"Without your support, patience and care over these many months, today’s graduates would have had a much harder time completing the program," Prof. Sandra Sieber, academic director of the Global Executive MBA program, told family and friends at the Global EMBA graduation ceremony in Barcelona on May 31.
The program had changed the center of gravity and the way graduates look at the world, she said. "In our visits to New York, China, India and Silicon Valley, and in our day-to-day interaction, we saw again and again that the world is definitely not flat. We learned to navigate a world with so many different ways of perceiving business, work and society."
The keynote speaker, Vicente Tardío, CEO of Allianz, Iberia and Latin America, talked about how his company has developed a business model it can implement around the world. "We are creating an international pool of talent within the same business model and the same business perception and this facilitates mobility," he said.
"The key is to introduce simplicity throughout the company. All human beings have a tendency towards complexity and so do corporations."
In conclusion he said that you have to think globally and feel that you are an engine of change.
"A strong code of ethics and long-term success are intimately linked," Tardío said. "Respect other people’s talent and avoid being arrogant just because you have a better education."
Eghosa Oriaikhi, the class president, told the gathering "my commitment to you is that I will be an ethical business leader. My commitment here today is that I will contribute to our global society. My commitment to you, as an African, is to make an impact not only on my company or my industry, but also on the economic situation of my country."
Lisa Wright, the other class president, added that "21 months ago we stepped into this building prepared for a life-changing event, but we thought it was going to be the attainment of an MBA. We got so much more than we expected."
IESE Dean Jordi Canals thanked Vicente Tardío, congratulated the graduates and urged them, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, "to seek the better angels" in themselves.