Ignacio de la Vega and Salvador Alva offer the opening conference in the 55th AMEDIRH International Human Resources Congress.

By JOSÉ ÁNGEL DE LA PAZ | EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL

What kind of business leaders can generate the impact the world needs today?

This matter was discussed by Ignacio de la Vega, Dean of EGADE Business School and the Tecnológico de Monterrey School of Business, and Salvador Alva, former president of the institution, in the opening conference of the AMEDIRH International Human Resources Congress 2020.

Alva explained that at present there are three tasks leaders should not delegate: forward planning, managing the best talent, and fomenting a solid organizational culture.

“Leaders have to anticipate the future, since it is their job to protect an organization. They must attract, retain and develop more leaders and, above all, create a culture that unifies the organization as it strives towards a higher-order purpose,” he said.

De la Vega mentioned the need to redefine capitalism and migrate to a more conscious model for doing business, seizing the opportunities that will arise after the contingency.

"We need to reinvent ourselves towards a more conscious, circular, solidary and inclusive vision of doing business, where maximizing shareholder return is not the sole objective," he said.

The dean emphasized that EGADE Business School, through efforts such as the Center for Conscious Enterprises for a Sustainable Future, has been working, investigating and raising awareness for the past few years on the change needed in the capitalist model.

Alva pointed out that the leadership crisis organizations have been facing for several years, resulting from an inability to adapt to constant change and uncertainty, has been accentuated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have a huge leadership problem. Never before has humanity faced such exponential change. And this change is threatening each and every business, particularly the ones that are not agile or whose digital component is lacking,” he explained. 

The 55th edition of the AMEDIRH International Human Resources Congress was held virtually, connecting over two thousand leaders from the Human Resources community in Mexico.

Other guest speakers were José Antonio Fernández Carbajal, Executive Chairman of the FEMSA Board of Directors and Chairman of the Board of Tecnológico de Monterrey; Fausto Costa, Executive Chairman of Nestlé México; and Claudia Jañez, President of DuPont Latin America and President of Executive Council of Global Enterprises (CEEG) in Mexico.