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Andrea Macarie

International Speaker | Trainer | Consultant

Andrea Macarie
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International Speaker | Trainer | Consultant

Andrea Macarie is the former Business Manager to the founding CEO of Telefonica Alpha, Europe’s first moonshot factory created by Telefonica to address some of the world’s biggest and most intractable challenges, by conceiving and delivering radical solutions and breakthrough technology.

Andrea is a broad generalist with a passion for creative problem solving, building high performing teams & setting up agile processes. Andrea holds a BA in Translation and Interpreting, a Postgraduate diploma in Marketing and is a proud facilitator of Oxford Leadership’s Self Managing Leadership programme at the Telefonica corporate university.

Born and raised in Transylvania in a multilingual family, Andrea is fluent in 5 languages; she has lived in the Barcelona metropolitan area since 2005. Andrea writes and talks about a variety of topics she has formal training and/or practical experience in, such as: innovation, digital marketing, agile methodologies, design thinking, corporate culture, change management, and self-leadership.

 

  • Design Thinking: The Innovative Assistant’s Tool for Agile Processes

    We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them ~ Albert Einstein.

    Disruptive megatrends force companies to rethink the traditional approaches. Design Thinking is a human-centered and needsdriven
    problem-solving methodology, whichhelps uncover unarticulated needs.

    In this session, we will learn what Design Thinking is, become familiar with some of the most well-known methodologies, understand why it is useful (not just cool), see examples of companies that successfully applied it to become more agile and productive, and finally the skills needed in Design Thinking that assistants possess.

    Assistants are often asked to help improve processes and, in fact, many of them already use Design Thinking methodologies intuitively.

  • The Game-Changing Assistant: Being an EA in the digital age

    Key aspects covered:

    • Innovation distinguishes between a reactive and a proactive Assistant
    • AI as an enabler for human Assistants to become strategic business partners
    • Leading yourself through change
    • The importance of training and development

     

    In this session, we will discuss the future of our profession in the context of organizational change and technological advances. Most of us have tested several AI assistants by now and I believe we should not feel threatened by technology but embrace it as a way to work smarter. AI assistants are content-based and, as we know, our role involves much more; context, social and emotional intelligence add real value and place us as strategic business partners to our executives.

    We will brainstorm on how future-proof our jobs are by analyzing which tasks can be automated in order to create space for the ones that require intuition, creativity, trial and error; these make us unique & game-changing and help us to remain relevant in the future.

    I encourage all Assistants to see change as an opportunity and technology as an enabler to unleash their potential and become the best version of themselves.

  • Learn to Change, Change to Learn: The path to becoming a Business Partner

    Key aspects covered:

    • Understand organizational change and how it impacts our role
    • Know and lead ourselves as 21st century EA business partners

     

    According to recent studies published by world-renowned consultancy firms, in the last decade organizational change has become a permanent feature in the corporate landscape. Our brains, most of the times on a cozy autopilot, struggle to cope with the transition this process involves.

    In this interactive session, we will see organizational change from a different angle, embracing the opportunities it brings for our professional growth towards a business partner role. It all starts with us: to influence and lead others, we need to understand and lead ourselves first.

    Self-leadership enables us to cope with stress, tackle difficult conversations and be more self-aware and self-confident. We will connect the dots between past, present and future through a series of thought-provoking activities.

  • The Alch{EA}mist: Corporate culture in the digital age

    Key aspects covered:

    • Challenges of corporate culture in the digital age and best-in-class cultures
    • Assistants, a prominent role in corporate culture: the glue that holds things together
    • Busting silos and promoting cross-functional collaboration
    • The power of culture transformation

     

    Mix the right ingredients and you will create an eau de parfum; mix the wrong ones and you might end up with a bomb. Welcome to the fascinating world of chemistry!

    Companies work in the same way: the adequate combination of talent and culture is the basis of a healthy and high performing team, as opposed to brilliant professionals unable to work with one another.

    In this interactive session, we will discuss about best-in-class cultures, the challenges in the digital age and how we as Assistants can help bust silos and promote cross-functional and cross-departmental collaboration.

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