The managing partners of Proa Comunicación have participated in the FEDEPE Meetings-Colloquium Cycle. On this occasion, Fuencisla Clemares, general director for Google Spain and Portugal was presented with the FEDEPE Leadership Award for Female Directors 2017. "The beginning is the most important part of any task" said Ana Bujaldón, president of FEDEPE at the beginning of her speech, quoting Plato and thanking the presence at the Meeting-Colloquium of a woman "who is for all of us a reference, an inspiration".
Fuencisla Clemares recalled that this year the technology giant is 20 years old. Since then, she pointed out, we have been using the term "digital transformation" and this will continue. To understand the present and the future of this transformation, it is necessary to understand the evolution we have experienced over the last two decades. "Approximately every 10 years there is a technological disruption that provokes a great digital transformation," said Clemares, highlighting the irruption of computers in the 1980s, the arrival of the internet in the 1990s and finally, in the 21st century, the appearance of iPhones.
"Mobile is a great technological revolution, it has marked a before and after. The bad news is that many companies have not yet realised this", he said. According to Clemares, "we have mobile phones for a while, although there will come a time when we will connect in a different way. We will use it as if it were a remote control to manage many devices connected to it.
Fuencisla Clemares wanted to highlight three important concepts in digital transformation: next generation experience, augmented intelligence and liquid organisations. There must be a cultural change in companies so that information flows and people collaborate more.
The digital world and female talent
For Fuencisla Clemares, the digital world should offer great opportunities for female talent because, among other things, it favours work-life balance. In addition, "women are great managers of change and will play a very important role in companies that are evolving", she said.
The president of FEDEPE drew attention to the low percentage of women enrolling in technical careers today, "they account for little more than 25% of engineering students" despite the fact that the highest marks in the Selectividad and the most brilliant records were awarded to women last year. "Something has to change," said Ana Bujaldón, who added that "we have to get our act together so as not to miss the technological change train and to prevent the gaps from widening instead of closing". For the general director for Google Spain and Portugal, this is something that "we have to work on at the level of society, of education, to break down these barriers".
Fuencisla Clemares highlighted the enormous opportunities offered by technological changes and regretted that "the rate of women entrepreneurs is still low, at around 30%".
One of Google's priorities, according to the general manager of the technology giant in Spain and Portugal, is to promote women's access to the world of technology, for which it is developing programmes aimed at girls, mainly at the company's headquarters in Silicon Valley, California (USA).