Staff Spotlight: Edgar Barroso

Title::
Professor and Consultant
Edgar Barroso is currently a professor and alumni of SIU Madrid, as well as an international consultant at Avertica Consulting Group. He also lectures for both the graduate and undergraduate level at different national and international institutions as well as other official organizations (ICEX, Madrid Government, Cámara de Comercio e Industria de Madrid, etc.). With over 20 years of professional experience in different business fields and as a new venture & franchise entrepreneur, he specializes in International Business, International Marketing, Hospitality Management, Entrepreneurship, and Franchise Development Systems.

Did YOU study abroad?! If so, where and what inspired you to go?

A man standing in front of a wall

Edgar: Yes, I did study abroad. My inspiration was my father. As a child I used to see him travelling extensively around the US and Europe. He also had migrated to the Americas when he was young, and later returned to Spain and I saw him profit from his experience in the corporate world. As a result of that, I decided to leave Spain and discover the rest of the world by studying abroad and learning from other cultures.

The first opportunity I encountered in my life to travel abroad, I took it.

Initially I lived in Dublin (Ireland) for a couple of months and then I decided to join Schiller International University, first in Paris and then in London. Since then, my life has been closely related to Schiller; I met my wife at Schiller Paris as well as a friend who later on would be my business partner and brother in law.

After living in Paris for 5 years, I moved to the US where I worked for the corporate world at American Hotel Register Co. I lived in Chicago close to 11 years working and studying.

After earning my MBA, I decided to return to Spain, where I continued working in the international field. Now, part of my professional activities are connected to Schiller, as a professor and also taking part in other academic projects.

Schiller opened up for me a world of opportunities at a personal and at a professional level. Even today I keep in touch with Schiller´s alumni, other professors, as well as other entrepreneurs and corporate people related to the university.

What does the future hold for Schiller International University Madrid - any exciting new programs to share?

Edgar: Since SIU was acquired by the Palmer Group, and under its new President, Dr. Manuel Alonso, the university has focused on making its international education more available and open to the current needs of the international student, international companies, and the international marketplace as a whole.

A group of young students gathered together

I support Schiller because it is a university where I encounter a real commitment to prepare students for a truly international corporate and entrepreneurial world. With multiple degrees related to international disciplines, Schiller focuses more and more in connecting the “academic world” with the “real business and corporate world”.

To accomplish this, the university is engaged in a very active program that connect executives, business people, and entrepreneurs with its students. This way, once the students graduate, they feel that they are truly prepared, because they have been immersed in the real business world, they have already experienced it – the real business world - all along their college years.

Today, I see a bright future for this university as well as for its students. SIU has been ahead of the new trends in internationalization and e-learning technologies and its students will highly benefit from this forward thinking philosophy.

What about the future of the industry? How do you think study abroad and international education will change over the next 10 years?

Edgar: The educational system is changing at a fast pace and that velocity of change will increase in the coming decade. The world is becoming smaller due to an inexorable globalization. Today´s students will be better off and more competitive in the future marketplace if they become: multicultural, multilingual, highly connected to people and peers, self-disciplined to study on-line, as well as technologically savvy, just to mention a few traits. Continuous learning and education must be the mantra for success of any future business leader.

All the previous key factors for success are usually found in an international education, like the one offered at Schiller.

Studying abroad will probably be one of the most beneficial experiences a college student will go through along his career and professional life. By studying abroad, students have the opportunity to study in a foreign country and take in the grace, allure, and culture of a new land.

A group of people posing together for a picture

How have you changed/grown since working for your current company?

Edgar: My past and current international working experience is just the result of my international education amplified by Schiller´s educational environment during my early college years.

My current company, AVERTICA® Consulting Group, is the result of years of experience working in several countries, with multiple nationalities, and multiple companies located in very diverse multicultural environments. The personal and professional growth we experiment in our lives is the result of the experiences, knowledge, and expertise accumulated over the years.

Without a doubt, what we can do at AVERTICA today, is the fruit obtained by the international expertise of our consultants. Most of the people I work with have a similar background to mine regardless of their area of expertise, some are even related to SIU.

Without a doubt, we all coincide on the fact that the multicultural and multilingual education we received has helped us to work for large corporations as well as to create and develop our own businesses.

To summarize what I have said here, the incredible spiritual, emotional, personal and professional wealth acquired along our lives we live at AVERTICA and at SIU, are the result of our multicultural and multilingual lives.