ESADE broadens its strategy in Latin America and promotes its Madrid campus as an internationalization platform for businesses

Latin America is emerging as an exciting future opportunity given the increasing demand for executive training and its growing economy. ESADE has thus decided to strengthen its presence in the region in 2014 with six new country directors stationed in São Paulo, Mexico City, Bogotá, Lima, Buenos Aires and San Salvador. The Madrid campus will play a key role in this strategy as an internationalization hub for Spanish multinationals.

According to the ESADE study MBA City Monitor, Spain is the third most attractive country in the world (and the second most attractive in the EU) for international talent. Within this context, ESADE Business & Law School has started the year by redefining its presence in Latin America with a focus on four strategic areas: innovation, entrepreneurship, social debate and internationalization. In addition, it will strengthen its global partnerships and programmes and draw on the work of the ESADE Law School (URL), one of whose main goals is to strengthen its ties with firms and companies in today’s borderless world.

Latin American strategy

The demand for senior executive and legal training in Latin America is rising in keeping with the region’s current GDP growth, which, according to the ESADE Economic Report, will reach 3.5% next year.

This year, ESADE is thus boosting its presence in the regions with the greatest development potential in terms of research, training and social outreach. Under the management of Professor Xavier Gimbert, ESADE’s director for Latin America, six country directors have been appointed to oversee the school’s efforts in different areas of the region:

• The Atlantic (headquartered in Sao Paulo): Xavier Sánchez Casademunt, Director of ESADE Brazil.
• Mexico (headquartered in Mexico City): José Miguel Hartasánchez, Director of ESADE Mexico.
• The Northern Andes and Caribbean (headquartered in Bogotá): Emilio del Castillo, Director of ESADE Colombia.
• The Southern Andes (headquartered in Lima): Andrea Asencios, Director of ESADE Peru.
• The South (headquartered in Buenos Aires): Alejandro Bernhardt, Director of ESADE Argentina.
• Central America (headquartered in San Salvador): Leónidas Calderón, Director of ESADE Central America.

ESADE’s goals in Latin America are to: better meet the demands of Latin American candidates interested in the school’s programmes; expand and strengthen its network of partnerships with top academic institutions; support the companies in its executive training programmes in the region; and provide these companies with qualified alumni to fill key positions for their development.

New MBA in Spanish

ESADE will expand its portfolio by designing new programmes and training offers aimed at Latin American executives and companies and at the Spanish-speaking market in general. One of the most important new additions will be a full-time MBA with a section in Spanish. The new programme, which will be launched in the 2014/15 academic year, will include a specialization in Latin America.

The programme will use a comprehensive multidisciplinary approach to analyse the economic, political, social and cultural trends that have shaped Latin American cultures and societies. ESADE believes that this approach will contribute to students’ success and prepare them to work in an increasingly transnational environment. All of this will moreover be explicitly reflected on each student’s transcript and degree certificate.

Madrid, a hub for Spanish multinationals

Latin America is also one of the main focuses of the business school’s Madrid campus, which has just turned twelve, and which, in 2014, has been given new impetus through the appointment of Enrique Verdeguer, the former Managing Director of ICEX, as its new director.

Two of Mr Verdeguer’s goals are to strengthen the centre’s facilities to make it a support hub for Spanish companies in the process of internationalizing and to strengthen ESADE’s global brand as a leader in innovation strategies for organizations. He hopes to achieve this through academic programmes that have strong international profiles and are geared towards executive training.

Global and company lawyers

ESADE is also renewing its commitment to turning its Law School, which will be celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year, into a benchmark institution for specialized training in this business area. Among other priorities, the new dean, Eduardo Berché, aims to boost the internationalization aspects of the training provided by introducing the figure of the global lawyer and to strengthen the ties between the school’s academics and the world’s economic and business realities.

To this end, the ESADE Law School is preparing a new double bachelor’s degree in Law and Global Governance for the 2014/15 academic year, to focus on law, geopolitics and the international economy. Students of the programme will spend time at other universities, choosing from among institutions in Asia, North Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, the US, and Commonwealth countries such as the UK and Australia.

CIM, triple international degree

Among ESADE’s numerous international programmes, special attention should be called to the fact that 2014 will see the first graduating class of the Corporate International Masters (CIM) programme, offered jointly by three internationally renowned business schools:  Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, the Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration at Fundação Getulio Vargas (EBAPE/FGV), and the ESADE Business School. The course, which consists of four 11-day classroom modules held in Washington DC, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and Shanghai, and three online modules, is taught in English and is primarily aimed at high-potential professionals with executive roles in various internationally-oriented functional areas who are interested in fostering business between Latin America, the US, Europe and Asia.