Santiago Iñiguez de Onzoño, president of IE University, recognized with thinkers50 founders’ award

Thinkers50, the premier ranking of global business thinkers, today announced the first recipient of the Founders’ Award, a new Thinkers50 award introduced for 2019.

“We have been celebrating the best in management thinking since 2001,” says Thinkers50 cofounder Des Dearlove. “Our new Founders’ Award recognizes individuals in the world of business ideas who provide industry leadership and inspiration. It acknowledges the invaluable contribution of the architects who lay the foundations for ideas to flourish.”

The first recipient of the award is Santiago Iñiguez de Onzoño, the President of IE University and a recognized influencer in global higher education. Iñiguez is also the Vice-Chairman of Headspring, a company owned by the Financial Times and IE Business School providing custom education programmes for companies worldwide.

Iñiguez de Onzoño is the former Dean of IE Business School and has played a leading role in business education. He was described by the Financial Times as “one of the most significant figures in promoting European business schools internationally”. He was the first European appointed as “Dean of the Year” by Poets & Quants (2017).

“We have known Santiago Iñiguez de Onzoño for many years,” says Thinkers50’s Stuart Crainer. “He has championed the role of business education and has re-shaped the European business school marketplace.  He is entrepreneurial, cosmopolitan, thoughtful, and his leadership has been truly transformational for his own institution and also for thousands of students. We are delighted to acknowledge his huge contribution with this new award.”

“Education is the best catalyst to improve our world”

A past Chair of the Board of AACSB, Santiago Iñiguez de Onzoño is the author of The Learning Curve: How Business Schools Are Reinventing Education (2011), Cosmopolitan Managers: Executive Education That Works (2016), and In An Ideal Business: How the Ideas of 10 Female Philosophers bring Values, Meaning, and Innovation to the Workplace (forthcoming 2020), as well as co-editor of Business Despite Borders: Companies in the Age of Populist Anti-Globalization (2018), all published by Palgrave Macmillan.

“Education is the best catalyst to improve our world,” says Iñiguez de Onzoño. “I feel enormously lucky to have met so many friends who have generously devoted themselves to this noble profession. Allow me, in particular, to thank Diego del Alcázar, who has been a mentor and friend over the course of my career at IE University, a marvellous institution where our goal is to reinvent higher education. I am honoured by this recognition, which I share with all my colleagues. Allow me also to congratulate the founders of Thinkers50 for its laudable mission in spreading the best knowledge in management to build a more sustainable and fairer future.”

The Thinkers50 Founders’ Award will be presented to Santiago Iñiguez de Onzoño at Thinkers50 2019 which is being held on 18 November 2019 in London.

About Thinkers50

Thinkers50 identifies, ranks, and shares the very best in management ideas. Every two years, Thinkers50 Awards recognize individual achievement across a range of management categories, and the definitive global ranking of the 50 most influential business thinkers is published. The 2017 top-ranked thinker was Roger L. Martin of the Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto. Previous winners include Clayton Christensen, CK Prahalad, Michael Porter, and Peter Drucker.

In 2019, more than 5,000 people have participated in the evaluation process, submitting nominations for both the ranking and the various distinguished achievement awards.

Thinkers50 partners include the Brightline Initiative, Accenture, Fujitsu, Haier Group, 100 Coaches, India’s Institute for Competitiveness, Management Centre Turkey, the UK’s National Centre for Leadership & Management, and the Oman Business Forum. Thinkers50 has established Ideas Labs in Odense, Denmark, which is home to Thinkers50 Europe; and in Qingdao, China, where the Haier Group hosts the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame.

About Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove

Des Dearlove & Stuart Crainer are the founders and directors of Thinkers50. Internationally recognized experts on business ideas, they are the authors of more than 15 books available in 20 languages. Former columnists to The Times, they are editors of The Financial Times Handbook of Management. They advise thinkers and organizations worldwide.