About Prof. Sebastián Auguste

Sebastián has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan and is Director of the MBA and Executive MBA programs at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, where he also serves as professor. He was Associate Economist at FIEL, Research Economist at the Inter American Development Bank and Consultant for the World Bank and other multilateral organizations.

He also worked as advisor for several Latin American governments and companies. His research has been published in the Journal of Monetary Economics among other renowned publications.

Viacheslav Mishchenko

Viacheslav Mishchenko is an experienced finance and technology professional with over 20 years of expertise across banking, academia, and investments. He has served as a top management executive at major Russian banks such as VTB and Sberbank, leading risk management initiatives. His area of competence is creating financial innovations and novel technologies for the banking industry. He possesses hands-on experience with digital banking, having overseen undertakings on automation, big data analytics, and similar projects.

Apart from banking, he has an active role as an investor and advisor for startups that focus on financial technology. Starting in 2020, he invested in fintech, blockchain, AI and play-to-earn ventures. In 2021, he joined a venture capital fund as a Partner to pursue startup investments full-time across emerging verticals such as fintech, martech, and edtech. Additionally, he serves as a member of investment committees in various funds. Drawing from his extensive industry experience, he offers startups valuable guidance on topics such as business models, economic analysis, and venture funding. Slava has taught courses on diverse topics including digital banking, blockchain technology, fintech, and the future of finance. He has taught these subjects at highly regarded Russian universities, including the Higher School of Economics.

About Prof. Jaqueline Pels

Jaqueline Pels (PhD) is Full Professor of Marketing at the University Torcuato Di Tella Business School, Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is the Director of the Inclusive Business Think Tank (ENI-DiTella) as well as a Social Entrepreneur, and founder of JUNTOS. Her research interest is in the areas of inclusive business, emerging economies, marketing theory, relationship, and networking marketing as well as the Service-Dominant logic. Her publications have appeared in leading international journals including Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Marketing Theory, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Relationship Marketing, amongst others. She has served on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Marketing, Marketing Theory, Journal of Business, and Industrial Marketing, among others.

Sebastián Soneyra

Sebastián has an MBA from the University of Oxford, a LL.M. from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (UTDT), a Master in Finance from Universidad Nacional de Rosario (UNR) and he is Chartered Accountant from Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (UADE). Currently he serves as Finance Director for EMEA at Apeel Sciences. He has been Finance Director at Fresca Group in the UK and CFO at The Fruit Farm Group, Head of Procurement at Kleppe and Head of Finance and Operations at Oster in Argentina. He has more than 20 years of experience in finance and operations leading start-ups and mature organisations, restructuring and scaling up businesses within the agri-food and consumer goods industries in Europe and Latin America. His core skills include finance reporting and storytelling, FP&A, cash optimisation, working capital and risk management, and finance transformation.

About Prof. Santiago Kraiselburd

Dr. Santiago Kraiselburd is responsible for business development, knowledge creation, people development and leadership in client facing engagements on Supply Chain Management and Strategic Sourcing & Procurement. Although Santiago has focused on the Consumer Goods industry, he has also served clients in a wide arrange of industries such as Agribusiness, Airline, Automotive, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, etc. In addition to INCAE, Santiago is an Adjunct Professor at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (Argentina), and teaches at the Zaragoza Logistics Center (Spain), both in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) International Logistics Program and at the Spanish Masters program.

Dr. Kraiselburd received a Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) from Harvard University, a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) and a Masters of Science in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University of Southern California (USC), and an Electronic Engineering degree specialized in Microprocessors from the Universidad Nacional de La Plata (Argentina). Dr. Kraiselburd has taught/led research through various appointments at the University of Chicago (USA), Harvard University (USA), IE Business School (Spain), INCAE (Costa Rica), the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (México, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), the Universidad Nacional de La Plata (Argentina), the University of Southern California (USA), the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (Argentina), the University of Toronto (Canada) and the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland). He has written numerous cases and articles published both in academic journals such as Production and Operations Management (POM), Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (M&SOM), International Journal of Production Economics (IJPE), Harvard Deusto Business Review and Supply Chain Quarterly.

International Business Strategies: Challenges and Opportunities in Emerging Markets

This course is focused on learning and developing talent management and self-knowledge skills for successfully working in diverse cultural environments. Special focus is placed on Argentinian and Latin American specific traits and particular challenges.

Main objectives:

• Learning how to do business in Latin America:
• • Etiquette: what to do and what to avoid when dealing with business people in LatAm countries
  • Intra-regional cultural and business differences
  • Social issues across LatAm.
  • Country risks.
  • Gender and class differences.
  • Political differences.
  • Humor.
  • Religious beliefs.
• Cultural sensitivity.
• Cultural tools: comparison of countries.
• Understanding and using conceptual models to manage organizational and personal change. Application of models to compare LatAm with the USA.
• Acquiring expertise and tools for efficiently leading people, focus in LatAm.
• Obtaining leadership skills: The leader as coach.
• Developing cross-cultural experience: Four Steps to Integration.
• Discussing cultural diversity: countries, generations, gender (crystal ceiling), sexual (LGBTQ), etc. How to approach diversity in LatAm vs. USA approach. Multinational corporations influence.
• Understanding how to manage uncertainty.
• Acquiring and practicing communication: Five pillars of coaching.
• Gaining confidence to work in foreign countries and cultures.
• Learning about blockers and facilitators of the creativity process: IDEA test.
• Team working and understanding how to become a high performance team.

Financial Innovations and Digital Banking

This course provides comprehensive coverage of the financial innovations that are transforming banking and finance. It begins with a conceptual foundation, exploring the role of technology in enabling financial innovation, its impact on economic growth, the evolution of digital banking, and the key technologies such as AI, blockchain, big data, and machine learning that underpin it.

The course deals extensively with blockchain and cryptocurrencies, analyzing their technical underpinnings, applications in banking, and the future landscape of digital payments. Similarly, it dives deep into AI and big data, examining use cases and decision-making roles in financial institutions. Regulatory, ethical, and cybersecurity issues are also discussed to provide a holistic perspective.

Real-world case studies are used throughout the curriculum, highlighting examples of digital transformation successes and failures. The course synthesizes conceptual knowledge with practical insights into the implementation of digital banking strategies and fintech solutions. Students develop skills in analyzing the impact of disruptive innovations on traditional banking, and formulating strategic responses to digital challenges.

Cutting-edge topics such as decentralized finance (DeFi), embedded finance, neobanks, digital assets, and open banking APIs are explored to equip students to lead at the forefront of financial innovation. Readings, multimedia resources, projects, and assessments aim to foster the hard and soft skills critical to thriving in an increasingly dematerialized, dynamic, and data-driven financial system.

Overall, the curriculum provides a multidimensional preparation that enables students to critically evaluate financial innovation, demonstrate technological literacy, and strategically navigate the digital future of banking.

Social Business in Emerging Markets

Since the 2008 financial crisis, Emerging Markets' growth projections surpass those of Developed Markets. The Covid-19 pandemic and the current Ukrainian-Russian war do not revert the tendency; in short, Emerging Markets will be key markets in the future. Growth in Emerging markets is driven by the 60-70% of the population that belongs to what has been labeled as Low-Income Consumers (LIC). Unfortunately, current marketing strategies have been created for Developed Markets and have as targets the middle and upper socioeconomic levels. As a result, LICs are largely an unattended market by major multinational corporations & associated brands. In our course, we will explore strategies that aim at capturing this opportunity. Strategies that have the dual aim of doing good while doing well. We will learn how to develop Social Businesses that are economically robust and have a social impact, improving the lives of the underserved LIC.

Financial Planning in Inflationary Environments

The uncertainty of the economic and political environment and the speed of change in an inflationary environment has made a perfect storm for business leaders around the world. Managing a company in a high inflationary economy is a great opportunity for finance leaders to shine and to influence other stakeholders to understand how the organization must respond to unknown challenges.

During the course you will see how a business is affected by inflation, how financial information gets distorted, which initiatives could be implemented to mitigate the impact, and what reporting needs to be prepared to inform timely decisions. In this regard, we will walk through the entire planning process to reflect on why financial planning matters, how to build a robust planning culture, which are the common pitfalls, and how a business plan contributes to the successful execution of the strategy.

We will review the demand and supply planning to understand the key drivers that underpins those processes. We will learn about cost management in order to have a transparent view of the profitability, product mix and cost structure to identify any unsustainable business line. We will also focus on inventory management and how to capture value through pricing strategies.

Furthermore, we will grasp the time value of money and free cash flow frameworks as well as how to manage working capital effectively. To stay ahead of reality and reduce surprises during uncertain and volatile times we will utilise scenario planning to model the impact of changes in cash flows across, pricing, income and costs. We will ‘think the unthinkable’. Through risk management we will learn how to create a risk register and define when to accept, mitigate or transfer a risk.

Finally, with financial analysis tools such as price, volume and cost variances, gross margin analysis, and KPIs, we will figure out how to translate figures into insights which will lead to recommendations and then cascade to concrete action plans. Last but not least, we will learn how to select the right data and define the narrative to tell a simple and compelling finance story.

Operations Strategy and Emerging Markets

Operations Strategy in Emerging Markets is aimed at broadening your understanding of operating challenges well beyond topics covered in core courses, and of specific challenges that arise when operating in developing economies in general and LatAm in particular. Looking at businesses ranging from heavy manufacturing to biotechnology, and covering many of the main industries in the region, the course focuses on the value created and captured by different operating strategies. You will acquire frameworks that enable you to map and analyze the demands of different competitive environments, and become familiar with the menu of potential operating strategies. You will learn how these strategies must be designed to fit with the particular requirements of various competitive environments, as well as your company's competitive strategy.

You will develop the ability to identify and frame complex strategic issues in operations, design operating strategies that address those issues, and take effective action to achieve the full potential of the decisions. The course will expose you to a range of concepts, tools, and techniques for addressing issues such as the design, management and evolution of operating networks, the selection and implementation of new technologies, and the creation of operating systems that effectively connect operations with customers, distribution channels, and suppliers while preparing for competitor’s reactions. The course gives special emphasis to providing you with the tools you will need to participate effectively in these decisions early in your career, especially on global assignments.

Important: this course follows the case method of teaching. As most of you may know, the case method of teaching is based on the idea that you, as a group, will discover the issues and learn from the ideas of others in the class. There will be no lectures, and, therefore, it is essential that you come to class prepared to share your insights and analysis with others. Since the courses schedule is intense, there will not be enough time to read all the assigned materials during the week of class when we will meet. Therefore, it is essential that you read all the assigned materials before arriving to Argentina.