Posts Tagged ‘Entrepreneurship#8217;

Moritz Heck, Dual Degree IMBA-MIAF

Moritz is a passionate entrepreneur with a strong drive to revolutionize the offline shopping experience through the stocard App. After graduating from IE Business School, Moritz has been working on his business venture and is currently holding the position of Business Development/CFO of Stocard, Germany.

Here is his entrepreneurial story:

Are you tired of the mess in your wallet overfilled with loyalty cards and coupons? – The free Stocard app collects all loyalty cards on your smartphone and is now available on the Spanish app store. Providing users with personalized offers and coupons, Stocard creates a unique communication channel, through which offline retailers can reach young mobile customers. Moritz Heck has joint Stocard after completing his dual degree at IE Business School last December. He is convinced that the Stocard app has the potential to change the offline shopping experience. Working as CFO & Head of Business Development he can put the entrepreneurial knowledge into practice, which he acquired during his MBA and Master in Finance at IE Business School.

The Stocard app has already replaced about four million plastic loyalty cards for more than one million users in several countries. Now it also puts Spanish customers’ wallets on a diet. Stocard currently ranks 1^st in the Spanish app store – just a few days after its launch. “Smartphones are the future. They can completely replace all loyalty cards with the free Stocard app for iPhone and Android”, says David Handlos, CEO and founder of Stocard.

Stocard is very easy to use: Simply scan your loyalty card with your smartphone’s camera. The app then creates a digital version of the card on your phone. Stocard already supports 100 default loyalty cards – from Club Vips, over El Corte Ingles to Shell Clubsmart. If a rare card is not on the list, you can type in the store’s name by hand and easily add the desired card. Whenever you want to use your loyalty card, just show your phone with the digital copy and receive discounts and rewards, just as you would with the plastic card.

In May, Moritz will be able to put his IE experience into action, when he will pitch Stocard at the biannual IE Venture Days in Madrid. Stocard has been announced as one of the ten finalists presenting in front of VCs from across the globe. This will be an excellent opportunity to find potential international partners for Stocard’s future expansion in Europe and beyond.

First published on Finance Masters Blog.

IE celebrated this week its 3rd Venture Day in Shanghai. The program was made up of 12 IE startup projects from the Global Executive MBA and Executive MBA+ programs presenting to a Jury of 10 local and international investors, including James Tan from Beijing, Casey Wahl from Tokyo and several local Chinese investors and venture capitalists. The winner of the morning session was a “Curly” (Global Executive MBA), a new hair salon business model (see picture of winners Normen & Stephanie with Paris de L’Etraz).

In the afternoon the top three IE projects competed against 6 local Chinese startups. The winner in the afternoon was also an IE project, Aphenion Energy (Global Executive MBA) which develops renewable energy solutions in Africa for small villages. Over 200 people attended the event at China’s top Accelerator, Innovation Works in Shanghai.

Are you an entrepreneur? Are you planning to set-up your business with a strong social commitment? Then have a closer look to the IE University Social Entrepreneurship Summer School… Oh! You are not High School student? Sorry…

IE University would like to offer high school students a unique experience of taking part in the Social Entrepreneurship Summer School. If you see opportunities where others only see empty buildings, unemployable people and unvalued resources, this is the event for you.

During the week of July 15 till 19, you will be working alongside other students from around the world on creating a social entrepreneurship project using The Design Thinking Methodology, an idea generating methodology, a protocol for solving problems and discovering new opportunities. By implementing the six steps of the Design Thinking Process, you will be forced to think out-of-the-box every step of the way, to use your imagination, to come up with innovative solutions, to overcome challenges and to seek opportunities.

Using this methodology, you will develop within a Global Action Team a grass-root social entrepreneurship project, centered on different topics, such as culture, ecology, sports, social justice and other. Interact with other students and social entrepreneurs who share your concern about our society’s most pressing problems and put an innovative battle plan into action. The program combines interactive and motivational lectures by renowned social entrepreneurs with hands-on Global Action Teams sessions. In addition, you’ll have the opportunity to take part in cultural, social, and outdoor activities that will allow you to get to know your fellow participants better and learn from their experiences.

The conference will be hosted in IE Universities’ beautiful historic campus in Segovia, Spain. Housed in a 15th century convent, this perfect setting will inspire you in your quest for new ideas to achieve social change. You’ll also be able to explore the surrounding areas, and enjoy and absorb all the history and culture that Spain has to offer.

We look forward to seeing you in Segovia! Sign-up here!

There’s a Japanese proverb that says that the person who makes poor quality goods is worse than a thief, because he makes things that neither last nor provide true satisfaction, while a thief at least redistributes wealth in society. Well, when it comes to quality Prof. María Eugenia Girón knows everything there is to know.

Here she speaks about luxury and perfection, while touching on the ancient and intriguing Japanese Wabi Sabi concept of beauty, which is about seeking beauty in the imperfections found in all objects. As you might know, the aesthetic values of Wabi Sabi have inspired a great many aspects of Japanese culture, including the tea ceremony, flower arranging, haiku, garden design, and noh theater.

Prof. Girón has many sides and talents. She holds a degree in industrial engineering and is a Harvard MBA graduate. She has also studied art, worked as CEO of Carrera & Carrera, is a member of a large number of boards, including that of Oceana, and also she is the Executive Director of the Premium & Prestige Business Observatory etc. etc. But most of all she is just a really nice person. What else can I say?

P.S. Prof. Girón is the author of the book “Inside Luxury”.

First published in The Other Side, the blog about the other side of IE Faculty

Finally IE graduates have a space for their entrepreneurial ventures: the Area 31 Alumni Incubator! 23 projects made the cut for the first edition – good luck! Check out the projects below:

• Focus on Women
• Castlebaby
• Remini
• Inkubica Labs
• Beroque
• Pathfinder
• The Talent Bond
• Shared Secrets SL
• Swarmsurge
• IEX5
• camare.ro
• Letsdecco!
• uTree
• MAGARI
• Top Around SRL
• uniQinu
• Innubu
• Trajesamedida.com
• ChangeFusion Europe
• Soysuper
• Emzingo Group
• ecereales.com

Have you ever wondered what Master in Managemnt alumni are doing in the long run after having graduated from IE? Check out the video below to meet Dhruv, an Indian graduate of IE Business School’s Master in Management, and find out the effect IE had on his life and career 3 years after graduating. Also, if you are interested in reading about the trip from Madrid to Mongolia Dhruv speaks about, you can find all the information by clicking here.

This post was first published on the Master in Mangement Blog.

Deep Mehta

My name is Deep Mehta and I am a current student of the International MBA (November 2012 intake) at IE. As some of you must have guessed, I am an Indian and an engineer (that’s almost obvious) by qualification; but a polymer engineer (we are a rare species) and not an IT guy. Post that I have also done a short course from India’s premier institute Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and a diploma in Marketing Management. After graduation I worked for a Dutch Multinational as Business Development Executive (for engineering plastics) for around 3 years. However, at the back of my head I always knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur and be my own boss. After a lot of introspection and networking trying to find out what my true calling is, I quit my job in March 2012 to co-found Bombay Clothing Company. Bombay Clothing Company is a clothing company which has its own brand name TYGR (www.tygr.in) and also caters to corporate orders.

Choosing the right MBA program which caters to one’s specific career needs can be one of the most difficult tasks – I know it was for me. I remember spending hours researching, reading and talking to alumni from various schools to find out which school fits my needs.

When choosing a school my top three priorities were –

a)      Focus on Entrepreneurship – I fell in love with IE the moment I read “a school built by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs”. Coming from an entrepreneurial background and always wanting to build my own company, I wanted to go to a school that would help me do just that. The courses, the venture lab (an accelerator/incubator), and the venture network (every Thursday 7pm there are three or more start-up who pitch to Venture Capitalists on campus) are amongst the things that attracted me to the school.

b)      Diversity – IE’s focus on diversity is one of the best facets of the IMBA program. In the November 2012 intake we have 68 nationalities – it’s a little odd when you meet someone and don’t know where that country is or you don’t know anything beyond “oh ya I have heard of it”. IT ADDS MANIFOLDS TO THE LEARNING. Also, IE during its launch program and the study groups ensures that you don’t have more than one person from one nationality in one study group. This means that you learn from people from different educational backgrounds, work experiences and cultures.

c)      Course Flexibility – For me it’s amazing to see how IE has miraculously fitted in a whole bunch of options in its 13 months program. In term 4 and 5 I could either do a long exchange at one of the most revered universities in the world, I could put my project into the Venture Lab and get a dedicated mentor for 4 months while taking some elective subjects, or I could choose from a whole bunch of electives and tailor everything to my requirements, which is especially interesting for people looking for a career change, or I could do an internship among other options. The things to do are numerous but everything depends on what YOUR SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS ARE.

The above mentioned points were my top 3 reasons for selecting IE as my school. However, I forgot to mention that “it has been RANKED EUROPES #1 BUSINESS SCHOOL” and “RANKED #11 for its MBA PROGRAM in the world by the Financial Times in 2013”…

This post was first published on the International MBA Blog.

IE Focus 2012

Colombian entrepreneur Natalia Londoño is an alum of IE Business School’s Master in Sales and Marketing Management. She is about to head the opening of a new Becara Franchise in Bogota, which will be the first step in the firm’s expansion into Latin America. Becara has been operating in the field of design, production and distribution of furniture and interior design items for 44 years, and is now present in over 40 cities worldwide that include Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, Milan, Istanbul and Jeddah.

You are heading the expansion of leading interior design retailer Becara in Colombia. Becara is now present in 7 countries, and the Bogota store marks the beginning of the firm’s operations in Latin America amid economic growth in the region. What made you decide to take on this project?

One of the main considerations was the contrast of Spain’s economic situation with what was happening in Latin America, particularly Colombia, my home country. Colombia is in the throes of expansion with a sustained annual economic growth rate of 4% in recent years, coupled with a trade balance surplus.

Coming back to Becara’s expansion in Colombia, Becara is a leader in the furniture and decoration sector. I met its founder in 2011, which coincided with a decision to return with my family to live in Colombia after twelve years in Spain. I was invited to get to know more about Becara, and the moment I saw the 22,000m2 warehouse in Valdemoro I realized that this was a great company with excellent potential in a country that is growing as fast as Colombia. Read more…

Prof Dr. Martin Boehm at the World Knowledge Forum 2012, Seoul

The Great Breakthrough: New Solutions for Global Crisis was the theme of the 2012 of the World Knowledge Forum in Seoul, South Korea. 4 IE Faculty members lend their expertise and insights in understanding the unprecedented challenges that leaders will have to confront in the 21st century.

Organized around the theme of Creative Leadership, IE presented a series of lectures of significant value to executives and leaders of global firms. The underlining questions were:  How should corporate management look like in 2013? How should we utilize the opportunities and where should we find the engine for the new growth? What could be the pre-requisite for creative leadership, and what kind of strategies and imaginations do we need?

The Dean Prof Dr. Santiago Iñiguez participated in the session “Global CEO Roundtable” and spoke on the changes occurring in business school education and the training of executives in the face of tumultuous global trends.

The IE Breakout sessions were sought after as the topics appealed to the audience and revealed important drivers for their businesses:

Professor Steven D’Souza highlighted in his lecture Beyond Human Capital- Leadership and Social Capital the power of building social capital and harnessing the power of our social networks. Using research and several cases from the field, we shared counter-intuitive insights for leveraging relationship building techniques for professional success.

During his lecture on Leading in times of uncertainty, Professor Paris de L’Etraz highlighted some of the key concepts of developing managers and professionals who are better prepared to excel and lead under conditions of uncertainty and change. His lecture demonstrates that analytics are helpful but not always the best tools for leadership during times of rapid disturbance and disruptions in the market.

Finally, Professor Martin Boehm shared his understanding of the strategic role that brands play in driving business growth and profitability in his session on Building Successful Brands. Using research and cases, he showed why brand management from the lowest levels of the organization can ultimately build a brand that’s worth its reputation.

IE Business School ranks top 10 worldwide in all categories of this year QS Global 200 Business Schools Report.

This report focuses merely on the employability of MBA graduates by region and specialization asking more than 3,300 MBA recruiters. Focusing solely on employers’ views provide a reliable insight as to which business schools produce MBA graduates and alumni that are favored by recruiters. This is derived from employers’ votes as to which schools they prefer to recruit MBA graduates.

IE Business School was considered on the no. 4 spot in Europe, stepping up one position from last year, and in all categories IE was placed within the top 10:

Corporate Social Responsibility 5 (11 in 2011)
Entrepreneurship 4 (5)
Finance 8 (8)
Information Management 6 (6)
Innovation 7 (7)
International Management 6 (7)
Leadership 7 (10)
Marketing 6 (15)
Operations 6 (6)
Strategy 7 (9)