleagues—for instance, in being able to talk about their difficulties balancing work and family—are more likely to have compassionate and empathetic relationships with their partners. At the same time, that family positivity transfers back to work in a virtuous circle that creates the ideal conditions for greater effectiveness and creativity.

Although this finding is based on friendship and trust between people with similar roles—rather than on corporate policies to support families—, executives have lots of say in the matter. They can help improve the quality of relationships at home by minimizing conflicts between work and family with simple measures like respecting working hours and digital disconnection. They can also create environments that encourage informal support networks among employees, mindful that if workers get along well, everyone will benefit.

2. Encourage more engagement from fathers

Even though fathers in many countries are increasingly committed to their role in the family ecosystem, more support for paternity at the organizational and institutional level is still needed to be able to have a true impact on the professional development of mothers. The latest book co-written by Professor Mireia Las Heras, Engaged Fatherhood for Men, Families and Gender Equality, concludes that when executives support family life, it increases the number of hours men spend with their children much more so than for mothers.

In other words, what leaders do in this area is crucial for allowing fathers to spend more time with their families, helping to create a more inclusive environment. Some initiatives that companies can implement are: establishing work-life balance policies and encouraging workers to follow them; tailoring the professional career of each employee to their personal situation; and facilitating non-transferable paternity leaves, especially in countries where they are unpaid.

3. View the home as a business

Developing a fairer distribution of tasks and management within each family can be complicated, but according to experts, laying the cards on the table is the first step. From there, a useful method can be to organize the home like a company and distribute the leadership of different departments between the two members: food, cleaning, purchases, education, health, maintenance, public relations etc. Thus, for instance, the director of health would have to manage everything related to medical issues for the entire family, from scheduling appointments to administering medicines to keeping the first-aid kit well supplied.

Commitment and communication are obviously essential for this system to work. But the ability to delegate is also key. According to the first study mentioned in this article, only 24% of women completely forget about a domestic task that they have left in the hands of someone else, and 72% admit to always reviewing and critiquing other people’s results. The authors explain this behavior as a lack of trust in one’s partner, but also that some women see having equal responsibilities at home as loss of power: at least they’re the boss at home.

One of the basic pillars that can break this vicious cycle is education. In the business world, executive training is a key tool for women to advance in their careers and aspire to positions of higher responsibility, although it often entails significant time and money spent on themselves. That’s why it’s essential for them to have confidence in their own abilities and the support of their partners. Because the road to equality has many stages, paths and allies.

Read the article How to cultivate women power in business.

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Women in leadership: How to cultivate women’s power in business

IESE Standout — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 14:02:23 +0000

Today, just 8% of Fortune 500 companies have a female CEO. Nurturing women’s careers is not only the fair and moral thing to do, argues IESE professor Nuria Chinchilla, it is vital for businesses looking to survive in the global, female-led marketplace.

Cultivate the empowerment of women’s leadership

Decades of analysis reveal that certain steps can be taken to bring more women in, harness potential more effectively, and empower women to achieve their full leadership potential.

Here are Chinchilla’s research-based suggestions for developing women in your company:

1. Acknowledge bias and stereotypes

You might think you treat men and women the same, but chances are you’re not fully aware of your own biases.

Senior executives and managers in particular should examine their own inherent prejudices – we all have them – and identify strategies to combat them.

A key part of this is performance evaluation.

Chinchilla’s research shows that men’s reviews are four times more likely to involve discussion around leadership attributes than women’s. Men also receive four times as much developmental feedback and twice as much positive feedback as women do.

Chinchilla also points to the so-called “stereo threat:” a behavior that sees people underperform through fear of being stereotyped. Being mindful of these and other threats, says Chinchilla, can help drive empathy and inclusion in organizations.

She urges leaders to build a culture of openness in which female employees feel empowered to talk about sources of anxiety.

2. Overcome structural hurdles: tips for success

Quantify how much female talent is moving up the ladder. Many women, Chinchilla says, are trapped in “the frozen middle,” where their leadership potential is not released.

Guarantee gender balance in the hiring process with clearly defined targets based on your company’s current needs.

Make sure performance standards and evaluation criteria are clear and consistent for everyone.

Conduct regular payroll audits to detect any gender-based salary imbalances.

And get more women on your board. Boards of directors remain massively skewed towards men, with only 33.9 percent female representation. Research shows that the more women there are on the board of a corporation, the smaller its pay gap.

3. Being proactive

Create programs to identify, develop, and promote high-potential female employees.

Get rid of the rigid “corporate ladder” in favor of a more flexible “corporate lattice,” which allows for multiple paths that adapt to individuals and the changing needs of your firm.

Facilitate work-life balance, not only by offering flextime, telecommuting, and the option of a part-time schedule, but also by making sure employees feel safe to take advantage of these policies.

Confirm that women are being mentored in a targeted way, according to their skills.

Openly encourage women to break through the “glass ceiling” (put in place by male-dominated structures that stem from the “old boy network”), and also the “cement ceiling” that women impose on themselves. This happens when women downplay their achievements and don’t go after opportunities until they feel 100 percent qualified to do so. Personal coaching sessions are one way to help women out of this “humility trap.”

Let everyone know how serious you are about elevating women. Changes should be spearheaded by the C-suite and framed as a strategic opportunity rather than an ad hoc HR initiative.

4. Get informed and reap the benefits

When companies empower women, they are simultaneously promoting values such as empathy, flexibility and team unity.

And in so doing, they help drive their bottom line: “A diverse culture that mirrors its markets tends to do better than homogenous competitors,” says Chinchilla.

Discover the 13 questions to find out if you are a good leader.

Chinchilla and other IESE professors are highly committed to studying and promoting diversity, and teaching leaders how to achieve it via IESE’s suite of executive education programs around the world.

One of the initiatives to spread this idea and promote training is the focused program on “Women on Boards of Directors” or the “Women and Leadership” program. Here you have all the information about training programs, initiatives and conferences for women in leadership.

IESE has developed a wide range of courses and activities through the Women Win platform to support women in their personal and professional development and aspirations to lead.

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Eghosa Oriaikhi Mabhena, CEO of Puma Energy Africa, believes in taking chances. Success stories

IESE Standout — Tue, 07 Sep 2021 13:15:37 +0000

Born in Nigeria and educated in London, Eghosa Oriaikhi Mabhena now oversees Puma Energy’s operations in 18 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. “Take a chance, I dare you,” she says.

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Born in Nigeria and educated in London, Eghosa Oriaikhi Mabhena has worked internationally for two decades, first for Schlumberger and then for Baker Hughes. Now with Puma Energy based in Johannesburg with responsibility for 18 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, she says: “My goal was always to acquire enough experience to come back and make a difference in Africa – to be close to the end customer, the people we are impacting and the communities we are energizing.”

Oriaikhi Mabhena (Global Executive MBA ’13) understands that sustainability is not just about creating business models that respect the environment, but also about creating a working environment that attracts and retains diverse talent who are resilient and representative of the population at large.

Here, she discusses the challenges of managing in post-COVID times and of being a woman in a traditionally male-dominated field, as well as what it means to be an ethical leader today.

Between COVID-19 and climate change, now must be a tough time to work for a petroleum company…

We believe that a downstream company like ours, close to the end user, can play a significant role in the energy transition. In fact, throughout my career, I have always gravitated toward that part of the business that is closest to the end consumer, especially in emerging markets. This puts us in a better position to address issues such as energy poverty – getting access to the very end of the supply chain. That’s our role, and it’s one we’re very proud to take.

I think there’s a misconception that to be ethical in business, you can only work for an NGO. Not so. In any industry, you can still be a values-based leader that the world can trust. The onus is on each of us, whether at work or in our personal lives, to be clear where we stand and then to live by those values – to be the change we want to see in the world. We might also have to create the conditions, if they don’t currently exist, for those values to thrive. And that’s what I’m trying to do in the energy industry.

What are some of the things you’re doing to make the energy transition?

We’re aiming to drive environmental, social and governance (ESG) commitments and deliver on U.N. Sustainable Development Goals by: developing energy infrastructure; providing sustainable, green energy; and transforming under-energized communities with reliable, cost-effective sources of power. So, we’re using best-in-class technology to improve energy access and reliability compared to traditional grids, and using more renewable resources, like solar or wind. We have the level of access to communities and the level of investment necessary to make these changes, such as electric chargers for electric vehicles. I see our role as very exciting.

In addition to changing the business model, you’re trying to make the industry more female-friendly. How?

In some fields, there can be an attitude of, “We’re used to how it is. We don’t know if something else will work.” That’s why we need to see more women succeeding in these fields, to show it can be done, because in careers where you do see other women, you think, “Well, if she can do it, then I can, too.” That’s how the human mind works. So, we need more women achieving higher positions in order to inspire others. Representation matters.

The oil and gas industry has been changing over the past 10 years. Companies have come to appreciate that diversity in thought and expression and in leadership style is valuable. For example, men and women might react to a certain result differently, and while it used to be that the female style was regarded as a weakness, now people see they are both equally passionate, just that they express it differently, and both reactions are beneficial. Just getting to that point has taken time.

I’m also focused on getting more women into CSTEM (Coding, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) degrees. When I did my mechanical engineering degree at University College London, I was one of very few women. But just as challenging as getting more women into technical degrees is getting them to stay in technical fields throughout their careers. They may take a career break for family reasons, or think it’s not possible to have a family and a career in this industry. We have to keep challenging the status quo, to show the industry – and women – that they can actually do both.

“More so than any other time, we’re seeing this concept of humane leadership.”

Eghosa Oriaikhi Mabhena (Global Executive MBA ’13).

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What obstacles have you faced in this regard, and how did you overcome them?

I’ve experienced the gender pay gap, finding out that I was earning significantly less than my male counterparts for the same role. That was discouraging. Finding mentors and coaches can also be challenging. It’s hard to reach senior levels, especially in this industry, without mentors helping you out and developing you to be successful. Yet, because of harassment concerns, men can be hesitant about mentoring women. Fortunately, that’s changing, and there are safeguards being formed around male mentors supporting female talent.

You need someone to take a chance on female talent – not to tick some diversity box but because the employee has genuinely earned the right to be in that role. So, as women, we need to be competitive and at the top of our game. But then we may have to pound on the door and say, “Hey, take a chance on me.” What I’m doing through AWEinEnergy, an organization focused on getting more women to CEO and C-Suite positions, and formerly through The Boardroom Africa, which is about promoting more female talent onto boards across the continent, is this: teaching women to say, “Here is who I am, here is what I have to offer, and I dare you to take a chance on me.”

Ultimately, you have to take a chance on yourself. You have to understand what your value is, what you have to offer, what your strengths are, and from that point, you have to be daring, because the journey isn’t easy. And for those of us who stayed the course, we need to mentor other women, sharing the lessons we’ve learned to get to where we are.

How has COVID-19 helped or hindered progress?

As a woman and a mother, I’ve seen how the experience of COVID-19 has challenged working families, with parents having to work and homeschool their children for months on end. While some companies have adapted so that women would not have to leave the workforce, we know that, in many cases, women have exited the workforce to take care of children. As business leaders, we spent years trying to get more women into senior leadership positions, and now the pandemic has challenged that balance.

There is also the growing problem of educational poverty. We have an entire generation that may potentially be impacted by delayed education. Where there has been a lack of internet access or sustainable power or iPads, children have fallen behind, and this educational gap will become more apparent over time.

Then you have vaccine poverty. Look at the rate at which different countries are vaccinating against COVID-19. We know that, depending on the adoption of health passports, travel may become selective. For those countries that cannot afford rapid progress on vaccination programs, the pandemic has exacerbated economic divides.

What role can business play in the post-pandemic recovery?

More so than any other time, we’re seeing this concept of humane leadership. Companies have had to address the mental health of their workforce. The role of government vis-à-vis society has changed rapidly. We’ve seen a shift in emphasis: Tech had become the be-all and end-all to the point that we had forgotten those who were fundamental to our societies; now doctors, nurses, teachers, even people who were making deliveries and people who supported the ecosystem for the home to keep functioning, have become extremely important.

As leaders, our role is to make our businesses attractive places to develop and retain talent, based on new value propositions. In looking to join a company, people are going to be basing their decisions on what we have done throughout the pandemic and what we will do to support people and society. At the end of the day, leaders need to be people who drive the agenda of human welfare and human equity forward, with creativity and innovation, so that it becomes the norm for everyone, rather than the divides that we see today.

“Leaders need to be people who drive the agenda of human welfare and human equity forward.”

Eghosa Oriaikhi Mabhena (Global Executive MBA ’13).

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Eghosa Oriaikhi Mabhena spoke on “Leadership for Sustainability” as part of the annual Doing Good Doing Well conference, which was held in March 2021 on the theme of “Rethinking Business in a Post-Pandemic World.” She also spoke at the annual Symposium of the IESE Executive Coaching Unit. She is an alumna of IESE’s Global Executive MBA.

IESE has developed a wide range of courses and activities through the Women Win platform to support women like Eghosa in their personal and professional development and aspirations to lead.

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Elena de Benavides. Promoting innovation and entrepreneurship in the electricity sector. Success Stories

IESE Standout — Thu, 01 Jul 2021 07:02:32 +0000

After founding seven startups, Elena de Benavides now faces a greater challenge: coordinating innovation and entrepreneurship for Red Eléctrica de España.

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Elena de Benavides (PDD ’13) admits that, as of late, she can hardly find time to check her personal email.

Still under 40 years old, she has already founded seven startups, invested in 10 and served as investment director at Gala Ventures. But her latest challenge is even greater: since September she is coordinating activities related to open innovation and entrepreneurship for Red Eléctrica de España (REE), one of Spain’s biggest companies.

As REE’s Open Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lead, she is looking for entrepreneurs, ideas and projects that can contribute to profoundly transforming the company. In her quiver are a “venture capital fund that allows for investing in startups where there are synergies, accelerating startups with early-stage technologies that, if given support and assets from Red Eléctrica, could offer a distinctive value, and exploring new business models with more established companies”.

Without fear of the unknown

Benavides is quite aware that one of the greatest challenges she faces is knowing how to manage the unknown. No one knows with certainty where the electricity sector revolution is headed, but none of the main players within this sector can afford to stay put, to stop moving forward or to stop experimenting with less linear and unidirectional systems until, little by little, they figure out which track is the one they should be on.

And this, Benavides points out, “implies philosophical, cultural and technological challenges for the sector’s main stakeholders, from distributors to carriers, all the people involved in the system’s operation, and the customers, who should be aware of the consequences of their energy consumption.” In addition, operators such as REE are called on to play a crucial role in electrification of the economy, key in the fight against climate change. Artificial intelligence, big data, and the internet of things (IoT) are emerging as some of their allies.

“Innovation implies philosophical, cultural and technological challenges for the sector”.

Elena de Benavides (PDD’ 13).

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It is no small challenge, but then again, neither were Benavides’ previous professional endeavors. She has founded seven startups in a country where only 22% of these projects are spearheaded by women, and has served as director of investments within the venture capital and private equity sector, where female representation in positions of leadership is minimal.

Managing “emotional and economic mayhem” in startups

Among the toughest challenges that Benavides had to overcome as investment director at Gala Ventures was the “the professional change in itself of moving from the realm of entrepreneurship to the venture capital sector, where leadership positions are typically held by finance experts, and where the management of the emotional and economic mayhem of the startup teams you’re investing in and which later begin to take off comes into play, and, lastly, creating an area within Gala where the particularities of this type of business operation could be better understood.”

While she was facing these challenges, the sector as a whole experienced, in the space of just a few years, a sudden change: “We professionalized quickly, many people who we could co-invest and associate with came onto the scene, and the money that came in multiplied.” She also admits that with so much capital, “some companies’ valuations skyrocketed beyond reasonable amounts.”

She knows the market well because in 2017 she had invested, directly and personally, in projects such as Zapiens Tribe, which manages knowledge and human resources; fintech Rebellion; and photo app Mimento.

She had arrived at Gala Ventures after serving as CEO of the most successful startup she has managed to date. According to Benavides, “the International Institute of Phlebology allowed us to improve the quality of life of many people with venous pathologies.” How? Essentially, by “offering an injectable solution that we had patented which prevented them from having to go through surgery”.

Her joining the institute and her time there from 2010 to 2014 can be explained by the same three factors that have prompted Benavides to participate in startups: “Completely understanding the business model and the social need that it meets, that there be an economic exchange between the company and its customers and, lastly, collaboration and total trust in the team”.

Importance of training

A few months before making the switch to the venture capital firm Gala Venture, while acting as CEO at the International Institute of Phlebology, Benavides completed IESE’s Programa de Desarrollo Directivo (PDD is equivalent in English to Program for Management Development). Then, in 2013, “the program gave me not only new knowledge, but it also helped me open my mind, to broaden my vision of seeing different areas within a company in a very practical way, and to understand, for example, finances, even though I’m not a finance specialist.

“For me,” she says, “it was a truly formative experience, and I continue to have ties to the school because I belong to its network of investors and entrepreneurs, I receive information on specialized programs that can complete my knowledge and we’ve even created a small investment vehicle with my former PDD classmates that allows us to stay up to date on what’s happening in different sectors.”

Benavides forms part of IESE’s Business Angels Network, which brings investors together with startups, and has also been a mentor in IESE Women Angels, which promotes investment by women.

IESE has developed a wide range of courses and activities through the Women Win platform to support women like Elena in their personal and professional development and aspirations to lead.

Elena de Benavides: 3 keys to remember

The main challenge: managing the unknown.

Collaboration with and total trust in the team.

Training is essential: it helps to open your mind and gives you knowledge that you lacked.

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