Fuencisla Clemares is “studying all the time”, she says. “The working day I quit, I will be out of the sector.” This relentless focus on mastering has been the mark of a job spanning retail, management consulting and a 10 years of ascent at Google.

The generate to learn continues, for the previous 4 many years as a state manager for Spain and Portugal at Google. “I consider that currently being out of your consolation zone is important to building you and to improve,” she says.

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Clemares set a rigid tempo from the commence. In 1996, she completed her undergraduate organization degree and joined retailer Continente in Madrid. Soon after a calendar year in the credit division, she was completely ready for a new problem and moved into audit. Just 12 months later she all over again requested, what subsequent?

The Spaniard is from a loved ones of organization people today. One brother experienced analyzed for an MBA at Iese organization faculty in Barcelona a couple of many years just before. “I observed the effect it experienced on his job,” she says. “I desired to carry on growing and I observed that in the company I was in, that was not heading to happen at the tempo I desired. So I mentioned to myself, possibly it is a moment to soar into an MBA.”

Clemares joined Iese’s programme in 1998. She already experienced a bachelor’s degree in organization administration, so could a masters definitely push her and supply the leap ahead in mastering that she wanted? The MBA was “completely different”, she says, and taught a new set of techniques.

Through a bachelors degree the focus tends to be on idea, says Clemares, while the MBA teaches the “bare minimum” of idea and moves quite quickly into useful applications. The situation examine approach means that “you approach problems in a extra holistic way and [this] definitely will help you assume strategically”, she says, introducing that due to the fact college students are “super stretched”, they are pressured to build new techniques, these as how to prioritise. The MBA ecosystem simulates “the rhythm you have in significant-accomplishing companies”, she notes.

The masters gave Clemares’ job the increase she sought, opening up job choices these as consulting, financial commitment banking and private fairness. “The MBA receives you completely ready to obtain people roles and that receives you into accelerated job paths,” she provides.

In 2000, just after graduating from Iese, she joined McKinsey, the management consultancy. She shortly became aware of a lack of range at the best. “At that time, there were zero girls associates,” she says. Fostering range in organization was to turn into a theme of her job and at McKinsey she served create an initiative in which best feminine executives held breakfast meetings to community and share ordeals.

“We experienced some quite simple concerns I could not inquire a person, due to the fact adult males have distinctive strengths and quite distinctive problems,” she says. One little instance was how to greet people today in a experienced location. In Spain, it is customary (for adult males or girls) to greet a woman socially with a kiss on equally cheeks. This was significantly common at organization meetings, where the atmosphere was getting to be fewer official. But adult males would continue to shake palms. Clemares desired a far better comprehending of what the protocol must be.

CV

2009 to existing Google. Began as a manager of its retail and FMCG firms, then revenue director operating travel, retail and telecom industries in Spain. Now state manager for Spain and Portugal.

2007-09 Homeware director for Spain at French retailer Carrefour

2000-07 McKinsey, growing to affiliate principal

1998-2000 MBA at Iese

1996-ninety eight Credit rating and audit roles at retailer Continente

The breakfast meetings turned into greater structural initiatives, these as specific training classes for girls. McKinsey now has a coverage of recruiting and building feminine expertise, specifically in senior roles, she notes.

Women’s leadership designs have not usually been very well understood or “correctly valued”, says Clemares. For instance, she recalls receiving responses that she was “too nice”. She shared this with a experienced mentor, who recommended her that her voice was as well silent, so she headed off further criticism by speaking up. All those supplying the responses experienced viewed there was a dilemma from their very own point of view, says Clemares. That is the “beauty of diversity”, she provides — you obtain broader perspectives and distinctive assessments, and your leadership type is far better understood.

Fuencisla Clemares
Browsing mind: Clemares at Google, where she has expended a 10 years building her role © Jesus Varillas

These days, says Clemares, who is a mom of a few, the scenario is “completely different”. It is “fully understood and fully embraced” that range provides benefit to a company — even though it continue to normally takes time to alter company lifestyle.

Much more broadly, Clemares says that organization transformation has altered in a few most important approaches during her job: the tempo of alter has accelerated, it is constant and it has turn into substantially extra complex. She rejects the notion of digital transformation, however, stating that know-how is an enabler but alter must be pushed by the organization by itself.

There are “much further connections between anything we do”, says Clemares, introducing that know-how influences every single factor of a company at every single amount. “The complexity of the alter you will need to generate is massive,” she says. “You will need to have a extensive look at of the company. You also will need to have a minimal [amount of] awareness of know-how.”

Requested what information she would give her twenty-calendar year-outdated self, Clemares appears to specialized techniques. She was great at maths, physics and science but under no circumstances gave a imagined to a specialized job. This may perhaps have been due to the fact she was from a loved ones of organization people today, she indicates, or perhaps due to the fact when she appeared at specialized university programs, they were “full of men . . . and I didn’t glance like them”.

Clemares believes, however, a mix of specialized techniques and an MBA would have been “the perfect mixture to realize success in the ecosystem we have now”. She continues to learn by Google’s inner programs, from specialized experts on her workforce and by earning herself direct meetings with clients on subjects in which she is not an specialist and must consequently go to excess lengths in making ready for.

Clemares returns to Iese to train classes on the MBA and lectures at ISDI in Madrid, which describes by itself as “the to start with digital organization school”. Although she says faculties must hold adapting their MBAs to the organization ecosystem, just one ability she learnt continues to be unchanged for her: leadership. “Being a chief is the same [as twenty many years back]. It is currently being able to build a eyesight and approaches, and share that with our teams in a way that motivates and evokes them. It is about creating significant-accomplishing teams and taking care of them beneath stress filled situations and uncertainty,” she says.

The tempo of alter may perhaps have improved, says Clemares, but she “truly and deeply” believes the essence of leadership is continual and what she learnt two many years back has stood the exam of time. “I consider the MBA encounter is quite legitimate, even in this world that is so distinctive.”