Marcel Kohler (Image from BusinessBecause.com)

An article in BusinessBecause highlights the story of Marcel Kohler, a recent IE MBA graduate and M&A manager for KPMG Switzerland. This was actually Marcel’s second MBA as he completed his first at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Prague campus in 2006.

For more information please see the article here.

On February 29^th, IE will be present at the PWA (Professional Women’s Association) event called “Ready for Board Women” (more info here). The project “Ready for Board Women”, is focused on eliminating the most frequent excuse used to justify the scarcity of women on boards in Italy, and the glacial speed of change: “there are not enough qualified women, with the experience and skills required to sit on a board”.

During the event, the advisory board will identify the “Ready for Board” women, and later on a panel will discuss the topic, “Engaging Men”. IE will be represented on this panel by María Eugenia Girón, who brings a view and Board experience. Find more on María Eugenia here.

On March 30th we’ll replicate the practical cooking experience we had some months ago, mixing Alumni, CEOs and HR directors. This time we’ll make it even bigger. We are estimating an attendance of around 70 CEOs and HR directors from big Italian firms. It’ll be a good opportunity for networking and a fun and effective way to tighten IE’s ties with the Italian corporate world.

In April and May more events will follow: one dedicated to lawyers (organized in cooperation with “Scuola Superiore di Avvocatura”) and another targeted to Architects (a joint effort with Consiglio Nazionale Architetti). Both of these will be series of events, replicated in several cities.

Stay tuned for more information!

Chaired by IE Professor Lucy Marcus, IE brought together a panel of opinion leaders to discuss the evolving role of the board and how boardroom agendas must adapt to our changing times.

Panellist Manny Amadi, a former WEF Global Leader for Tomorrow, stressed sustainability as a core boardroom responsibility.
Rory Cellan-Jones, the BBC Technology Correspondent, felt boards need to fix their attention far more on the rapidly changing business environment brought about by technology and the burgeoning social media.

Trevor Philips OBE, chair of the Equal and Human Right’s Commission, thought that quotas or ethnic/gender balancing acts were not the critical thing – more a need to ensure a wide range of strong voices that reflect our changing society.
Sir Robert Worcester, founder of MORI, emphasized strategy and establishing a corporate culture as key roles of the board. He said it was the chairman’s role to act as a facilitator but it was also the chairman’s duty to ask the ‘last question’- the difficult question others had avoided.

Sue O’Brien, CEO Norman Broadbent believes that an effective board should comprise a broad range of expertise, experts that mirror the company and reflect the company’s wider impact.

 
The large audience had just too many questions to fill the allocated time. Clearly this was a popular subject and one ripe for further debate.

“Free University students frequently continue their education by taking on masters degree programs at leading institutions outside of Georgia, so this partnership is an ideal way to offer the country’s future leaders an opportunity to pursue a degree with a top tier academic institution such as IE,” explained Marina Karchava, Vice Rector at Free University Tbilisi.

IE Business School is recognized as one of the world’s top business schools. The business school, with its central Madrid campus, boasts students from more than 80 countries undertaking Master, Doctorate and Executive Education programs.

Teona Mikadze who is from Georgia, is a graduate of IE Business School (2009) and currently works as the Head of Premium Banking (SOLO) at Bank of Georgia. Reflecting on her experience, she told Georgia Today that IE Business School offers a rewarding experience in all aspects – academic, professional, social.

Moreover, she added, “when I decided to enroll in the MBA program, my objective was to choose a European school within the top 10 global rankings- one with a one year MBA program, a diverse class, and an entrepreneurial focus. IE Business School was the only school that met all my criteria and I am very happy about my choice,” said Teona Mikadze.

Awarded on a yearly basis, the scholarships are intended to be used to cover tuition fees only. There is one scholarship of 50%, one that covers 40% and three scholarships that cover 30% of the fees for the various programs offered at IE Business School. The rest of the fees, students must pay themselves.

“IE has already received impressive applications from Free University alumni and the candidates not only have exceptional academic records but portray an entrepreneurial thinking that will help them succeed in today’s multicultural business environment,” said Joлl McConnell Director of IE Financial Aid.

According to the officials of IE Business School, Georgia is a very dynamic and fast developing country, so it’s no surprise that Georgian professionals desire the knowledge and skills that will enable them to build a successful career in Georgia and abroad.

Liudmila Ishchenko, IE’s Associate Director of International Development Europe commented that “This new partnership with Free University will help Georgians finance their studies at IE and participate in our programs, which are based on our core values of global focus, entrepreneurial spirit and humanistic approach.”

The IE Business School has 500 international faculty members that teach students of more than 80 nationalities in undergraduate (IE University), Masters, Doctorate degrees, and Executive Education programs. IE’s alumni, at present numbering over 37,000, hold management positions in some 100 countries worldwide.

By Lika Moshiashvili, Georgia Today

About the event:
This Master Class will focus on how communication strategies used by Nike and Adidas in major sports events have similarities and differences even when both companies are targeting the same segments. Through the analysis of major soccer events, we will analyze the way in which two major sport brands communicate their messages and project their intended position in the sport market. We will also review what is behind advertising as a crucial communication tool.

About Professor Eduardo Fernández-Cantelli :
The three years he spent working as marketing manager for the Basketball Section at Real Madrid, Europe’s most successful football club, had a profound effect on Eduardo Fernández-Cantelli’s thinking as a marketing professor and teacher of the Sports Marketing Elective at IE.

Prof Fernández-Cantelli believes that his work on sports marketing has broader implications for the         corporate world. “I bring insights into sports marketing, sponsorships and promotions,” he says. “But these areas are certainly applicable to other areas of business.”

Furthermore we would like to invite you to take the IE Admissions test on the 29th March and to have a one to one interview with myself in Riga on the 30th March. Please register for all events at http://events.ie.edu.

We look forward to meeting you there.

Kim Goddard

On January 11^th IE hosted a group of 30 students from Nova University in Lisbon. They come to Madrid each year to visit important companies and be close to the market. It was their third visit at the IE Campus! Nora and I organized for them a Campus Tour, a cocktail with current students from Portugal, but the star of the program was a Creativity and Innovation workshop run by Professor Hana Milanov.

Hana joined IE’s Entrepreneurship Faculty in 2007 upon finishing her doctoral studies in Entrepreneurship and Strategy at Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. Her research bridges these two disciplines through a special interest in social networks. Relying on a diverse set of teaching resources, she encourages a discussion-based learning experience with the final goal of developing students’ critical skills and new perspectives on the course material. The students, along with their tutor, Daniel Traça, greatly enjoyed the session! Taking them out from their natural environment let them discover their hidden potential and stimulated them a lot!

Thank you so much for your amazing workshop! It was a really valuable experience  You really make the difference on the way I see things, and on the way I look to new problems and challenges. I am much more creative/innovative than I thought. I will keep developing it, because nowadays being innovative is definitely a key success factor in our lives (not just at work)!, wrote Tiago after coming back to Lisbon.

 Thank you! Receiving such a note is the best gratification you can ever get!

Katarzyna

Sevtap Bas is the new IE representative in Turkey

Dear Readers,

It is my pleasure to inform you that IE has now a representative in Turkey, one of the most promising economies within the European region. It is Sevtap Bas, a 32-year-old Turkish woman, but born in Sweden.

Sevtap is an intelligent, good-looking and energetic. She likes practicing all sort of sports and enjoys travelling. No surprise she has launched and founded a niche travelling agency that offers special interest traveling packages to adventurous travelers. It is the only agency of its kind in Turkey.

In her new role as the IE Turkish representative, Sevtap will be in charge of developing the local market for IE. Her goal in the next coming years is to develop new alliances with top local companies as well as international corporations based in the country. She will also be in charge of assisting candidates of all levels, from Bachelors, Masters to Executive Education programs, interested in pursuing a degree at IE.

Fluent in three languages, Sevtap has more than 10 years of professional experience. Apart from her entrepreneurial ventures, she has worked for consulting companies, including PWC. In 2006, she graduated from the IE IMBA.

She is based in Istanbul, but will travel often to other cities in Turkey to organize IE events for candidates and partners as well as to build a strong corporate network. In case you´d like to contact her directly, please write to Turkey@ie.edu

In the name of the entire IE crowd, I´d like to give Sevtap my warmest welcome,

Cheers,
Deise

Anna Znamenskaya - a student of Master in Digital Marketing program @IE Business School has recently launched a start-up aimed at making the life of women with both families and careers easier.

Anna with her WorkingMama.Ru has already won the Best Start-Up award at MITEF (mitef.ru) and is invited to the Silicon Valley to present the project to the potential investors. Speaking about the role of IE’s Master in Digital Marketing role,  Mrs. Znamenskaya says that IE helped her crystallize the idea and launch the site.

Jeremy Bedzow

The New York Times featured IE student Jeremy Bedzow as an example of an MBA who went off the beaten path and decide to pursue an experience working in a social enterprise.

Jeremy joined a team of IE students in Madrid that helped Microsoft develop a model program to provide training to prepare young people in Saudi Arabia for jobs in finance and IT.

Known as ITCAN Academy, a pun on the Arabic word for perfection, itqan, the course recruited 100 university students, all of whom had to be Saudi nationals. According to Sultan Al-Sahli, a spokesman for Microsoft in Riyadh, at the end of the two-month training period, 75 percent of the trainees had found jobs with monthly salaries ranging from 7,000 to 13,000 Saudi riyals, or $1,800 to $3,500 — well above the average wage.

The company also arranged for Jeremy to travel to Saudi Arabia to observe the program first hand, and to gather data that will be useful when the program expands.

Read the full story to learn more about Jeremy’s experience.

Simply Seven by Erik Schlie

Erik Schlie, IE Business School’s Associate Dean and Professor of Marketing and General Management, has teamed up with Jörg Rheinboldt and Niko Waesche to write Simply Seven, a practical guide to Internet business for students, entrepreneurs and executives.

 The name of the book is derived from the idea that there are seven business building blocks which form the foundation of all Internet business models. Chapter by chapter, the book guides the reader through the lessons learned by each business module: Skype for services, Blizzard Entertainment for subscriptions, Amazon.com for retail, Google for advertising, eBay for commissions and Apple for license sales.

 Click here to read about the book in  more detail and to place your order!