Did you know that one of the most apreciated networking activities in the SO survey have been the gatherings? This is the MBAT Celebration Gathering. Enjoy!

On the weekend of the 27th and 28th of May, the impressive IE team sponsored by

flew to Paris in order to attend the 16th edition of the MBA Tournament

The MBAT, hosted on the HEC Jouy-en-Josas campus, represents the largest annual gathering of international business school students and unites all involved in three days of athletic competition and camaraderie in sports ranging from swimming to salsa dancing. This year 170 people from the International and Spanish MBA Programs at Instituto de Empresa participated in the event, which witnessed the attendance of 13 schools including IESE, LBS, HEC, Bocconi and INSEAD amongst others. In an event that saw the victory of LBS, Instituto de Empresa ended up fourth in the overall ranking, which is an outstanding result given the number of schools participants and the top quality of the players. This fantastic achievement is especially remarkable considering that IE has a one-year program to draw participants from unlike LBS and IESE that ranked respectively first and second.

Instituto de Empresa achieved the first three places in the following sports:

1st in Babyfoot (Foosball)

2nd in Women Football

2nd in Swimming

3rd Handball

3rd Men Football

We also won the first place in Golf and performed superbly in many other disciplines such as Basketball, Tennis, Sailing, Squash, Rugby, Mountain Biking, Volleyball, Climbing, Table Tennis, Rowing, Badminton, Petanque, Beach Volleyball, Track and Field, Tug of War, Chess, Cross Country, Rollerblading, Salsa Dancing, Cricket and Ultimate Frisbee.

Thanks to all the IE students and partners that went to Paris, participated, cheered and supported. A special recognition for the The MBAT 2006 Committee: Annette, María and Steffi; David, Luca and Kysha. We missed Kysha for the picture.

We hope that everyone will carry with himself the memories of these days and this will further strengthen the sense of belonging to the IE community. We hand the baton to next year’s intake the will surely have the same energy to increase the participant base and come back with a larger number of trophies.

We also want to thank KYOCERA, our sponsor, and the company´s General Manager, Oscar Sánchez (IMBA94), for their support.

Well done and Go IE!!!!

The mens football team, amid TOUGH competition, placed 3rd at the MBA Tournament at HEC.

Once again IE’s MBA students have come back from Paris exhausted but happy with their excellent performance. This year the host school decided to change the overall point system that used to give advantage to big delegations. Schools with less than 125 sports participants now participate in a “small schools ranking” on a separate basis.

The old system gave two-year MBAs an advantage in the overall ranking as they sent students from first and second years, whilst one-year schools had to compete in the same specialities with half the number of people.

In 2005 IE was the winner in its category, coming fifth in the general ranking. However, according to Claudia Jimenez Weil (IMBA05) and Pamela Tánchez (IMBA05), who coordinated IE’s teams in this year’s event, “the most important thing was the awesome opportunity to network both internally and with students from other business schools”.

This year also saw an active search by students for sponsorship of the event. Gregor Minder (IMBA05) led this project, and was successful in securing many contacts in the corporate world, like Masterfood’s sponsorship of the event, and others that will be of great help in future editions.

We also want to thank KYOCERA and the company’s General Manager, Oscar Sánchez (IMBA94), for their confidence in our teams and their support. Thanks to their invaluable help, a group of 156 sportsmen, sportswomen and a strong cheerleading team of students and partners were able to demonstrate our leadership and teamwork skills to the business school community.

The darts team came first following an exciting final against Bocconi. Pablo Divasson, (IMBA05) co-ordinator of the team, Guy Richard Taylor (IMBA05), Miguel Morenés (IMBA05), and Oliver Seldon (IMBA05), showed great power of concentration throughout the long and intense competition.

There were big celebrations when the salsa team secured second place. Tesia Hostetler (IMBA05), led the team, made up of students from the US, Germany and Brazil, who delighted audiences with the originality of their choreography and dancing skills. IE’s rowing, golf, rollerblading and tennis teams also achieved second position. In the rowing event, Daniel Alves (IMBA05) provided great leadership for the team, even though they were mostly beginners. On the golf course, Petter Solberg (IMBA05) put up a great show despite some formidable competition and the awful colour of the polo shirt that all golf players were required to wear! Our rollerblading team’s training sessions in the Retiro, led by Henry Kalbe (IMBA05), obviously paid off, and our tennis players, captained by Carlos Tejerizo (IMBA05), put up an amazing fight in a very unequal final against an ATP champion.

Our congratulations also to Nils Bjerregaard (IMBA05), sailing, Marco de Modesti (IMBA05), beach volley, Chris Kozup (IMBA05), running, with a special mention for Claudia Kaisser (IMBA05), winner of the women’s competition which took place in 35º, and Regis Morel (IMBA05), squash, who led their teams to a very honourable third position.

The Dean, Santiago Iñiguez and the External Relations Director, Gonzalo Garland with the MBAT Team.