Make a online master It is not at odds with being close to your teachers. For this reason, we wanted to speak with Ana Cabezas, the new director of the Master of Financial Management at EIP. Ana Cabezas He has a very extensive professional career full of successes and also difficult moments that, as he tells us, have forced him to be reborn from his ashes and continue working harder to overcome a setback in his career.

Humility and love for work of our new director to continue training throughout her career and have 9 master's degrees and a professional career that has not stopped since 1987, having just finished his university career.

Ana Cabezas, new Director of the Master in Financial Management at EIP.

Where does your story begin?

I was born in Valladolid, I studied economics at the public university of Valladolid and as soon as I finished I started working in Madrid in an engineering firm as an accountant and then as head of administration.

I have 3 wonderful children, Miguel is especially wonderful.

I have lived long periods in Brussels, in Peru and in some other country in Latin America, with the enormous responsibility of leaving Spain very high, as a lecturer, teacher and professor, because when one works abroad, one does not represent oneself, but also one's country.

This has made it have an enormous capacity to adapt to cultural differences because if one finds the good things in each human being, one will do so even in people who act and are radically different from what one was used to until then.

I have 3 passions:

One is playing basketball, something that I continue to do in the Madrid municipal league, now with young girls who are twice my age.
Travel, having had the fortune of sharing experiences and learning in more than 50 countries.
Write about business management topics, as another way of exercising my teaching vocation.

Madrid not only gave me the initial job opportunity, but also to train in something that has accompanied me throughout my life, the obsession with updating knowledge and being up to date.

For the last 10 years I have worked between Spain and Latin America, mainly in Peru, which has been an enormously enriching experience. Not only because of the need to adapt to other cultures and ways of working, but also because of the contact with wonderful students and people that I was lucky enough to meet along the way.

Where does your interest in finance come from?

Finance is my other vocation alongside teaching. Business management and money have always caught my attention, and since I was little I did my business. I sold my classmates little things, I charged my parents for good grades and errands, and I kept my budget of my small income and expenses.

I feel lucky because I have managed to fulfill my dream of always work on what I liked, in my vocation.

What project have you been most proud to be a part of?

Every project where I have participated has had its share of pride, given that I have always given myself totally and I have learned from everyone.

To list some...

Very young, 26 years old, I was hired as the financial director of a publicly traded company that was 100 years old and had a management team where anyone was twice my age. I had to learn out of necessity, not only about finances, but also about adaptation to business culture.

There my star project was to start from scratch, starting with construction, the largest ham drying facility in Spain, and later supporting management as manager of the agri-food area.

I was financial director of People Temporary Work. We started 30 people and a team of fighters, we placed the company in sector leader in Spain, with a growth of more than 100 % annually, until reaching 15,000 workers. The work as financial director was quite a challenge because I had to find funds to support growth and create processes and consolidate the team to achieve it.

Being the general director of a family business in the real estate sector. Family businesses are very complex to run and even more so when you are not family and you are not at Sunday meals. I started them the family protocol, boards of directors and committees, which professionalized management and made me become a family business management expert. Furthermore, when the real estate crisis hit Spain, thanks to previous experiences, I launched business centers in its empty buildings, something that allowed the company to survive. Even now, almost 10 years later, it is still the star activity that the company maintains.

Solo opening in Peru launching 2 MBAs and becoming dean of a university and then working for the State. Be women, foreigner and not so young in Latam It didn't make it easy for me, but since I never give up and didn't listen to those who told me it was impossible, I achieved it.

The odd entrepreneurial failure, where I lost almost everything, and I had no choice but to draw strength from weakness and with enormous resilience, be reborn, building on the ashes, that failure being an expensive and productive life master's degree.

I have recently launched a Start up that has won innovation awards such as Start Up Peru, supporting me WAYRA. There I have learned how hard it is to be a successful entrepreneur and all the challenges that must be overcome almost daily.

The company "I AM QUALITY” is already on the market. Our software is an ERP that automates quality management www.soycalidad.com and covid protocols www.stop-covid-mundo.com and I hope they will be taught in business schools as a practical tool to help manage quality based on the ISO methodology.

I feel really lucky with my professional life, since many times I was given a blank page where I had to use my imagination, innovate and take risks in an autonomous way.

Of all the companies where I worked and projects I tackled, I learned and felt happy to have great colleagues where as a team, we did our best.

In 1990, 4 years after finishing the master's degree, you worked as a financial director for the first time. How was your experience?

It was complicated, I was 26 years old and had 3 years of experience as head of accounting for an engineering company, and without having sufficient maturity or knowledge I see myself with the responsibility of leading the financial management of a century-old company that was listed on the stock market. His name was Spanish Resin Union.

The first week They gave me a life lesson that I will never forget. and I share it with you:

I arrived with the unconscious of 26 years old wanting to change the world suddenly and a week later, the general secretary told me: "Miss, we have been functioning perfectly for 100 years, we have not hired you to change the company, but to adapt to "She, if she doesn't want to change in this abrupt way, the one we will have to change is you."

He was right, I had entered a china shop like an elephant. Without looking at or respecting who they were (a company with very classic forms) but I learned the hard way, I adapted and I spent many years in that company.

Was it easy for you to find a place to develop your career?

Developing a professional career is never easy. It requires a lot of effort, a lot of dedication, a lot of dedication and commitment.

My friends hear me say that I must be very stupid, because I only know how to achieve things by working hard. I don't believe in luck, I believe in work. As someone said:

"Inspiration exists, but it must catch you working."

either

"The harder I work, the luckier I get"

I am the result of that culture of our parents and grandparents, the culture of effort, of achieving each advance through sweat and it was always like that since I was little. I would get up to study at dawn, a habit that I maintain, because the first hours of the day, with the head rested, inspiration flows and for me they are the most productive creative hours, to think, to organize, to write.

Effort does not imply suffering, If not the opposite. I live with passion for my work, for every small achievement. I'm really lucky and I think the more it costs and the more difficult it is to achieve, the more I enjoy it.

As my Peruvian friend Nano Guerra says, promoter of entrepreneurship in Peru, "problems, even personal ones, are not problems but simple management challenges to be addressed."

What does financial management contribute to companies?

Depending on what the company is like: sector, size, management structure They let the financial department contribute different things…

Since I like to tell stories, I'll tell you one: In my first experience, which was a very young engineering, there they called us financiers "unproductive" because we didn't sell, we didn't build bridges and only, according to the engineers, we moved papers. From that start as "unproductive" my obsession was born that the financial area is a department that has to CREATE VALUE, and that's what I tell my students.

How do we create value?

Giving Quality information to help management, generating timely and rigorous dashboards.
Analyzing the risk of operations so that they are reduced.
Ensuring the liquidity of companies, because without it, the company dies.
Making financial and fiscal projections marking the route of the future.
Aligning with the entire organization, so that everyone has management based on solvency numbers to the enterprise.
Supporting collection management and making the appropriate arrangements so that there is no delay.
And of course, performing other administrative tasks that are necessary how to keep accounting, presenting all taxes without errors, defending audits and whatever the company needs administratively.

What milestones have any of the companies you have worked for achieved thanks to a good team in the financial department?

The success of my management in the companies where I have always collaborated I owed it to my team. I was at the helm, but without them we would never have reached the finish line.

We have participated in several purchase and sale processes, having to defend purchasing audits tooth and nail, due diligence, so that investors paid the most for the company.
Together we have managed to provide organizations with exponential growth and liquidity that will support this growth.
In my last experience of Peru, I have been the entrepreneur Setting in motion Start up, but I don't know much about technology, so being able to create the ERP has been the work of a wonderful technical team, I gave them ideas and they, as if they had a magic wand, turned them into reports, systems, ERP, apps, etc.

The team is key to business achievements. That is a company, a group of people with a common objective, each one from their role and responsibility, but together.

What qualities are needed to be a good financial director?

More than 10 years ago I taught a class on organization of the financial area at the San Pablo Ceu University and I told my students that they had to be SUPERMANS.

For me the first thing is to have MORAL INTEGRITY. A lot of money passes through us, a lot of information, and it is vital not to have a price as human beings so as not to fall into the temptation of selling ourselves. We financiers are worth more for what we remain silent than for what we know. That is why having the need to maintain professional secrecy engraved in stone is vital.
The second is: We must be able to generate information and analysis without errors, because if we do so we will be providing the organization with a wrong route map to reach the goal, we may even lead the company to failure, and that is without counting the possible sanctions. derived, for example, from an incorrect tax declaration.
Should have ANALYSIS CAPACITY. Not only numerical data but knowing how to interpret other events that occur in our company, in that of clients and competitors. For example, a client's late payment should alert us to possible financial problems that lead to late payment.
Have LONG TERM VISION, working in the present, but being able to project the future and above all to visualize the past consequences of present actions.
BARGAINING POWER, since an important part of our work consists of achieving financing and other favorable agreements for the company with clients, suppliers, etc.
Don't be afraid of DECISION MAKING, since many times your job will consist of solving problems without our hand shaking. My feeling is that we are firefighters and every day we have some bonfire or big fire to put out, but not one day are we spared.
The financial director must be RESTLESS with an enormous desire to learn, to improve, to be up to date in terms of legal, regulatory and technical knowledge. Having a desire to get to know the organization means that many times, as happened to me, the natural projection of the financial director is general management, becoming CEO, as happened to me.

Jobs ended his famous speech at Stanford by saying

«Stay hungry, stay foolish»

always remain restless, insatiable, non-conformist. That applies perfectly to the financial director. Innovate, don't settle.

have a huge SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY because our position is very important for the company and so are our decisions and an error can result in death or major problems for the company.
Dispose of COMMUNICATIVE SKILLS. We must convince and win so that they understand the information that comes out of the company, so that they buy the measures that we propose that are sometimes not so popular. This need to convince is what initially led me to provide in-company training to my colleagues and which I later turned into my teaching passion as a postgraduate in various Business Schools in both Spain and LATAM.
BE OPTIMISTIC, Our position is too complicated not to transmit enthusiasm, motivation, not to see a solution to each problem...

In 2011 your career also began as a teacher. What attracts you to participate in the training of new talents?

I am attracted to everything, I am passionate about it, it is my vocation. I enjoy giving training like a girl at recess. Is a wonderful professional work And I'll explain why I feel that way:

Because you are helping others grow, to have a better future, to develop professionally
Because you share learning and experience and you don't take it to the grave, but you give it to your students with the hope that it helps them.
For everything one learns from one's students, sharing their joy of professional and personal improvement.
By the personal bonds that are created with our beloved students.
Due to the obligation of be continually learning to be able to transmit updated knowledge to students. I have often said that I have never studied as much as I have since I have been a teacher. My 9 master's degrees are too small for the demands that I consider a teacher must have, always, I say always, every day we must be learning to be able to teach.
And finally, for the vocation, which is nothing other than that unstoppable inner call that leads you to dedicate yourself to something with passion, and achieving it generates indescribable joy.

I have always felt that dedicating oneself to the teaching vocation must be done with immense sense of responsibility, because we are consuming the 2 most scarce resources that adults have, time and money.

Every second that the student is dedicating to us he does so because trust us, in the value of our teaching, and in exchange for what he gives us he is sacrificing time to his family, his hobbies, his work. For this reason, it must be compensated, and for this to be the case, we must take care of every moment that our students give us, and that is how we feel about teaching at EIP.

Money, as my grandmother said, costs a lot to earn.

Why have you decided to join the EIP International Business School?

When you get older you develop a sixth sense to immediately detect when you are in front of someone with whom you share values, and who also feels the same responsibility for a job well done. So, I can tell you that my first decision to join the team was a crush of "I want to share with people like them."

Then I analyzed content, methodology, innovation in training and I confirmed what intuition told me, that I was facing professionals who take training very seriously. Furthermore, with the desire to help many students, with some of the most affordable prices on the market, providing payment facilities, so that money is not a limitation to train and improve professionally.

Once inside I reaffirmed that everything I felt and analyzed was more than true. EIP It is a human team of magnificent professionals They are also great people, trained professionals who work with passion and vocation. From enormous affection and respect for the student, collaborating as a team to give them the best.

I really have to thank you for trusting me and having the honor of being part of this wonderful team.

What are the key points that a good Master in Financial Management must have?

The training provided by a financial master's degree must be comprehensive, updated and practical.

Comprehensive, that covers all the key aspects necessary to be able to work in the financial area of a company.
Updated, tax and accounting rules are continually changing. That is why EIP teachers are active professionals, who are up to date and that knowledge is what they provide to the students.
Practical, which can be applied to companies from day one. It makes no sense, for example, to give accounting and not provide software to practice, because as far as I know, I don't know of any company that does accounting in Excel, and unfortunately for me, that is how I have had to explain accounting for many years. That is why our students work from day one with an accounting application and do real taxes, so that they can apply it in companies.

How do you see the current situation for professionals in the sector?

Given the banking concentration, there will be an expulsion of banking professionals from the labor market, they will need to be recycled and trained In order to have a job again, I encourage them to do our financial master's degree.

"Financial professionals are needed by all companies, no matter their size, the sector, the country, so it is a profession where there will always be work."

Does this crisis bring new opportunities for young people?

Every crisis is an opportunity, if you know how to find it. At the moment, the young people who are going to suffer the most are those with the least qualifications, because sectors such as the hospitality industry are hard hit by the pandemic.

But as my parents told me, "There is always a place for the best"Therefore, I encourage young people not to give up, to continue training.

They have to get out of their comfort zone, make an effort, to continue learning. Furthermore, in our case, having access to the world of work through normally paid work practices, which in many cases, and if they do it well, will lead them to a stable job.

If you want to know more about our new director of the Master of Financial Management, we invite you to visit her profile LinkedIn, Ana Cabezas.