02 June 2022
Madrid Headquarters
Female talent shone on 2 June at the Deusto Business School in Madrid. The University hosted the award ceremony of the first Women and Leadership Award, an event held with the collaboration of the Cinco Días newspaper and the support of Banco Santander. This award aims to recognise high-potential professionals and raise awareness and promote women's leadership in the workplace through training.
The first award went to entrepreneur and scientist Avencia Sánchez-Mejías, 38, with extensive experience in synthetic biology, human genetics and molecular oncology. I receive this award with a great responsibility, being the first year, so I hope to be a reference for the next generation of women, and also for men," she said on receiving the award.“ The runner-up prize went to Natalia Rodríguez, founder and CEO of Saturno Labs. The 32-year-old telecommunications engineer dedicated the award to her mother, who "I think she is the most leadership-minded person I know, and it has taken me too many years to realise that".
Avencia Sánchez-Mejías and Natalia Rodríguez were chosen from among the more than 80 applications received by a jury made up of Belén Frau, global communications director of Ikea; Patricia Arias, regional director for Basque Country-Santander Spain; Matías Alonso, vice-president of Deusto Business School board; Mónica de Oriol, member Deusto Business School board and president and founder of Net4Things; Paz Álvarez, head of the Fortuna section of the Cinco Días newspaper; and Almudena Eizaguirre, director general of Deusto Business School.
In addition, in view of the quality of the entries received, the jury decided to award a special mention to three women: Gloria Gubianas, 27, co-founder of the company Hemper Handmade; Pilar Mañas Brugat, 46, commander of the General Corps of the Air Force, Officers' Scale; and Marina Jiménez Galindo, 30, civil engineer, who reached fourth place in the list of the "35 under 35" project, which brings together the most influential engineers in Spain.
The Dean of Deusto Business School, Álvaro de la Rica, thanked all the women who participated in the initiative for their courage. "What differentiates people and companies is the way they face challenges, and without courage it is impossible. That is why today this is required more than ever", De la Rica stated, and went on to say that Deusto Business School wants to " instil a leadership and management style based on humanism in all participants, in pursuit of economic, environmental and social balance", he concluded. This is something that the two winners will be able to see for themselves, as the first prize consists of free tuition to study the Executive MBA and the runner-up prize, 60% of the tuition fee.
Cristina Burzako, an example for women
The jury also had to spotlight a woman with a proven track record who can set an example for future generations of female managers. This distinction went to Cristina Burzako, CEO of Movistar+ and director of Telefónica Audiovisual Digital. She welcomed the award, saying: "All the awards always belong to teams, a little part of those who have been with me throughout my career. This recognition belongs to all of them because no one gets to the top alone. We are bits of the people who accompany us in our lives and from whom we learn every day".
Regarding women's role in companies, the award winner considers that "many times, the barriers are more mental than technical, we always feel that we are not good enough and do not measure up". Even so, he acknowledged that "we are on the right track and what we need to do now "is to help the next ones". To this end, Cristina Burzako highlighted three attributes that she considers fundamental: humility, empathy and "hunger", which for her means "questioning things", "going forwards", taking risks… This quality is the one she finds most difficult to find in teams.
When asked by Cinco Días journalist and member of the jury, Paz Álvarez, about talent, she said that we are all good at something, the important thing is to identify it and adapt it to professional positions so that everyone can 'give their best version'. For the winner "life is a constant mentoring", where we are constantly managing failure and crisis. "You fail more than you succeed, and I see every failure as a learning experience".
The Director General of Deusto Business School Executive Education, Almudena Eizaguirre, brought the event to a close. She did so by giving the following advice to future leaders: "take time to know yourselves", "lead your own life so you can lead others", "surround yourselves with people who challenge you", "lead with love and not terror" and, finally, "never stop sharpening the axe".
