Meet our 12 Inspirational Women Leading Business Education 2024

Camelia Ilie is an entrepreneurial leader with over 25 years of experience across Europe, Latin America, and the USA. She is the Dean of Strategy and Institutional Affairs and a Professor at INCAE, a leading business school in Latin America.

With high-performance teams in top academic institutions, she led the transformation of their executive education business model by focusing on developing future competencies and skills and successfully launched a start-up in online education, profitable from the first year. She also leads programs and works with international corporations in corporate governance, leadership and change programs.

She has developed the ability to work in multicultural groups with a global perspective. Her strengths are developing high-performance teams and dealing with complexity, strategy, innovation, and trends analysis to identify opportunities and anticipate change. She contributes to the “Perspectives in time of change” column of LaRevista, The Harvard Review for Latin America, and writes about corporate governance, higher education, women’s entrepreneurship, and leadership and change.  

Camelia has received the Women of the Decade Award in Education and Leadership from the Women Economic Forum and was featured in Forbes Magazine’s list of the Top 100 most powerful women in Central America and the Caribbean.

Beyond your qualifications, what qualities do you believe have helped you in your career journey to the role you hold now?

I’ve always been curious and enjoy learning, studying, and exploring new aspects of life. I am particularly interested in discovering new cultures and immersing myself in art as a lifelong learning experience. I have never been afraid to face a new challenge, confident that I will learn how to tackle it creatively by drawing inspiration from the other fields I have explored.

“I have never been afraid to face a new challenge, confident that I will learn how to tackle it creatively by drawing inspiration from the other fields I have explored.”

– Camelia Ilie Cardoza

Also, some consider perfectionism a hurdle. I don’t think we should aspire less – on the contrary, I strongly believe that for a top institution or a professional that today competes globally, to create something truly outstanding and innovative, striving for the highest standards in everything we do should become a habit.

Gender parity in business education – and business – is a far more possible reality than it once was, but progress is still slow. What more do you think needs to be done to make such aims achievable?

We require more support from external accreditation institutions to ensure greater accountability towards organisational design, structure, and policies that evaluate competencies and contributions based on individual development plans.

Additionally, case studies and increased visibility of women in leadership and faculty roles can help create inspiring role models. By sharing their history and impact, we can develop trust and a natural eagerness to include more women in various roles within academia.

What do you love about your work?

I love the autonomy to create and innovate, engage with students, and meet graduates in unexpected places who share how much the school, program, and professors transformed their lives. Mentoring young executives to become exceptional leaders, fostering great teams, working with them, and developing new areas and programs were some of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had in all the schools and countries I’ve worked with.

As a professor, I am committed to being a lifelong learner, and given my passion for learning, I feel privileged to have a job like this.

What do you read or view for ideas and inspiration?

I am a passionate reader who started exploring the world of classical literature at a very young age. With time, I diversified my reading into business, leadership, technology, and pedagogy, which helped me with my doctorate, teaching, and leading new projects in our industry.

In recent years, I have immersed myself more in psychology, focusing on the Jungian perspective of the human journey toward individuation and finding our purpose. I have also pursued Chinese painting and watercolour for many years under the guidance of great professors. The beauty, minimalism, and ambiance of this art form helped me add new perspectives to the fast pace of disruptions happening in the education and business world.

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