07 de December de 2017
The presenter Manel Fuentes took charge of livening up the evening at APD's 9th Afterwork session, an event that brings together national and international companies, with top-class speaker who recount their cases and experiences in driving forward excellent business transformation in organizations. After the speeches by the former Minister of Public Administrations, Jordi Sevilla, who focused on the work that is still pending for the Spanish economy, and Arnaldo Muñoz, the Director of Airbnb in Spain, who gave us some insights into the sharing economy as a new business trend, Xavier Martínez, the Director of Eninter, interviewed Gisela Pulido, the 10 times world kitesurf champion. Gisela's sports career spans fifteen years of hard work and she shows no signs of slowing down, embracing new challenges and sports to explore. She underlined the importance of keeping your mind in good shape in order to remain at the top of your game over time, adding that it is no sacrifice if you love what you do.
Afterwards, Josep María Altarriba, the Dean of EAE Business School, introduced the Director of the cancer epigenetics and biology program, Manel Esteller, who gave a lecture on the topic. Esteller stated that 1 in every 4 people will have cancer, but the chances of survival are constantly increasing. "60% of these people will survive cancer and, within the next ten years, this figure will reach 70%". He highlighted the fact that chemotherapy is becoming increasingly accurate and adapted to each case, and encourage companies to invest in research because otherwise "we will not be able to identify the epigenetic alteration that gives rise to cancer, nor develop the drugs to deal with this alteration. That is the key to it all".
The Vice-Chairman of Sage, Carles Ransanz, emphasized that his organization is undergoing a key period of transformation, but added that "it is not the company that is changing, but rather the people". To make these changes possible, they required the services of Nathalie Detry, the founder of Next2People Consultores, who told a story in her presentation to demonstrate what we have to think and evaluate in order to transform ourselves and adapt to changes, including being more creative, meditating to enhance self-control, transforming passions into goals, applying emotional intelligence and communication. "The keys to making progress are desire, decisiveness, determination and discipline", she explained.
The leading investor in R&D in Spain is Seat, a company that employs more than 14,500 professionals and over 1,000 engineers in its hub. The company's marketing director, Gabriele Palma, introduced the architect and former President of the FAD, Juli Capella. In an animated conversation with the master of ceremonies for the evening Manel Fuentes, Juli recounted the history of the mop, a Spanish invention developed by Manuel Jalón. He explained that everything is designed and that a good design helps a business to move forward. With more that 700,000 customers and operating in 9 countries, Gaes is a family company that has grown into a leading multinational. The company's CEO and director, Antonio Gassó, introduced the mountain climber and conference speaker Ferran Latorre, who conquered Everest last year, as well as having climbed other peaks such as K2. His emotive presentation touched on very personal issues such as the eternal question of why people climb. After years of thought on this topic, Ferran reached the conclusion that is a matter of conquering beauty, the call of the unknown, because it is a challenge that takes us to the limit and requires us to overcome our emotions.
After the guest speakers' presentations, the event continued with music from Manel Fuentes' band Spring's Team, and the attendees had the opportunity to enjoy the Networking Corners and tasting areas.