María Eizaguirre Diéguez

Dr. María Eizaguirre obtained her B.A. (Hons) and M.Sc. in Anthropology from Durham University and later became the first Spanish Rhodes Scholar (Linacre & Spain, 1994) to study at the University of Oxford, where she completed her Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology. Following her academic beginnings, she decided to start her career in the private sector, first in market research but soon afterwards in Strategic Planning at an advertising agency, where she worked for both new businesses and clients. She then joined her main client, Kraft Foods, where she worked for 8 years on the Consumer Insights & Strategy team (CIS). In her last position at Kraft, she was leading the Innovation CIS function across the EU, using her creative mindset to reframe business opportunities with a consumer-centric perspective. María then changed to the Education sector, and took up a position as Marketing Director for a new venture by IE Business School: IE University, creating the brand with a strong point of difference vs. the mother brand. She subsequently became Director Insights & Strategy for IE Corporate and worked on repositioning the prestigious IMBA, portfolio management of the part-time MBAs and positioning of IE Law School. During 2016, she took up an executive position as VP Marketing & Sales at Laureate International Universities, leading Marketing, Sales, Business Development and Business Intelligence for the Iberian cluster: 4 brands in 7 locations, a team of over 100 people and a member of the Executive Committee. It was her love for teaching and innovation, however, that led her to go back to IE where she now teaches at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. She is currently the Academic Director of the MCMC (Master Corporate and Marketing Communications) and of IE's Centre for Consumer Driven Growth, an IE venture that provides leading edge applied research on driving growth through customer-centricity with the support of big multinational clientes. During January – June she is Director of the Innovation Lab at IEU.