Author Archives: karsrobles

What is invisible but essential about YOU? or ESADE? or Barcelona?

I was born into a Colombian family of humble origins that built a business from scratch. Creative entrepreneurs who, without many tools, managed to excel, honestly and responsibly, by contributing to the economic and social development of their family and their community.

Growing up surrounded by successful entrepreneurs has been very inspiring but also a great challenge for me. Since I started my professional journey, I have been confronting unconscious biases and working to silence an inner voice that unjustifiably insinuated that I wasn’t capable enough to face leadership roles as my parents have done.

This personal journey began by identifying that this self-perception problem was not only mine, but that it occurs in many women, who face unconscious biases, learned stereotypes, and social barriers, which make us less prone to exercising leadership. Concepts such as the glass ceiling and the impostor syndrome are present in our professional trajectories and lead to the indicators we know today.

Naming it was a great start, but what made the difference was looking around and being inspired by other women’s stories. I am not talking just about great business women or public figures, but also about the ones whose successes might not look that big, but were really impactful within their communities.

My grandmother is the one who has inspired me the most. A woman who came into this world more than a century ago, who never went to school and learned to read and write by looking through the window of the little school in the town where she was born. At the age of eight years old, she was orphaned by her parents and then by her grandparents and finally abandoned by her brother. She was a single mother with four children. She did all kinds of jobs to support her family and educated her children with values. She always reinforced the importance of education, but the only one who was able to go to university was the youngest, my father.

Today, two generations later, I am studying an MBA at one of the best business schools and I know that I owe a great part of the privilege of being here to the efforts of my grandmother. Her will, her ambition and her desire to grow, led her to building a family that supported me to become who I am today.

Thank you for being my inspiration abuelita Margarita!

What is invisible but essential about YOU? or ESADE? or Barcelona?

My life has been filled with many ups and downs that have shaped me into who I am today. Two in particular stand out in recent memory that have changed how I see the world.

I studied abroad in Turkey back in 2015 and lived there for two years. I fell in love with the people and their culture. I volunteered in the local church and taught English to pay the bills. On July 15th, only 1 km from where I was living, the Turkish military marched while fighting against thousands of Turkish citizens in an attempted coup. Government buildings were bombed from the air, there were mandatory curfews, the airport was shut down, tanks were in the streets, and F16 jets flew so close the walls of my small apartment shook throughout the night. I laid under the blankets fearfully following the news. I was scared for everyone in the streets, I was scared for all the beautiful friends I had made, and I was genuinely scared for my own life.

March 13th, 2018, I rolled into the operating room of UCSF for surgery. Paul is my cousin, and we grew up in the Philippines together. We were the same age, lived in the same neighborhood and were classmates in the same school. We were very close. When I found out that both his kidneys were failing I was heartbroken. I knew I had to do whatever I could to help. I decided to move back home to California from Turkey, so that I could start the process of donating my kidney to Paul. After months of testing, lab works, and counseling, we were ready. I knew the risks. I knew I was healthy. I knew that the probability of success was in our favor. Even though the love I felt for my cousin, and my faith in God gave me security, I was still scared.

The coup was short lived, and I went on with my everyday life after a couple of days. My cousin, Paul, now has a healthy kidney and no longer has to be attached to a machine a couple times a week. 5 years later, I am healthy and well. I moved back home to the Bay Area to donate my kidney, yet to my surprise I met the love of my life, we got married, started a family, and now have moved half-way across the world to Barcelona, so I can pursue my MBA. What is invisible but essential about me is that these two experiences, sowed with uncertainty and fear, opened into moments of beauty, love, and hope. That a poor, rural girl from the Philippines, raised by a single mom in the rough streets of Richmond, can pursue higher education in Syracuse, live her life to the fullest in Turkey, and now embrace an incredible adventure in Barcelona with her husband and son. Moments like these helped me to be content and satisfied about the life I have and further affirmed and increased my faith in God. The challenges of my life have been showered with blessings and I believe that a life well-lived is a life in service of others, where that service might be invisible but it is truly essential.