Become a CEO for a day
At EAE Barcelona, our mission is to prepare our students to acquire the competencies in the highest demand in the labour market. With this in mind, the School offered our Executive students the opportunity to take part in the fourth Spanish edition of the CEOx1Day Challenge. Led by Jaime Ozores, a Partner and Director at Odgers Berndtson Spain, the event took place over two days. On the first day, the students gained an in-depth insight into the skills required to form part of a Board of Directors, tackling five missions:
1. Strategy: transforming uncertainty into real results.
2. Innovation: constantly innovating alongside the customer.
3. Customers: listening to the consumer.
4. Technology: adapting to the dizzying changes in the environment.
5. People: creating, training and growing teams.
The second day centred around a competition in which the students tackled a Business Case in a debate format. After finding out the theoretical party, the time came to apply it in practice in order to win a unique experience: become the CEO of PortAventura World for a day.
In the activity, the participants were presented a real case in which they, as the Board of Directors of Banco Sabadell, had to oversee the acquisition of a bank in London. Based on their assigned role, each student asked questions to Pol Navarro, the CEO of InnoCells (Banco Sabadell’s Digital Hub) in order to make a final decision on the purchase of the bank. To back up their decision, each student had two minutes to explain their opinion in an elevator speech.
The participants in the activity included students from different areas, from Project Managers and Coordinators to Economic Analysts and Directors, each of whom took on a different position to their usual role. The test was designed to take the students outside of their comfort zone in order to show their skills within the Board of Directors recreated for the event.
At the end of the event, the winner was announced to be Andrea Mancera, a student on the Master in Supply Chain Management & Logistics at EAE Business School Barcelona.
Mancera had the opportunity to spend a day with David Garcia, the CEO of PortAventura World, giving her the chance to gain a first-hand insight into the challenges faced by the international company.
Thanks to everybody for taking part. We look forward to seeing you at the next CEO Challenge!
