Join us on October 9th in Barcelona for IESE's Women in Search Forum, designed to inspire women to explore entrepreneurship by acquisition as a career path. The event will feature success stories from women CEOs and investors, addressing the unique challenges women face in searching and operating an acquisition. Following this, IESE will host the 6th International Search Fund Conference on October 10-11. This conference will bring together search-CEOs, active searchers, new searchers, and investors from around the world. Find out more and get your tickets here!

On June 15th, the Master in Management, jointly with the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center, hosted the Junior Entrepreneurs Global Conference in Madrid and online. Highlights included a keynote by Josemaria Siota, Executive Director of IESE Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center, a business case session with Professor Kandarp Mehta, and a lively panel with IESE alumni entrepreneurs. The event attracted university students and recent graduates, ages 20-27, from Junior Enterprise Global, one of the largest entrepreneurial student networks worldwide. These young enthusiasts are passionate about entrepreneurship, with many already starting their own ventures or planning to!

We speak to Iván Rodríguez, a serial entrepreneur and technology enthusiast. He recently founded Modelia.ai, a pioneering startup that uses AI-generated personalized images for the online retail and fashion industry. Iván also shares how IESE was pivotal in his journey: from learning the essentials to successfully launching a startup, to meeting his Parclick co-founder, Luís París. Ivan describes his gratitude as “immeasurable.” Read the full interview to discover Iván's journey and get great entrepreneurial advice.

In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, five entrepreneurs turned their passion for gastronomy into Scoolinary, the world’s largest online cooking school, with over 300 courses, 6,500 lessons, 550 hours of video, and 2,000 recipes. The Scoolinary partners recently graduated from IESE’s School of Founders, launched in 2022 to equip entrepreneurs with essential skills. “We believe the creation of companies and jobs should generate wealth but also make a positive contribution to society,” says Jordi Ber, Scoolinary Co-Founder and CEO. A healthy recipe for doing business today. Read their story here!

With graduation season coming to an end, IESE student clubs have been busy passing the baton from 2024 graduates to the class of 2025. The Startup & Entrepreneurship and Private Equity and Venture Capital MBA clubs have introduced their new leadership teams on LinkedIn. We invite you to take a look and make some interesting new connections! IESE student clubs are an active and resourceful community for their members and the wider ecosystem. Stay tuned and follow for updates on their initiatives and events.

The EIC Scaling Club has just launched six new market groups: Agri & FoodTech, Clean Fuels & Hydrogen, Batteries and Energy Storage, New Space, New Biotech Platforms, and Cardiovascular Therapies; continuing to support a curated community of +120 deep-tech scaleups with the potential to build world-class businesses, with IESE as a proud partner. Last month, the Club introduced 48 mentors who will guide these companies to new hights , including IESE alumni-founded Boud4Blue and Multiverse Computing. If you haven't yet, check out the first cohort of 48 companies and 48 mentors. The second cohort of companies will be announced in September - stay tuned! 

In 2024, business angels are investing more cautiously. Geopolitical uncertainty, persistent inflation, funding difficulties, and rising unemployment have shifted focus from “good ideas” to proven indicators like team resilience and project solidity. While venture capital investors are opting for moderation and a selective investment strategy, data shows that 89% of Spanish business angels are willing to invest in 2024, indicating confidence in the market’s long-term potential. This IESE Insight article analyzes the latest report by AEBAN (the Spanish association of business angels) and IESE. Read the full insights here.

In this episode of the IESE podcast This is Real Leadership, Entrepreneurship Professor Sandra Sieber and Managing People in Organizations Professor Sebastian Reiche explore some of the most human stories and hardest truths extracted from previous episodes: From how you ask a co-founder to leave, to one reason Steve Jobs was so successful. They discuss how real leaders and entrepreneurs can fail right, whether leadership is as easy as pie (or Pi), and how to tell better stories to build stronger business cultures. Listen to the episode for valuable lessons and inspiring stories.