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

When thinking about the future, I believe that the key skills necessary for our students to succeed can be summarized with 4 C´s: Communication, Collaboration, Cross Cultural Competence and Creativity. As a teacher and advisor at SIU Madrid, I have been deeply committed developing these skills, and let me give you two examples:

1. Every fall we take the students to harvest the grapes and make their own wine, a unique opportunity to learn how to cooperate and discover the iconic Spanish wine culture, the country that is the largest producer in the world.

2. A School for Dreamers is another pilot program we are developing in the face of the challenge that, for the first time in history, the majority of the people in Western societies believe that the next generations will not live better.

To “vaccinate” our students against this state of mind we bring inspiring people such as the CEO of a leading multinational in Spain, who left everything to follow his dream of touring the world for an entire year with his wife and small daughters on a journey that, literally, changed their lives.

We also promote inspiring experiences, like delivering a speech to a live audience on how you can change the world, and that is performed by the students attending the Public Speaking course.

Describe a time when you felt especially proud to be part of the Schiller International University Madrid team

In my advanced course of multicultural competency for business, we invite a leading entrepreneur in Spain. Each student, as the final project, must chose a country in the world for the expansion of the business of the guest speaker, and present a plan to ensure the successful launch in the target destination, an experience as real as it gets in real life. The entrepreneur choses a winning project.

The last edition we brought the CEO of the most profitable small company in Spain. This company is revolutionizing the telecom sector with its “out of the box” thinking. Our guest speaker was deeply impressed by the quality of the presentations and had real difficulties to select a single winner. Needless to say, as their professor, I was immensely proud.

Why is language learning and cultural immersion important to you?

In a globalized world, technology has eliminated all barriers except one: culture.

To do multinational business today, cultural competency is a must. It is estimated that up to 80% of the foreign business ventures in China fail because of the lack of cultural sensitivity. Cultural immersion and languages are therefore essential for success when doing business internationally.

Consider the Spanish language for example: it is the fastest growing language in the world and the US will be the largest Spanish speaking country in the world by 2050. This is good one good reason to learn the Spanish language and culture at SIU Madrid, one of the happiest cities in the world according to a recent study.

What was your favorite traveling experience?

My trip to Iceland. I went there with no expectations and I must say that the country responded with an unlimited number of pleasant surprises: like finding natural Jacuzzis everywhere, even in the middle of the snow (as a foreigner, though, I was the only one with a coat outside the Jacuzzi…!); or looking for and encountering gigantic whales; or reaching the entrance of Jules Verne´s journey to the center of the earth.

You can discover untouched landscapes that invite to serenity, but the best landscapes are found amongst the human geography of the island as there is no other place on earth with such a great density of beautiful people. Before getting there I thought that the Icelandic people would be typically Nordic, blond and with blue eyes.

However, I was quite surprised to find a very diverse reality of people and the reason, I was told, was quite simple: as good Vikings, the Icelandic people were a bunch of pirates. So they would go and plunder villages all over Europe and take back with them the most beautiful women they encountered. And of course, with this selection process, the outcome is not surprising…