Brazil’s New Leadership Style

AMAZON PATHWAYS PROGRAM

Express Delivery to Upper Management

l“Amazon is a company in which the biggest challenge is always ahead of you. The biggest breakthrough for me so far took place a year ago, when, after two years in the company, I was told I would be leading our Spanish outbound department.” Iñaki Ugarte (MBA ’14), is now senior operations manager at Amazon’s first fulfillment center in Spain. He was asked to lead a team of thousands of people, responsible for deliveries throughout the country during the Christmas holidays. “Thankfully we achieved tremendous year-on-year growth.” Amazon has hired more than 100 IESE MBA alumni, and Ugarte was chosen for the Amazon Pathways Program, an internal program for developing Operations leaders. It offers a straight path to leadership positions, and Ugarte says that “few comparable programs exist where you are making decisions that could shape a whole market.” Participants benefit from the guidance of an experienced manager and the support of a specialized team. About IESE, Ugarte says, “What has helped me more is my leadership classes,” because of the importance of being able to align a team toward achieving our goals. “In any job – but particularly in operations – any gaps in a plan can be compensated for by a motivated team,” he adds.

Iñaki Ugarte (MBA ’14), senior operations manager at Amazon. The fourth graduating class of IESE’s Executive MBA Sao Paulo.

GRADUATION OF THE EXECUTIVE MBA SAO PAULO

Brazil’s New Leadership Style

l“Successful companies are made up of people with talent, in love with what they do and with an above-average sense of commitment. I don’t believe in being Superman or Superexecutive. What I believe is that the big difference of successful executives is their ability to attract and lead talent.” This was the message of Cosan CEO Mario Augusto da Silva to the 30 graduates of the Executive MBA Sao Paulo on graduation day. Without forgetting the challenges and consequences of the digital revolution, da Silva spoke of the need for “all of us, business leaders and executives, to have a constant ability to adapt and respond quickly and efficiently in a business climate that is, and will continue to be, permanently changing.”

The responsibility of executives was a key theme of the graduation ceremony, which took place June 24 at IESE’s Sao Paulo campus. IESE’s dean Franz Heukamp took up this theme in his speech to the graduates. “With the example you set as executives, you have the opportunity and responsibility to serve others, to be truly useful in thinking of other people, to lead in an altruistic way,” Prof. Heukamp said. “In the end, this is the most humane and most efficient way to lead.” In the same

“We are role vein, Bruno Guarmodels and we nieri, president of must accept this the 2017 class of the responsibility.” Executive MBA Sao Paulo, explained, “We are living in difficult times. In Brazil, we are dealing with a political and economic crisis resulting from what we really must attack: an ethical and moral crisis. I think that we are role models and we must accept this responsibility. We need to inspire others to seek the best.”