GUSTAVO ENTRALA AT IPADE

On Tuesday, May 31st, IPADE hosted a Special Session for students, alumni, and faculty with digital communications expert Gustavo Entrala. Mr. Entrala is the founder and former CEO of 101, a public relations agency with digital DNA. Over the course of his career, he has guided the digital positioning of a wide range of both Spanish and international brands, including Nokia, Diageo,

Laboratorios Alter, Warner Music, Vocento, EMI, General Mills, IFC, Seguros Nuez, Bankinter, and Red Bull. He is perhaps best known for helping to bring the Vatican into the digital age, creating the Twitter account @Pontifex and helping Pope Benedict XVI publish his first tweet.

During the 90-minutes session, Mr. Entrala shared insights on the challenges and benefits of digital transformation, drawing on lessons learned over the course of his extensive experience working in the digital space. Following a quick review of his background and curriculum, Mr. Entrala launched into a series of case studies.

“I’m going to tell you some stories that do not end well,” he said. “You’re used to hearing stories about success from business people that worked their way up from the bottom…or that studied here at IPADE and so everything went great. Most of the stories of digital transformation do not end well.”

He focused on the print media industry and the music industry as two industry-level examples of unsuccessful digital transformation processes, utilizing examples from his personal experience launching the digital properties of Grupo Recoletos. He focused on cosmetics and banking as examples of two industries that have been able to successfully navigate the ongoing challenges of digital transformation, assuring attendees that while it is impossible to see the future, it is not impossible to hypothesize what will happen […and] develop experiments to test those hypotheses by outlining concrete actions, setting goals, and monitoring results.

Mr. Entrala also emphasized that the key to successfully navigating change is always people: “As a leader, it’s crucial to listen to young people. That’s where the ideas are coming from,” he said. “Just because you don’t understand something doesn’t mean that it’s not worthwhile.”

In closing, Mr. Entrala challenged attendees to embrace change. “We’ve spent 195,000 years doing essentially the same thing,” he declared. “We’ve only started to evolve in the past 5,000. We have to adjust the brain chip; we have to stop being afraid of change.”

Following the presentation and Q&A, attendees were invited to a networking cocktail hosted by IPADE.