La Cosita Chula, a platform co-founded by a Full-Time MBA in Innovation & Entrepreneurship alumna, wins second place in the third edition of the program.

By JOSÉ ÁNGEL DE LA PAZ | EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL

In its third edition, Emergente, the Citibanamex Social Commitment and Impact Hub Ciudad de México program to foment and support the best social entrepreneurship projects in the creative industries, awarded a prize to La Cosita Chula, a platform that promotes the Mexican artisan industry, co-founded by EGADE alumna Mónica Camacho.

The enterprise created by the Full-Time MBA in Innovation & Entrepreneurship graduate and her colleague Alfredo Fonseca won second place and a monetary prize of 75 thousand pesos of non-refundable seed capital to drive its growth.

“Creativity is inherent to the Mexican personality; using it to make a difference is our responsibility. It gives us great pride to be recognized as among the most creative entrepreneurship projects that are changing Mexico,” Camacho said.

Estos son los ganadores de la tercera edición de Emergente, el programa de impulso a emprendimientos creativos de Impact Hub y @CitibanamexCS ¡Felicidades! pic.twitter.com/gUT4vouUlB

— ImpactHubCDMX (@ImpactHubCDMX) January 30, 2021

La Cosita Chula is a platform that develops the artisan industry, working with over 100 artisans in the Mexican states of Nayarit, Oaxaca, Jalisco, Michoacán, Puebla, Tlaxcala, and Chiapas, by means of inclusive workplace practices and social impact strategies, combining innovation with everyday objects.

For the third edition of the Emergente program, more than 400 projects were received and six regional boot camps and two per category were held, from which the 10 finalists were selected, based on their business model, social impact, and creativity.

Subsequently, the finalists were given the opportunity to present their work on the Emergente Online Bazar and, on January 29, to appear before an expert jury, who selected the three winners.

The entrepreneurship projects that won first, second and third places were Nashun, La Cosita Chula, and Kuil Ecolápiz, respectively.

Just 36% of the family businesses surveyed by the Entrepreneurial Family Institute for Mexico and Latin America had already created or formalized a Crisis Committee during the early months of the pandemic.

By INSTITUTIONAL COMMUNICATION | EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL

Within the framework of a discussion session of the Family Enterprise Research Conference (FERC), María Fonseca, Director of Tecnológico de Monterrey’s Entrepreneurial Family Institute for Mexico and Latin America (IFEM), and Laura Zapata, Associate Academic Dean of EGADE Business School, shared the main findings of the survey “Panorama for Family Businesses in the Face of COVID-19”.

The study, conducted by IFEM during June and July 2020, gathers evidence from 250 participants belonging to family businesses, mostly first and second generation, and with 20% belonging to third-generation firms. Fifteen percent of these companies are headquartered in Colombia, Chile, Perú and Venezuela, and 80% in Mexico.

Regarding the institutionalization of the family business, the study revealed that 43% of the sample has a Board of Directors, just 31% has a formal Family Council, and 36% indicated that they already had or had formalized a Crisis Committee during the early months of the pandemic.

Fonseca commented that innovation and creativity issues were a constant among the family enterprise members surveyed regarding the significance they afford as a family to the “crisis”.

Maintaining financial sustainability was also a priority for the family firms, although the sample responded that family prestige and remaining connected with the market were equally important. 

“This leads us to reflect on family businesses, in the sense that apart from generating wealth across generations, they also build a legacy that transcends financial matters, significantly weighing family prestige and its role in society,” Fonseca stressed.

Moreover, Zapata emphasized how important it is for family enterprises to have learning processes in the construction of a legacy so that future generations can understand these dynamics from a historical perspective, particularly all those related to unexpected events and change management, providing insight into how they have responded in different crises, such as the current pandemic.

The survey results can be viewed on the IFEM website, here.

The aim of IFEM is to generate and integrate knowledge, enabling and accompanying the families and their leaders in competency development, thereby producing a transformation that will favor value generation and the flourishing of the family, company and its environment, throughout generations.

FERC, an event that was established in 2005, is dedicated to developing a community of scholars interested in conducting research into understanding family firms and creating usable knowledge in this field.

Guerrilla UX Design, Design Futures, Social Entrepreneurship and Project Leadership are the four programs launched in this intensive education format. The first program starts on March 4th.

By JOSÉ ÁNGEL DE LA PAZ | EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL

EGADE Business School at Tecnológico de Monterrey launched the new Online BootCamps, as part of its Alternative Learning program portfolio.

These bootcamps offer intensive, practical training in state-of-the-art areas, through weekly live Zoom sessions and activities on virtual reality and Design Thinking platforms, such as Virbela and Miro, explained Julien Depauw, Director of Academic Innovation at EGADE Business School.

These programs, he added, are taught with the competency-based learning model and in partnership with global experts who guide learners in the development of a project and prototype.

The new Online BootCamps are:

Guerrilla UX Design

• Objective: push ways of collaborating, learning, and challenging the status quo to the limit by resolving experience design challenges on digital platforms.
• Offered in collaboration with TCUX.
• Start date: March 4, 2021.
• Duration: 4 weeks (8-10 hours per week).

Design Futures

• Objective: learn how to use design processes, methods and artifacts to imagine alternative futures and develop better strategies.
• Offered in collaboration with Diagonal Studio.
• Start date: March 22, 2021.
• Duration: 4 weeks (8-10 hours per week).

Social Entrepreneurship

• Objective: learn to develop a solution to a social and/or environmental problem with a sustainable, scalable business model.
• Offered in collaboration with the Eugenio Garza Lagüera Entrepreneurship Institute.
• Start date: April 12, 2021.
• Duration: 4 weeks (8-10 hours per week).

Project Leadership:

• Objective: develop the necessary skills to lead projects based on the European PM² methodology and train to be a certification candidate.
• Offered in collaboration with PM² Alliance.
• Practical learning using LEGO sets.
• Start date: May 3, 2021.
• Duration: 6 weeks (6-8 hours per week).

“In EGADE Business School’s Alternative Learning, we understand that each of our learners is different, pursuing a personal objective and seeking a unique learning experience. With Online BootCamps, we want to offer the opportunity to achieve a specific new competency that can be reused at any time,” Depauw said.

The Online BootCamps can be acquired here. On enrolling, participants receive 10% off their first purchase of Online BootCamps or LiveOnLine.

Laura Judith Ramírez Guevara (MBA’20) and her startup, Dereum Labs, and the Lifelong Learning program exclusively for EGADE Business School graduates have been recognized.

By JOSÉ ÁNGEL DE LA PAZ | EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL

An EGADE alumna and the EGADE U Week program were distinguished in the AMBA & BGA Excellence Awards 2021 as finalists in the categories Startup MBA of the Year and Best Lifelong Learning Initiative, respectively.

Every year, The Association of MBAs (AMBA) and Business Graduates Association (BGA) awards celebrate excellence among the top business schools, students and alumni in the world.

This year, the awards ceremony was held virtually, bringing together a total of 60 finalists in 11 categories.

STARTUP MBA OF THE YEAR

In this category, Laura Judith Ramírez Guevara, an EGADE MBA alumna, was nominated by Dereum Labs, a startup that develops technology to take the industry into space, in anticipation of its first mission to the Moon in 2022 and to Mars in 2040.

“It is an honor to represent EGADE in such an important international competition and a source of great pride that Dereum Labs has been ranked among the Top 6 startups created by MBAs worldwide. For me, being the only person in the Americas to have achieved this is an enormous triumph in my professional career. In particular, I would like to thank Dr. Luis A. Márquez for everything he has taught me, his guidance and his support, and my family, my greatest motivation to keep going,” Ramírez Guevara said after the virtual ceremony.

Moreover, Osmar Zavaleta, Interim Dean of EGADE Business School, commented:

“Laura just graduated from our MBA program last December and is a brilliant example of the young talent, innovation, entrepreneurial spirit and impact of the EGADE Community. We are immensely proud of Dereum Labs, truly one of the most innovative startups we have had at EGADE, focused on impacting opportunities for the future of industry in space. Preparing to go beyond frontiers by constructing a new interplanetary economy, one of the limitless opportunities for many industries, such as mining, agricultural energy, transportation, infrastructure, and many others,” he said.

BEST LIFELONG LEARNING INITIATIVE

EGADE Business School received this nomination for EGADE U Week, an innovative Lifelong Learning program launched in 2019 and designed exclusively for graduates, enabling them to update their knowledge and create high-impact interactions with top international faculty, as well as renowned leaders, disruptors and entrepreneurs.

“Responding to the global context, we have focused largely on the co-creation of new Lifelong Learning programs and services for our graduates and business leaders in Latin America, to make it easier for them to navigate through this decade’s unprecedented challenges and opportunities. EGADE U Week is an excellent example of this. Now, in its third year, it has become a traditional annual event on our alumni’s calendar, where they can get together, network and experience an innovative, accelerated update in leadership thanks to EGADE, its global faculty and business leaders. This recognition reinforces our motivation to continue to transform ourselves, our institution and our community through lifelong learning,” Zavaleta explained.

EGADE U WEEK 2021 will be held in March in a virtual format.

Consult the full lists of the AMBA & BGA Excellence Awards 2021 finalists and winners, and relive the awards ceremony held on January 29.

An alumna and a former collaborator of EGADE Business School both form part of the group of 23 winners of the award, now in its ninth edition.  

By JOSÉ ÁNGEL DE LA PAZ | EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL

Claudia Margarita Félix Sandoval, Vice-President of the Western Region of Tecnológico de Monterrey, and Karla Andrea González Rodríguez, Tec High School professor, EGADE Business School alumna and former collaborator, respectively, were recognized for their careers and contributions with the 2021 Tec Prize for Women.

Both women are included in the group of 23 winners of the award that, in its ninth edition, received 230 nominations of outstanding women who form part of the Tec de Monterrey, Universidad Tecmilenio, Sorteos Tec and TecSalud community.

CLAUDIA MARGARITA FÉLIX SANDOVAL (MA’95)

• Claudia was honored with the special Career Prize.
   
• With 26 years at Tec de Monterrey, she is currently Vice-President of the Western Region and Director of Campus Guadalajara.
   
• As a professor in the Department of Strategy and Leadership, EGADE Business School, she received the recognition of her students for her Outstanding Teaching Performance in the 2019-2020 academic period.
   
• She is an EGADE Business School Master in Administration graduate.

KARLA ANDREA GONZÁLEZ RODRÍGUEZ

• Karla won her prize in the Environment category.
   
• She is currently an International Baccalaureate professor at Tec High School, Campus Santa Catarina, and creator of Bodega Cero, a supermarket that sells products with a lower environmental impact, enjoying a clientele of over 21 thousand conscious consumers.
   
• At EGADE Business School, she served as the Liaison and Support Coordinator for SUSTENTUS, a center that concentrated the school’s business sustainability and social entrepreneurship initiatives.

Claudia Margarita and Karla Andrea will receive their awards on March 8, International Women’s Day, in a virtual ceremony together with the rest of the winners in nine categories and two special prizes (Career and Pioneer).

The categories are #She4She, Transformative Power, Citizenship with a Gender Perspective, Art and Culture Management, Science, Health and Wellness, Sports and Sports Management, Entrepreneurship, and Environment.

With information from CONECTA.

In a panel of experts, Carlos Salazar Lomelín, president of the CCE, warned that we must ‘make investment an obsession’ focused on infrastructure for the economic recovery of Mexico.

By JOSÉ ÁNGEL DE LA PAZ | EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL

EGADE Business School inaugurated the January-March trimester with the panel of experts Economic & Investment Outlook 2021, led by Carlos Salazar Lomelín, President of the Business Coordinating Council (CCE).

Organized by the Financial Think Tank and the Master in Finance, the event took place on January 27 to offer an analysis of Mexico’s economic and investment panorama for this year, within the COVID-19 crisis situation.

“We need to make investment an obsession,” Salazar Lomelín told students, alumni and faculty.

The CCE leader, an EGADE Business School graduate and Chairman of the Board of Tecnológico de Monterrey’s Undergraduate Business School, expressed his pessimism regarding economic recovery given the complete absence of public investment in infrastructure.

He stressed that, even though CCE managed to deploy two public-private infrastructure investment projects worth 500 billion-pesos, it was not enough.

“We face thousands of restrictions, but the greatest ones come from the Government with its myriad of red tape, as well as an ideological situation such as rejecting a more accelerated investment in infrastructure by the energy sector,” explained Salazar Lomelín.

Other panel participants were Shantall Tegho, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs; Alonso Cervera, Chief Economist for Latin America at Credit Suisse; and Jorge A. Martínez, Director of the EGADE Business School Financial Think Tank, who served as moderator.

Within the framework of the event, Ignacio de la Vega delivered his last message as Dean of the Undergraduate Business School and EGADE Business School, before assuming the role of Executive Vice-Rector of Academic Affairs, Faculty and Internationalization at Tecnológico de Monterrey.

“It has been a pleasure working with my colleagues at EGADE Business School for the past three and a half years; I will continue to work closely with the school. I wish you every success and hope that all the predictions shared by our panelists today will be fulfilled, so that we can build the future to which we aspire and deserve as individuals and as a society,” said De la Vega.

In addition, Osmar Zavaleta, currently the Associate Dean of Research, also delivered his first message as Interim Dean of EGADE Business School.

Ajnesh Prasad is the first and only Latin American-based scholar to be appointed Associate Editor for the international scientific journal edited by SAGE Publications and The Tavistock Institute.

By JOSÉ ÁNGEL DE LA PAZ | EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL

Research professor Ajnesh Prasad, from EGADE Business School at Tecnológico de Monterrey, has been named associate editor of Human Relations, one of the most prestigious journals in the global business-school setting. 

Prasad joins the editorial board in January 2021, for an initial three-year period, forming part of the journal published monthly by SAGE Publications on behalf of The Tavistock Institute, based in London. 

“I am the first and only academic based in Latin America to hold a position in this type of journal. This appointment has come at a good time since I am about to complete my five-year term as chair of the Critical Management Studies Division at the Academy of Management,” the professor explained. 

His responsibilities as associate editor will include receiving and assessing submitted papers, selecting reviewers, and making the final decision on their publication in the journal. 

Human Relations is an international peer-reviewed journal, which publishes the highest quality original research to advance the understanding of social relationships at and around work, through the development of theory and empirical research.

The journal, founded in 1947 and ranked as a Q1, is included in the FT50 list of scientific journals used by the Financial Times in the FT Research Rank.

The current Associate Dean of Research will be taking on additional duties in his role as Interim Dean of EGADE Business School.

By JOSÉ ÁNGEL DE LA PAZ | EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL

Osmar Zavaleta Vázquez has been appointed Interim Dean of EGADE Business School at Tecnológico de Monterrey, and will take up this position on February 1, while continuing to serve as Associate Dean of Research of the Undergraduate Business School and EGADE.

Zavaleta Vázquez succeeds Ignacio de la Vega, who, after having served as dean of the School of Business and EGADE Business School since August 2017, was called to lead Tec’s new Office of the Executive Vice-Rector of Academic Affairs, Faculty and Internationalization.

This also resulted in the appointment of María Elena Vázquez Lira as Interim Dean of the Undergraduate Business School, while continuing to serve as Dean of the School of Business in the Western Region.

These changes in the Undergraduate Business School and EGADE were announced by Juan Pablo Murra Lascurain, Rector of Undergraduate and Graduate Programs at Tec.

Zavaleta Vázquez has held diverse leadership roles throughout his 27-year career at Tecnológico de Monterrey.

At Campus Monterrey, he was program director, area director, associate division director and division director, at the undergraduate level, and, at EGADE Business School, program director, department director and site director.

He is currently Associate Dean of Research of the Undergraduate Business School and EGADE.

He has participated as visiting professor at diverse universities in Latin America, such as Universidad Americana, in Managua (Nicaragua), Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, and Escuela Militar de Ingeniería, in La Paz (Bolivia).

He served as National Director of Graduate Programs of the Mexican National Association of Accounting and Administration Faculties and Schools (ANFECA), and board member of the A. B. Freeman School of Business of Tulane University (USA).

He specializes in the fields of Mathematics for Finance, Statistics for Finance, Finance for Energy, Valuation of Derivative Instruments and Investment Management.

He has published academic research articles on a variety of finance-related topics in highly prestigious national and international journals, and regularly writes informative articles. Moreover, he comments on topical issues for the media and has participated as a speaker at diverse academic and research conferences.

Zavaleta Vázquez earned a B.Sc. in Engineering Physics, Master in Industrial Engineering and Master in Applied Statistics from Tecnológico de Monterrey, and a Master in Finance and Ph.D. in Finance from Tulane University.