Barcelona is home to internationally renowned business schools, which contribute to attracting talent to the city and boosting its business ecosystem. In fact, several of the many business schools operating in the Catalan capital annually make it into global rankings for executive education, such as IESE, ESADE, EADA, and UPF Barcelona School of Management (UPF-BSM).
To address the role these institutions play in Barcelona and its economic and business fabric, the next session of the Moments Estel·lars cycle will bring together on Monday, September 16, at the CASA SEAT auditorium, the general director of UPF-BSM, José Manuel Martínez-Sierra, and the director of national and international executive programs at IESE, Jordi Utgés.
The cycle, which maps out areas where the city excels through sector actors, returns after the holidays with this session, organized by The New Barcelona Post with the collaboration of CASA SEAT, Must Media Group and Barcelona Global. The session, completely free, will begin at 6:30 PM and will be moderated by journalist and UPF-BSM professor Toni Aira. To attend as an audience member and ask questions to the speakers, prior reservation is required.
Under the title Business Schools, a magnet for talent for Barcelona, the session will address the relevance of these institutions for the Catalan capital, as well as the inverse: the importance for these business schools of being located in Barcelona and its economic ecosystem. Business schools are a catapult for local talent, as well as a source of attraction for professionals internationally.
Once this talent is propelled and attracted, what role does it play in Barcelona? Is the city capable of retaining it? How do business schools interact with other relevant actors in Barcelona's economic landscape? The meeting will try to answer questions like these, in a session that can later be recovered in podcast format on Spotify or in video on our YouTube channel.
To elaborate on the role of Barcelona's business schools, the session will feature Martínez-Sierra and his perspective as general director of UPF-BSM, which in May became the first business school in Spain to be accredited by the Business Graduates Association, a quality distinction that ensures the highest standards in these institutions worldwide.
In addition to his leadership role at the Barcelona business school, Martínez-Sierra is an advisory professor for Harvard's Blockchain and Fintech initiative. A Jean Monnet ad personam Chair in European Union Law and Governance, Martínez-Sierra is also an advisor to the board of the Centre of Innovation for Data Tech and Artificial Intelligence and an expert delegate in artificial intelligence at the Digital Education Council.
In his career, his work at Harvard University stands out, where he carried out various teaching, research, and leadership activities between 2012 and 2021, the year he was appointed director of UPF-BSM. Before joining the American university, Martínez-Sierra held various positions in international organizations and institutions, including advising several ministries, directing the Agency for the Internationalization of Spanish Universities, and chairing the European Union High-Level Group on Education and Training Policies and the EU Education Committee.
The session will delve into the reasons why business schools have become a pillar of Barcelona and a distinctive hallmark of the city.Martínez-Sierra's career in the academic and university field and his work at the head of UPF-BSM give him a privileged perspective from which to analyze the landscape of business schools in Barcelona and their impact on the city. He will address this in the session together with Jordi Utgés, who has 24 years of experience at IESE, which he joined from a consultancy in the textile sector where he was a partner and specialized in the design of strategic plans and productivity studies.
PDG by IESE and a Law graduate from the University of Barcelona (UB), Utgés is director of programs for national and international executives at IESE, a business school that this year has positioned itself as the second best in the world, tying in this position with the also Barcelona-based ESADE.
Utgés is responsible for the strategy and the program teams at IESE at a national and international level, a position that is part of a career at IESE that he began in 2000 as head of candidate admissions and strategy to give visibility to the business school and its programs.
Utgés will detail IESE's role in the city, which goes beyond training: companies founded by the business school community have created 102,800 jobs and have raised almost 13.5 billion euros in capital. From the perspective that Utgés has developed throughout his career, along with that of Martínez-Sierra, both will delve into the work carried out by business schools and the reasons why they have become a pillar of Barcelona and a distinctive hallmark of the city that gives it international prestige.