From two hubs to many networks

Barcelona can successfully host more training schools for managers and leaders that attract talent from all over the planet precisely because it already has two leading schools, such as IESE and Esade. Martínez Sierra, brand new dean of UPF, thus resorts to Porter's cluster theory to explain that the city has the opportunity, which Boston has already taken advantage of, to multiply that excellence in two centers by many excellent networks. And it is proposed to obtain private investment to achieve it, as Harvard or MIT are already doing, to make the BioNtech and Moderna vaccines possible there. Globalization for Barcelona is often identified with cheap tourism or real estate predators, but it can also mean new opportunities, high salaries and a better life for all.

Does Barcelona need another business school?

Yes, and precisely because it already has several among the best in the world.

Does the excellent offer also generate demand for quality?

Barcelona is already a cluster, a training niche for leaders and managers that attracts talent from all over the planet. Our UPF proposal now reinforces all the others and enriches the city.

Why hasn't Madrid been able to create a similar training cluster?

Because it was no coincidence that IESE and Esade were born in Barcelona, ​​taking advantage of its business network and its entrepreneurial spirit. And that tradition continues. Or isn't it easier to get off the ground with a start-up here than in Albacete?

Does this elitist training benefit the common Barcelonans?

I have studied at Harvard, in Boston. And its area in inhabitants is half that of Barcelona, ​​but it welcomes 10% more foreigners with a lot of talent who want to train and connect. And all of Boston gains from it.

Can Barcelona attract as many innovators as Boston?

Boston has a huge number of laboratories and innovation centers, such as BioNtech, maker of the Pfizer vaccine, with a powerful pharmaceutical health cluster.

Barcelona also has its own.

Sees it? Of course we can attract the best. And that is another great competitive advantage of the city that must be taken care of, because it also reinforces the others.

How to catch up with Harvard?

Being up to the times and their challenges. We have to connect leadership training with the great verticals.

Define verticals.

They are the local responses to the great global challenges: climate change, digitization, ensuring that we all share the prosperity generated by the most innovative...

How to specify those answers?

From green hydrogen to semiconductors. We train leaders who respond to these challenges with private and public proposals, but above all public-private.

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Why?

It seems to us that the US is ultraliberal and the result of the individual commitment of great creators, but in reality it has achieved its primacy with huge public investments.

The Internet was born as a military investment, and without NASA there would be no Tesla.

For this reason, our great competitive advantage as a school is the connection with the potential of the entire Pompeu Fabra University and its public investment in knowledge.

What if the school for leaders in Barcelona is good, but those of us here can't afford it?

For this reason, so that all the talent and, of course, the premises can access the training we offer, I have a strategy to attract resources beyond the public.

Ask for money from the richest to teach those who are less?

Find the money where it is to put it to generate talent. I remember a horrible graffiti on a wall of a Spanish university: “University companies out”. If what we need is for companies to be part of the university.

Where did the authors want to work?

At Harvard, if necessary, they even change the name of a center to put that of the prestigious patron who donates the amount that helps make it a pointer.

Now business schools train more entrepreneurs than public managers.

I believe in the diversity of offers and that there are global universities and others that already fulfill their mission by serving a small city or region. Let each one specialize its offer to better serve everyone.

Aren't there already too many public and private universities and degrees?

On the contrary, I believe that we still need to further specialize the educational offer and diversify and customize it. Personalize it even and adapt it to the moment and the place.

Is the day when business schools are online near?

For good, that day will never come, because, more than giving content, the essential thing is that we connect talent. And that connection in innovation networks is so valuable that it explains the success of Boston.

Or Silicon Valley with all the Californian universities.

But you will not be in a network of innovators if you have not previously shared a classroom and live life day by day with other talents.

Does training leaders also consist of connecting them?

Each school should stand out for offering something better than the others. It is not enough for Barcelona to attract talent from all over the world through its business schools: there must be diversity among them and thus they will generate prosperity for the entire city.