Over 450 former EAE students take part in the Annual Alumni Reunion at the Camp Nou with the former Coca-Cola executive, Margarita Álvarez

Once again this year, EAE Business School has held its Annual Alumni Reunion, with the attendance of more than 450 former students of the business school, which forms part of Planeta Formación y Universidades. The event was held in the 1899 Auditorium at the Camp Nou (Barcelona). Over 250 alumni also followed the live stream of the event from their respective countries. The Reunion was hosted by the journalist and author Marta Fernández, the former news presenter on Noticias Cuatro and Telecinco.

The Dean of EAE Business School Barcelona, Enric Ordeix, began the event by thanking the alumni for their commitment as ambassadors of the School. “EAE was founded in 1958 with the vocation to transform society through companies. Members of our community form part of the highest echelons of leadership, including you here tonight. We are a business centre but also a hub of inspiration to convert changes into real transformation. Our former students are the best testament of our success, and we would like to thank you by putting on this event for you. You are the ambassadors of a project that just keeps on growing”, explained the Dean to the alumni community.

The event also welcomed a number of distinguished professionals, including the Director of the Human Age Institute, Founder of Working for Happiness and Former President of Coca-Cola’s Happiness Institute, Margarita Álvarez P. de Zabalza. In her speech, the executive, who is ranked by Forbes as one of Forbes 50 Most Powerful Women in Spain, recounted three personal experiences that have enabled her to “be flexible and adapt, constantly learning and improving, finding different ways to get things done”.

During her time as the President of the Happiness Institute, when she had the opportunity to work alongside Eduard Punset and create the global “Open Happiness” campaign, she discovered the components that determine wellbeing: “growth, thinking that we are better today than we were 3 or 10 years ago; recognition of the work we are doing, which companies do not tend to do enough, particularly now in the virtual world more than ever before; the mark, impact, sense and meaning of the things we do; and, lastly, our relationships, because human beings we are social creatures and our happiness is proportional to the quality of our relationships, not the quantity”.

Another experience that gave her a life lesson was the time that a phone call turned her life upside down. “They told me that they were going to arrest my company’s Director of Marketing because her was the biggest recruiter of jihadi terrorists in Europe. I had been working with this person for five years and the situation really put me to the test. At a professional level, it required me to be on the phone to the media for two weeks to make sure they did not report anything that was not true”, she recalled.

Over the course of those two weeks, 70% of its clients abandoned the company and the business went under. This situation taught her that one of the most important things in such times of crisis is to “recover inwardly first before then being able to recover outwardly”.

“Unless you enable the people in your team to recover emotionally, as they were absolutely devastated, you will not be able to help the business recover. The pandemic has affected us all and we have to work to heal that emotional scar. There are two things that our brains do not like: change and uncertainty. Our brain just wants to survive, so we have to take care of our physical, intellectual, relational, emotional and mental wellbeing. Happiness is just common sense”, emphasized the executive.

EAE TALKS: TECHNOLOGY, SUSTAINABILITY AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

The event also included EAE Talks, short inspirational presentations led by Regina Félix and José Manuel Velasco, graduates of EAE’s International MBA and Co-Founders of Glutery, a company specializing in gluten-free products that took part in the School’s business incubator, EAE Entrepreneur Barcelona.

“As a team, we are very proud because we have created a brand that really does good for society. We are not only helping celiacs but also people with other allergies. We do not generate any waste and we only work with local, fresh ingredients. In fact, to reduce our carbon footprint, we deliver everything by bicycle or electric scooter, and our packaging is all eco-friendly. The brand has been really well received and we plan to expand to other locations next year”, explained José Manuel Velasco in his overview of Glutery.

Alicia Gatius Rodríguez, the Director of Marketing for Spain and Portugal at Lindt and a member of the Marketing, Communication and Sale Advisory Board at EAE, also gave a talk, sharing one of her most valuable marketing lessons with the alumni. “The main conclusion that I have drawn from marketing is that you are not your consumer. Secondly, you have to keep asking yourself and the consumer a lot of questions in order to know what to offer them. Lastly, don’t flit around shiny things like a moth because not all that glitters is useful or worth exploring”, added Gatius as a lesson.

Alumni EAE is an initiative that brings together current and former students, faculty members and the business community, with the aim of generating and strengthening bonds beyond the classroom among the more than 77,000 students who have studied with us since 1958.