Maria Escuer

I am from Tarragona, and I studied Political Sciences at UPF in Barcelona and UNIL in Lausanne. I did the UN Simulation program at Harvard and during my EMBA I had the chance to do the GNW at Yale. I have lived and worked in more than 6 countries and now I am based in Paris, although I travel a lot for work. I am passionate about international and interpersonal relations. I have always thought that behind a conflict there are two people who have not wanted to listen to each other. A pity indeed... I don't like conflicts at all, so I dedicated myself to study them and to solve them first in the institutions: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ECC, European Commission and then on my own by creating LEADEM. I believe in the possibility of improving the world and that is why through LEADEM we train, coach, and advise companies and individuals to become better and committed leaders. When there are good, committed leaders at the top, the rest of the company and society follows suit and the world improves. Besides, during an expatriation in Algiers, I created Wo-Men Leaders now present in 5 countries (developed and developing countries). We offer mentoring to women from developing countries in order to help them with their professional career. LEADEM and Wo-Men Leaders are based on the same principle: to be engaged with yourself and with others in the professional, personal, and societal sphere in order to move forward and be united in the face of adversity.

How did IE help you get to where you are today?

The truth is that I would never have dared to do everything I do today if I hadn't gone through the IE Executive MBA. So yes, I owe this institution a lot! I owe it to IE to have taken the plunge with my own company, to have acquired good financial knowledge, to have dared to venture out of familiar fields. And of course, to keep lifelong friendships.

How are you impacting the lives of women?

I'll start with something personal: I'm an only child and I don't like to be alone, so I've always been surrounded by friends and some of them are like sisters to me. I have always been very supportive of women, and it is a no-brainer for me that we help each other. That is basic and a kind of unwritten law. I was brought up thinking that we were equal before the law and in terms of access to the same opportunities. My vision changed when I went to Algiers and became a mother. There I realized that in most developed countries we are equal before the law, but we don't have access to more equal opportunities and that in some developing countries we are not equal before the law either. That hurt me. At that time after giving birth to my second child (10 days after finishing the EMBA), I realized that the change in those countries where women will be legally burdened to the background will come from them, the women. What man would change a system in which they only get benefits? So there began my discreet revolution in a country where associations are forbidden. I started looking for girls with the LEADEM values: professionally, personally, and socially committed and it worked. This association now exists in 5 countries, and we offer professional mentoring to women because equality starts with economic independence. When you are self-sufficient, the rest follows and builds on a healthy and solid foundation.

In your opinion, what institutional or societal changes need to be made to keep women at the forefront of business and society?

As said just before, for me it's all about economic independence. I am going to say something that is probably politically incorrect, and you must forgive me in advance. Nowadays everything related to women is very fashionable. I am the first one to have started helping women in difficult situations because that's the way I am, I will always help those who need it. However, let's not fool ourselves, the effort that most companies make in terms of gender is not because they have decided to do so, but because there is an economic background, and this is never talked about. Women today have a much higher purchasing power than before in developed countries, and they consume more. It is about the power of the credit card. The same could apply to other social groups. We simply have to take advantage of this trend to reaffirm the importance of working for women both here and especially in developed countries and accommodate the system so that motherhood is valued and is not considered a handicap for companies or for society.