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Start your entrepreneurial journey in Madrid

Irish-born Professor Joe Haslam leads innovative business programmes at IE University in Spain, where developing the next generation of international entrepreneurs is top of the agenda

Professor Joe Haslam is a Cork-born entrepreneur who lectures at IE University, one of Europe’s top tier colleges that has landmark campuses in Spain’s capital, Madrid and Segovia, in the Castile and León region

Fri May 17 2024 - 08:08

Given that he teaches programmes at one of Europe’s most innovative university campuses, it seems appropriate that professor Joe Haslam’s journey to his role at IE Business School did not follow a conventional path.

Cork-born Haslam is a serial entrepreneur who has been involved in the founding of six separate businesses. During his time raising US$75m funding for technology firm Marrakesh some 20 years ago, Haslam found himself “sitting around a lot of tables where everyone else had an MBA,” and decided it would be a good idea to acquire one himself.

When he researched the best place in Europe for an entrepreneur to get one, all roads led to the capital of Spain, Madrid. IE University was founded there just over 50 years ago and offers degree courses in areas as diverse as architecture and design, politics, economics and global affairs, science and technology, law school, and its last incorporation, humanities. Its business school offers bachelor and masters programmes, including an international MBA programme.

As Joe said, his need was to gain the knowledge of an MBA and IE exceeded his expectations. Programmes at IE University differ greatly from other universities and business schools. The quality of what is on offer here has seen it ranked among the top 10 Business School in the world by The Financial Times and others. This March The Financial Times rated its online MBA as first in the world. This marks the tenth consecutive year that this programme has placed in the top three in this ranking.

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Haslam’s love affair with executive education and with Madrid was sealed after he arrived there and today he is executive director of the owners scale-up programme. He also teaches an award-winning elective on the university’s international MBA programme among others.

One of the key distinctions of IE Business School is that it starts you on the entrepreneurial journey, he says.

Students at the landmark five-tower vertical campus in central Madrid

“If you want to excel in the business world then you need to immerse yourself in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. IE University offers real-life experience from its academic staff that will help you take your business ideas to the next level and will equip you with the skills and the learned experience from business veterans to help you minimise making costly mistakes.”

A less bureaucratic structure and an emphasis on equipping students for the real challenges of the world are the hallmarks of the campus, he explains.

“The focus here is on entrepreneurship. In almost every course, you have to do a business plan, even if you are a lawyer or an architect and starting a business is not on your radar. In addition, professors have full liberty over what they teach. In 15 years, I have never had anyone question anything on my syllabus. The idea is to find good people and leave them to do the job. In that respect, IE is run more like a business than a college.”

As a serial entrepreneur, Haslam is in good company in the faculty. His colleagues share his experience and his passion for his subject.

“All of the professors in the IE Entrepreneurship and Innovation Centre are still serial entrepreneurs who are active in the ecosystem. Professors in IE are responsible for some of the biggest venture capital investments in Europe this year. Some have scaled back their teaching to work full time on a start-up. Many of Europe’s start-up founders and employees who join later to help scale it have an MBA from IE Business School.

The vertical campus demonstrates the sheer size of the learning environment

Multicultural

Another key difference is that IE University is multicultural and has alumni from over 150 nationalities. “Great care is taken by admissions so that no one country ever dominates a class. This is unfair on large countries such as China and India but benefits smaller ones such as Ireland and Lebanon,” he notes.

As a keen Gaeilgeor, Haslam makes a point of speaking a few words in Irish to each of his classes.

IE Business School has small class sizes, not more than 50, to allow the professors to get to know each of the students as individuals. Among the more innovative features of the campus meanwhile is IE Tower, a 36-floor vertical university modelled on what is found in Asia.

“From the moment you walk in the door in the morning, until you leave at the end of the day, you can find everything you could possibly need: sports facilities, trading hubs, quiet rooms, noisy rooms, restaurants, and so on. Don’t take my word for it,” he says. “Go look at the TikToks the students create themselves.”

IE University’s sister campus in Segovia is housed in an ancient castle and contrasts a medieval exterior with 21st century learning

IE University organises a diverse range of events both on campus and in partnership with their 25 international offices across the globe. On 27th June, IE University and Trinity College Dublin will be collaborating to host a start-up event entitled Tech and AI Venture Day, in Dublin. This will feature keynote speakers from the Irish ecosystem, experienced panels, a start-up competition, and networking opportunities. The aim is to foster a local entrepreneurial environment that emphasises collaboration and community-building while supporting ventures that prioritises both technological innovation and contributes to the holistic growth of the Irish entrepreneurial community.

IE University is regularly visited by politicians, business people and authors from all over the world. When Sam Altman of OpenAI did his world tour, he visited the campus while former tech scions such as Bill Gates, (Microsoft); Sergey Brin (Alphabet); Larry Page (Google) and Craig Barrett (Intel) have all accepted honorary MBAs and travelled to Madrid to accept them. The campus has also seen its fair share of distinguished Irish visitors. Business figures including IT entrepreneurs Ray Nolan and Brian Caulfield and as have European commissioner for financial services and capital markets, Mairead McGuinness, economist David McWilliams and former Taoiseach John Bruton.

One of the greatest gifts people receive from education is that it builds confidence and self-belief. Haslam says, “The purpose of education is to build confidence and to make you believe in yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself, how can you expect others to believe in you? The top three skills that employers want are: critical thinking, communication and working in teams. IE University will make you better at all three.”

He says that at a university like IE, you learn to think bigger almost every day. “You learn about things that have happened in the word from the people who live in those countries themselves not just from reading the FT and the Economist. You also learn more about yourself, in particular what you are good at and should do more of.”

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