The Entrepreneur Program, promoted by Philip Morris and designed by the University of Extremadura (UEx), begins its seventh edition with the clear and firm commitment to employ an innovative approach, in a context marked by the future opportunities and challenges of a key sector for Extremadura that is progressing towards smokeless tobacco.
The directors of this 7th edition, Ricardo Hernández Mogollón and Antonio Fernández Portillo, both professors at the Faculty of Business, Finance and Tourism, have developed new contents with innovative formats for this Entrepreneur Program “Innova Edition”. It isa comprehensive program of sessions that aims to inspire and cause reflection and debate, when dealing with more than 20 real current live local cases, explained by the main characters.
According to the directors of the Program, “we seek to inspire the participants in this new edition, to encourage them to look beyond, and to complete the work carried out during previous editions on entrepreneurial skills with the experience of others, personal reflection, and joint debate, on the basis of real cases and new perspectives and opportunities. Hernández Mogollón considers that this “Innova Edition” approach is “a unique opportunity to deal with the transformation of the sector, improving its management capacities with innovative and digital tools, through practical and inspiring sessions that may push the sector to tackle the new domains from its individual decisions, as well as from those jointly taken, in benefit of the tobacco sector”.
This edition is addressed to students who have already participated in past editions, as well as to new candidates coming from the tobacco growing industry. In order to participate in this new edition, proactive candidates that are committed to the future of tobacco, have an entrepreneurial mindset, and believe in continual improvement as the key to forge ahead in the sector, are sought.
In turn, Javier Figaredo, the Director of Corporate Affairs of Philip Morris in Spain, points out that “weare facing a moment of absolute transformation as a company and as a sector working on smokeless tobacco products; those who won’t support 21st century tobacco will be left behind”. “With initiatives such as the Entrepreneur Program, our ambition is to look towards the future of tobacco together, decisively working from the stand of innovation, which is the only way to achieve the sustainability of our sector”, Figaredo concludes.
The training program will begin at the end of November, lasting a total of 120 hours, where two weekly sessions will take place at the Campus of Cáceres of the University of Extremadura, and at the facilities of the European and Ibero-America Academy of Yuste Foundation in Cuacos de Yuste.
