“To make the most of AI, human intellect must come first—imagination to explore alternatives, intellect to frame problems, and an ethical compass to weigh consequences.”
Interview with Juan Jose Güemes
Senior Vice President for Strategy and Chaiman of the Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, at IE University, Madrid, Spain.
As technology reshapes education and the workplace, universities must go beyond teaching knowledge and hard skills. Institutions that nurture creative, ethical, and entrepreneurial mindsets are equipping students to thrive in a complex job market, says Juan Jose Güemes, Senior VP for Strategy and Chair of the Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at IE University. In this IFC interview, Güemes highlights the value of industry partnerships, the rising importance of human-centric skills in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), and why imagination and critical thinking will be the most critical assets for graduates in the years to come.
How does IE University collaborate with industry partners to ensure that IE programs are relevant and future-proof? What mechanisms are in place to co-create curricula with employers and startups?
We work hard at maintaining a strong balance between academic rigor and real-world practice. On one hand, we draw on the expertise of distinguished academics who provide structure and pedagogical depth to our programs. On the other hand, we collaborate with industry leaders—CEOs, engineers, lawyers, and entrepreneurs—who bring current, practical insights into the classroom. This ensures that IE classes stay dynamic and are closely aligned with market needs.
To answer part two of your question, curriculum co-creation happens through applied research partnerships with companies and leveraging the industry expertise of many of our faculty members. We also created the Venture Lab initiative, where over 1,000 students a year work directly with mentors, investors, and experts to develop and launch startups. IE also collaborates with accelerators, especially in fast-evolving fields like fintech, food tech, e-health, and AI, to incubate ideas and shape educational content around real-world problems. This integration of academic and industry input ensures that everything we do at IE University prioritizes innovation, adaptability, and is directly relevant to the future of work.
Q: What skills or mindsets do you believe will be most critical for graduates in 2030 and beyond?
By 2030, students are going to have access to incredible tools capable of instantly solving complex problems. But these tools won’t mean much if users don’t know which questions are worth asking. This ability to ask meaningful, insightful questions requires years of intellectual development and is rooted in critical thinking, creativity, and awareness of our own thoughts and perceptions.
Technical fluency with AI and digital tools is important, but the future will demand more than just information retrieval. Graduates will need the courage to wrestle with ambiguity and challenge their own assumptions skills that machines can’t replicate. In a world of super-technology, the most valuable skills will be the most human ones.
Q: With AI and automation reshaping industries, how does IE University balance technical proficiency with human-centric skills like empathy, ethics, and creativity?
We see AI as a powerful tool, but not a replacement for human judgment, creativity, or ethics; it can be a scaffold, but not a substitute. To make the most of AI, human intellect must come first—imagination to explore alternatives, intellect to frame problems, and an ethical compass to weigh consequences. That’s why IE anchors its programs in the humanities—literature, philosophy, the arts—and emphasizes discussion-based learning. Through debate and diverse perspectives, our students learn to empathize, deliberate, and make decisions under uncertainty. Sure, machines can calculate, but humans can care, inspire, and give meaning.
Can you share how IE University’s use of generative AI is transforming teaching, learning, and institutional operations?
Generative AI is already deeply integrated into teaching and learning at IE University, not just as a tool for efficiency, but as a catalyst for deeper thinking. AI tutors, simulators, and feedback systems are now part of daily academic life. Assignments are designed not to reward AI-generated outputs alone, but to value the reasoning behind them—why students took certain paths, how they questioned AI’s suggestions, and what insights they added. Faculty encourage students to share prompts and engage AI as a reasoning companion rather than a shortcut. The real contribution is not efficiency; it’s the ability to spark reflection.
Incorporating AI wasn’t a strategic mandate from the top down. It happened organically by faculty and staff who are experimenting with new uses of AI. IE has even launched AI Use Case Awards to celebrate and share innovative practices. AI can accelerate learning, but only people—professors, students, and staff—can ensure that acceleration leads to wisdom.
What lessons has IE University learned from implementing immersive technologies like virtual reality (VR) and AI in education, and how scalable are these innovations for other institutions globally?
IE University has found that immersive technologies like VR and AI dramatically enhance experiential learning because they allow students to confront real-world scenarios in safe, simulated environments. Take public speaking as an example. VR has allowed us to recreate situations that were simply impossible to stage in the classroom just a few years ago. Now students can practice addressing a virtual audience of 1,000 people, and we are seeing very positive results.
Our approach focuses not just on the technology itself, but on empowering educators to design meaningful, reflective experiences. Professors lead the creation of VR-based case studies and use them to teach skills like empathy, decision-making, and leadership under pressure. Students can wear VR headsets to simulate climate change’s impact or to explore the inner workings of a factory.
In terms of scalability, many of these resources are already being shared globally through publishing platforms, such as Harvard. And as the cost of immersive technology drops, broader adoption is increasingly feasible. The future of edtech is not built by devices, but by educators—educators empowered to experiment and turn simulations into meaningful human growth. The real key to success lies in faculty creativity and institutional support, not just access to hardware.
What role do universities play in shaping entrepreneurial ecosystems, especially in emerging markets?
IE University plays a critical, hands-on role in building entrepreneurial ecosystems, in Spain and internationally. From its founding, IE was designed not to train managers of existing companies, but to educate leaders capable of creating their own organizations, creating employment and wealth, and being able to distribute it.
Entrepreneurship is embedded across all programs at IE, regardless of discipline. Every student must take a course on entrepreneurship, and for those who want to launch a business, the university offers structured support through resources like the Venture Lab, mentorship, and access to funding.
Our global impact is tangible—in the last 10 years, IE alumni have raised over $10 billion in venture capital, with startups launched across Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Many of our graduates return to their home countries to build startups, becoming catalysts for local innovation. We also actively support governments and ecosystems in emerging markets. Beyond Venture Days, we host startup competitions and entrepreneurship forums worldwide—and consulting engagements in places like Panama, Colombia, Azerbaijan, and Saudi Arabia, all of which help foster local startup ecosystems.
IE has been a pioneer in digital learning for over two decades. What are the next frontiers of edtech that IE is exploring, beyond online and hybrid models?
We envision the classroom of the future not just as a hybrid of online and offline learning, but as a space where technology amplifies possibilities while human imagination gives it direction. This approach goes beyond efficiency and automation; it's about using edtech to foster deeper reflection, empathy, and moral reasoning.
We believe meaningful education comes from dialogue, diverse perspectives, and moral dilemmas, all of which machines cannot replicate. Technology may give us wings, but it is human imagination that decides where we fly. IE University will continue to explore intelligent systems, AI tutors, and immersive platforms, but the true frontier of education isn't technology—it's purpose. The more powerful the technology becomes, the more we need to cherish the value of human connection. IE’s next frontier is not just about scaling tech—but about ensuring that, in the process, humanity remains at the center of learning.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Published in October 2025.
Juan Jose Güemes is Senior Vice President for Strategy and Chaiman Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, focused on fostering the entrepreneurial spirit and creating new business and social projects. In January 2012, he was appointed VP of Economic Affairs at IE. Güemes is also co-Founder and member of the Board of Fundación Creaté, and an early-stage investor focused on FinTech, FoodTech, EdTech, and e-Health startups.
Güemes joined IE Business School in March 2010 as President of the Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Güemes began his career as an analyst at the Bank of Spain in 1991, before serving as Economic Policy Adviser to Spain’s Popular Party in the Spanish Parliament from 1993 to 1996. He later served as advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, who appointed him Deputy Director of his Cabinet in 1998. In the year 2000, Juan Jose Güemes was appointed General Secretary of Tourism, being responsible for the international promotion of Spain as a tourist destination.