Anastasia Paevskaia, IMBA student at IE Business School, among the McKinsey Achievement Awardees
Article by Santiago Íñiguez, President, IE University.
Previously published on Linkedin.
How passion enlightens a professional life
Can you visualize a Babel of business people? Imagine a vast meeting of more than 6,000 entrepreneurs from all over the world, 1,100 investors, venture capitalists and business angels, all gathered in huge magical space, interacting frenetically, bubbling over, explaining their ideas, interviewing each other in parallel, formal and informal meetings, a marathon of activities lasting around 72 hours.
This isn’t Silicon Valley, but the South Summit, a global platform that is now a global reference point for entrepreneurship, held in Madrid every year since 2012 and the brainchild of María Benjumea, a Spanish businesswoman whose passion and enthusiasm runs like electricity through meeting. Obviously, given sanitary protocols following the pandemic, this year the event is taking place on a digital format.
It’s not easy to create the circumstances to generate such a unique entrepreneurial atmosphere, and just as hard to attract genuine creators and investors. Entrepreneurs tend to avoid formal events along the lines of Davos, instead preferring more casual, informal occasions, where interaction is direct and flows spontaneously.
As with other platform-based initiatives, the secret of South Summit’s success largely lies in the capacity of somebody like Benjumea, her teams and her partners, to mobilize a network of diverse, relevant and international stakeholders, and then to leverage social networks, word of mouth, the participants themselves, the success of the connections made during the gathering, the recognition and support of the startups, the satisfaction and enjoyment of participants, and of course social events. Business people like to enjoy themselves too.
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South Summit 2020 is here! In its 8th year, the startup competition event powered by IE University is reinventing itself in a new edition involving the founder of Zoom, astronaut Cady Coleman, renowned actors like Antonio Banderas, sports personalities like Carlos Sainz, and prominent investors and global corporations. We are ready to launch!
Enjoy the main highlights coming in this video!
Join South Summit 2020, here: https://bit.ly/3jxZVkS
About the author
The IE Women Initiative flourished with the work of IE Faculty, researchers, student clubs, alumni and staff, to design the best possible tools to attract and retain women talent, especially in Business, Technology, and Entrepreneurship. IE and our Women Initiative’s goal is to inspire confidence and advance women along their pursuit of success. We believe that in order to empower women across the globe, the best way is through education. More women in the classroom means more women in top positions, as entrepreneurs and investors, and important decision-makers in the global sphere. If we can inspire this trend within IE, we can Pass it On to future generations. www.ie.edu/iewomen
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