“Everyone talks about technology, but I believe the most important challenge is the psychological one”

Interview with Luz Parrondo, Professor of AI, Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, and Corporate Finance in the Executive MBA at UPF-BSM

The UPF Barcelona School of Management (UPF-BSM) has redesigned its Executive MBA with a program tailored to the new demands and latest market trends. The academic director of the Executive MBA, Katharine D’Amico, will be joined by a teaching team that brings together academic excellence, PhDs, and extensive professional experience across multiple sectors.

In this interview series called UPF-BSM Faculty Feature, we speak with the main professors of the new EMBA. In the first episode, we feature Luz Parrondo, a professor who teaches classes in the AI, Blockchain, and Cryptocurrencies module, as well as in Corporate Finance. “The approach I take with numbers is holistic, and I want students to understand that numbers tell a story, and that companies are living organisms, similar to people,” says Parrondo. For the professor, this cannot be achieved with a fragmented analysis: “you need to integrate strategy, numbers, people, and context. You must have that complex perspective to get a clear picture of what is happening, and this will help you make better decisions,” she points out.

When asked about one of the major trends she believes is transforming her field, Parrondo explains that while technology is a very important challenge, the most profound one is psychological. “It’s about understanding how new structures work; we hear a lot about decentralization, but we don’t fully understand what that means for companies.” For her, it is essential that today’s leaders grasp the power of these new open-economy structures. “They need to dive into understanding this new approach, this new logic of finance, of the world, and of the corporate sphere,” she explains. “It is crucial that leaders understand the new finance and the new economy they will be facing.”

Luz Parrondo, who is also the Academic Director of the Master in Financial and Accounting Management at UPF-BSM, shares that, in her teaching experience, students often expect her classes to be the typical boring sessions of classical finance, but then they encounter something completely different. “I am a very passionate and energetic teacher, and I believe I pass that on to my students, and they feel it and enjoy it,” she says. “Even those who find numbers very boring, I think they discover beauty in them and how fun it can be, and how behind the numbers we can always uncover a story,” Parrondo concludes.