Business leaders discuss opportunities and threats of the coming decade at the 3rd Conference of Esade Alumni in the Americas

06.05.2022

Business leaders from Latin America, USA and other regions gathered at the annual conference entitled ‘Challenging paradigms in the next decade’ to discuss the latest opportunities and threats in their respective industries and companies, particularly sustainability, social corporate responsibility, data protection and management, plus work in the post-COVID era

Friday, May 6, 2022. Is it possible to anticipate future challenges in an ever-changing world and design strategies to navigate uncertainty? Some one hundred business leaders from Latin America, USA and other regions tried to answer this question during the 3rd Annual Conference of Esade Alumni in the Americas, held in Miami under the title “Challenging paradigms in the next decade”. Also taking part in the conference was Ivan Bofarull, Head of Innovation at Esade-URL, who addressed a crucial and indispensable value for dealing with the future: the disruptive culture of the company. “When discussing innovation, what matters is not so much the type of technology that companies have access to, because technology platforms are accessible,” said Bofarull. “What makes a difference is how we companies think, what sort of decisions we take and what culture of innovation we have”.

Looking towards the future in different sectors

Innovation in different sectors was also addressed by some of the talks given by executives and former Esade-URL students including Pablo Sanchez, Country Manager at Air Europa for USA, Puerto Rico and Canada; Joan Bertran, Global Head of Commercial Real Estate & Hotels at Banco Sabadell; Begoña Gonzalez-Blanch, Managing Partner at Ackermann International in USA, and José Antonio Ortega, Prisa Media CEO for America.

Alexandra Valentin, Vice President of Private Banking at JP Morgan, identified three challenges facing the financial sector, “How to incorporate WFH and the hybrid model, in addition to attracting and retaining talent when there is a greater demand for hybrid models and flexibility and inflation causing wages to rise. And how this talent must be trained so that they feel integrated into the company and part of its culture.” The healthcare industry, a crucial sector in recent years, was analyzed by Sergio Martínez, Global CEO at Keralty-Sanitas. “The pandemic has changed telemedicine systems around the globe and the way in which we relate to health,” he commented. In his talk, he highlighted several trends that will transform the sector, such as 3D printing, gene therapies, the design of personalized medicines and the increasing use of interconnected terminals to monitor health. He also mentioned new forms of medical insurance, “Big data will affect insurance and microinsurance, both of which will become increasingly personalized”.

Esade Alumni, a global community

The conference, once again held face-to-face after the Bogotá conference of 2019, was opened by Koldo Echebarria, Esade Director General. Echebarria highlighted the “great changes” taking place in the education sector, changes that have been accelerated by the pandemic. “Face-to-face education is very important, but we also think that there are many advantages in combining it with technology and evolving towards a hybrid model,” he commented. He also pinpointed the growing importance of soft skills, “We must make an effort to train people who are more creative, more inquisitive, more resilient and more capable of adapting.”

The conference was organized by Esade Alumni, a community of more than 67,000 former Esade-URL students spanning 115 countries around the globe. “We all have a common identity, motivations and principles, an unceasing determination to build and a desire to help and share with each other a common value, an open mindset and a vital need to set ourselves new goals every day in order to grow and advance in a responsible, sustainable manner,” explained Iñaki Ocaña, Director of Global Relations and Professional Careers at Esade Alumni, during the event. The network has 72 international chapters, including 14 in Latin America and 12 in the United States and Canada.