Women in Business Connect Students and Alumni with Professional Women

The IE Women in Business Club kicked off the academic year with the Career Connect event designed to foster women’s networking by connecting a select group of graduate students with senior professionals from top companies and giving them the confidence to succeed.

“I have always had a mentor. It is absolutely fundamental,” Maite Muruzabal, a senior manager at Cisco, told students in attendance. “You need someone for different stages of your career.”

Women professionals from Boston Consulting Group, Oliver Wyman and Cisco met with 12 previously selected IE Business School graduate students and young alumni. Attendees engaged with each other directly in breakout rooms.

“The worst thing you can do is to pretend to be something that you are not,” said Muruzabal.

Students said the event was helpful not only because of the face to face contact and network building, but because the guest speakers shared pearls of wisdom.

“A lot of women don’t apply to competitive industries due to fear of rejection. What stood out for me was that the speakers told us that being a woman can be an asset in the application process,” said Beatriz de los Heros, who attended the event via Zoom.

Widely acclaimed as one of the strongest groups at IE, Women in Business won Best Professional Club and Event of the Year at the Club Awards in July and continues to grow in influence on campus.

“Our club membership continues to grow each day, and while we are a student-led organization with nearly 2500 members, we believe we have a responsibility to address the evolving needs of our student and alumni community,” said club president Tanya Mair.

Organizers said they want the community to stay involved beyond graduation.

“One of our goals is to keep our members connected to opportunities that will help them develop in their personal and professional lives, in order to build a community of future leaders.”

The event is the first of the semester in the club’s speaker series which seeks to help female students “empowering women in their professional careers and connecting them with the right role models and mentors who can help give them advice to get to where they want to be,” said Associate Director of Campus Life, Elisa Hick.

In the upcoming month, the club is hosting Women @ IE on the Future of Work, a virtual session where IE Alumni will be sharing their experience working in niche industries. The main event of this academic year will be the WIB Conference in March. This year the theme will be on the Future of Work with speakers yet to be decided.