IE & Asia-Pacific

The Other Side | By Felix Valdivieso, Director of Communication at IE Business School

Just as Just in Time could be either a very popular song or a production strategy designed to maximize business return on investment, Prof. Daniel Corsten could be either the most knowledgeable management professor around or the most enthusiastic person on earth doing what he loves to do, which happens to be singing for you. Knowledge and enthusiasm is certainly a powerful combination.

Don’t miss what he has to say about how we make decisions when we’re shopping, why supermarket shelves are organized the way they are, and why just in time is so important both in business and in life.

Social networking looks easy as an individual. You sign-up for the service you find interesting and contribute at your leisure, in your mood, expressing your views.

For a company there much more considerations to make. In first place, you would need to define a strategy why you want to be active, how you want to do it and most importantly with whom you wish to connect. In the following video you gain some insights from Enrique Dans, professor at IE Business School and renowned blogger about technology (unfortunately in Spanish only).

IE University, being already 5 years old, is getting increasingly popular for international students. With 80 nationalities on campus it features a unique environment for students who want to get most out of their university experience – and for older generations, this experience has been the most important of their lives.

Get a first impression on what IE University can offer you.

The Saudi Spanish Center for Economics and Finance recently organized it’s Social Impact Finance Forum, to discuss the future of finance and alternative ways of funding. During that Forum academics, professional and finalists of the ‘What is out there’ competition explored whether a more ethical approach to banking is possible.

The Saudi Spanish Center for Economics and Finance is a joint center formed by IE Business School and King Abdulaziz University.

All IE University students can begin to participate in IE Labs and the Start-Up Lab at the beginning of the academic year. Visiting and Exchange Students can join during the full-time period from April to June.

A professor will lead each Lab to guide students through their work. Each Lab operates much like a small company, with working hours, timetables and deadlines. Students have a commitment to work for companies on projects and deliver them within the specified deadlines.

In the first two terms students dedicate only part of their time to IE Labs. During the Internship Period, from April to June, students work on IE Labs full time. The daily workload during the full time period will vary, depending on the projects, but will consist of a class or seminar, working on projects, a meeting or a company visit. There are also weekly presentations, when students present their progress on work they are doing.

The IE Labs are long-term projects, which continue the following year with new students. In many cases, students can continue with their research and consultancy projects, using their work for their Final Thesis Project as well.

The 7th edition of the IE Social Responsibility Forum was held on November 23rd and 24th, and welcomed speakers from a number of companies including, Gabi Zedlmayer; Vice President of Global Social Innovation at HP, Maite Arago; VP and Director of Corporate Social Responsibility at Grupo Vips, Stephanie Schmidt; Director FEC Mexico at Ashoka, and Jean-Christophe Laugee; Director of Social Innovation and Ecosystem at Danone. The IE Social Responsibility Forum is the largest student-run event at IE.

For more information on this event: http://srforum.ie.edu/
For more information on Social Responsibility at IE:http://www.ie.edu/values/social-responsibility.php

Are you considering accelerating your career in capital markets or investment banking, or switching from other professional fields to finance? Do you see yourself as the future CFO – Chief Financial Officer – of a company? Are you interested in working as an entrepreneur with a firm supported by private equity, perhaps leveraging opportunities provided by microfinance? However, you are still thinking if you should do an MBA or a specialized master in finance program…  So, watch Chris (New Zealand) when he talks about why he chose to study both the International MBA and the Master in Advanced Finance, and the benefits he believes students with Dual Degrees have when rejoining the workforce.

To learn more about exciting career opportunities for Dual Degree students, join the virtual session today with Ignacio de la Torre, Academic Director of the Master in Finance Programs, and Belén de Fontcuberta, Associate Director of Careers Management Center.

Virtual Session – Career Opportunities for Dual Degree students

Wednesday, January 16 at 5pm Madrid time (GMT +1)

Register online

The Other Side | By Felix Validvieso, Director of Communication at IE Business School

Some time ago, a friend of mine said to me “you know, Felix, what I want around me are not incredible people, colleagues, friends whom I can brag about… but just pleasant people. You know, people who make your life easy, plain and simple.” Well, not that you cannot brag about how knowledgeable Information Systems Professor Kiron Ravindran is, no, it’s just that when you interact with him, you realize that things just go smoothly – the way my friend told me they should go. I am sure you would like some evidence.

When I suggested we shoot a video, he proposed at the end of his email: “[Cut to me jumping off a bridge...on a bungee]”. I must confess that I have thought of bungee jumping as one option, but it is also true that I never thought of finding a professor who would actually make that idea a reality.

Moreover, the amazing thing is after jumping he said to me:
Felix, I gotta jump again.
Fine, Kiron, we’ll come another day.
No,I mean now.

And that is what he did. Jumped again. This time head first, which is what you are going to see in this video.
After the shooting we went to the favorite place of bikers around Madrid, “La Cruz Verde”, and had some amazing black pudding, sausage, and chorizo sandwiches. No vegetarian was seen within a 100 miles”.

Prof Marco Trombetta of IE Business School shares his recent executive development experience in Ghana.

Cape Coast, November 2012. In a hot room where computers share the space with solar power charged lamps, Master in Finance students at IE Business School are asking questions to Veronica Kitti CEO of Alternative Sets of Assistance (ASA) Initiative, a Micro Finance Institution (MFI) based in Cape Coast and operating in the Central Region of Ghana. Just the day before, we had spent the whole day travelling on a small 4×4 bus through dusty roads of Ghana in order to visit some of the clients of the ASA initiative. Why are we all in Ghana? Because we are involved with “Financieros sin Fronteras” (FsF – Financiers without Borders) an NGO founded in 2010 by a group of people linked to IE Business School in Madrid.

Check out the full  article HERE. And some more stories about the Ghana experience HERE.

IE Focus | By Maria Luque, Professor at IE Business School

Microfinance has proved to be a prime tool in the fight against poverty, but it is not enough to eradicate it once and for all.

Microfinance, namely the provision of financial services for people on low incomes, has taken giant strides since the 1970s. It provided financial services for some 200 million people in 2011 according to the Microcredit Summit Campaign, and now impacts the lives of around 1 billion.

Microfinance institutions face big challenges. One such challenge is the impact of the world economic crisis which began to show in 2008, and which, according to Deutsche Bank Research, has caused a deceleration in the growth of assets, a drop in profitability, and a greater risk for portfolios. Another is the excessive focus on profit and the accelerated growth of some institutions, without the necessary institutional capacities or control.   Even so, the microfinance industry continues to grow steadily and has demonstrated that in the right conditions it is a key tool in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Until recently we focused on talking about microfinance as a tool that could lift people out of extreme poverty, promote production, and empower women, all of which are development Millennium Development Goals and indispensable factors to strengthen economic and social growth in developing countries. But growth and investment in assets are not the only things that access to financial services brings. Read more…