WILD GEESE: Joe Haslam: Consultant; professor at IE, Spain's top business school
JOE HASLAM has fingers in many pies. He runs his own financial consultancy firm, is an associate professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at the Instituto de Empresa (IE), Spain’s leading business school, and was recently elected president of the Spanish Irish Business Network (SIBN).
He also finds the time to play Gaelic football with the Madrid Harps GAA club and is a hands-on father of two young daughters. In addition, he seems to find the time to check his e-mails and read the Irish press online every morning. Rarely does a day pass without at least one entry from Joe on Linked-in, Facebook, Twitter or another social network page.
Haslam (38) has a degree in commerce from UCC and an MSc in public administration. After college he moved briefly to London where he had a place on the Perot Systems graduate recruitment scheme. Back in Dublin, he and several friends started Marrakesh, a dotcom company, which they later sold.
“We had done business with Latin America when I owned Marrakesh and I was interested in learning more about it. I signed up with IE because I wanted to do an international MBA and knew IE was one of the top schools, with students from many countries.”
Like many Irish in Spain, Haslam originally came for a limited time while he did his MBA, but never went home. He does not consider he has emigrated, but says he is an Irishman living abroad. “When I came I didn’t speak a word of Spanish and took a total immersion course before I could start at IE.”
Another incentive to learn the language was meeting his Galician wife, Lara, at a Celtic music festival his first weekend in Madrid. “She didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Spanish. We spent quite a lot of time sitting in museums and cafes exchanging remarks like frio, calor (it’s cold, hot!),” he laughs.
In 2006 he joined up with a Catalan friend he had met at IE to set up Stratemic, a boutique consulting firm specialising in disruptive innovation.
They also have links with two colleagues in Argentina and São Paolo, graduates of the Harvard Business School and INSEAD, who handle their Latin American business and vice versa.
“Our initial idea was to assist large Spanish companies to identify successful business models from abroad which could be adapted for Spain. We must be discreet because many of our clients are banks and construction companies. They are conservative institutions and don’t like to admit they are using consultants. In Spain, it is seen as a sign of weakness to consult a consultant.”
Recently they have been assisting Irish companies who want to move to Spain and Spanish companies to locate to Ireland. “Right now, Spanish companies are looking for business abroad because demand at home is weak.
“Spanish companies are weak in soft skills like sales and marketing, but are excellent in hard skills like science and engineering. So there are great opportunities for people who have experience working in other countries and who speak other languages.
“Spain has an infinite capacity to absorb English teachers. A lot of people started as teachers before moving into something similar to what they did at home once their Spanish improves.”
Spaniards have a great interest in Ireland, he says.
“Many business meetings I have been to start with the person on the other side of the table telling me they went to Ireland as a teenager to learn English and send their own children there to study. They often get quite emotional telling me about a summer spent somewhere like Kells or Dundalk.”
Haslam believes the cliche that the Irish are the Mediterraneans of the north is true. “I say that in Ireland, the education and legal systems might be Anglo-Saxon, but our culture and way of interacting with people is not.
“Spaniards complain that northern Europeans are too direct and northerners complain Spaniards are not direct enough. I spend a lot of time trying to explain one to the other.”
As the new president, Haslam is enthusiastic about SIBN, which was established in Madrid in 2008. There are 450 members, 50 of them Spanish, with committees in Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao and Malaga.
“Many of our members work for some of Spain’s leading companies. I met a lot of them through the Madrid Harps GAA and they introduced me to SIBN.”
He is particularly appreciative for the support SIBN receives from Justin Harman, the Irish Ambassador to Spain. “When I first met him, I got the impression he really wants to connect with the business community. He doesn’t just rent a crowd for a Paddy’s night party.”
Haslam and his family return to Ireland for holidays – he says they would go more often if there were direct Madrid-Cork flights.
He might consider living in Ireland briefly to give his children the experience of living in their second country. “But we would always come back to Spain.
“I think my wife would miss the sunshine. I love the weather and life in Madrid. The health, education and transport systems are great. I never understand those people who work all their lives and then retire to Spain. Why not just go there in the first place?”
