Escuela de Empresas USFQ began as a venture of Ana María Novillo Rameix, director of EE-USFQ, together with a friend from USFQ’s Master’s program in Technology Management. The business consisted of giving management seminars open to the public with international professors.

The project gained momentum when Ana María returned to USFQ to create a self-sustaining training area and received the support of its founder, Santiago Gangotena. After six months of legal proceedings, Fundación de Apoyo a la Educación Cicerón was born, a name chosen by Santiago in recognition of the philosophy schools promoted by Cicero.

Freehand drawn by Santiago Gangotena, the logo bears the symbols that distinguish USFQ: the dragons, magical creatures that represent strength and wisdom, and the motto: studium, progressum, labor, which defines our focus on business education.

With only a few months officially in the market, we carried out the first In-company program, together with the multinational company Yanbal. The Balance Scorecard certificate was attended by 50 employees and lasted 40 hours.

It starts offering courses in several areas of study: strategy, marketing and advertising, education and the food industry.

Developed in conjunction with General Motors, we created the “Sales and Service School”, an In-company program that benefited more than 3,400 employees. This initiative arose with the aim of contributing to the professional development of GM talent through training in self-management, communication, customer service, conflict negotiation, consultative selling, among others.

Programs are implemented for close to 10,000 participants in leadership, entrepreneurship, industrial, systems, quality, economics, sales, auditing, agribusiness, taxation, management, marketing, finance, talent, liberal arts and others related to business management.

Together with Volkswagen, we started the first international In-company program, “Training of T4T training instructors”, with the participation of 43 employees from Ecuador, Mexico and Brazil.

Her passion for learning led Ana Maria to obtain a Doctorate in Philosophy, Ph.D., with a specialization in Training & Performance Improvement from Capella University, where she obtained the necessary tools to create a model for organizational and individual performance improvement for all academic programs and talent development projects at Escuela de Empresas called Modelo de Desempeño – MODE.

Thanks to a team committed to contributing to the improvement of professional and business performance in the country, and with 290 programs (open and In-company) delivered; and more than 17,000 graduates, we celebrate 10 years in the market, positioning ourselves as leaders in business education in Ecuador.

After a rigorous accreditation process, we became the only business school in Ecuador to be accredited by the International Accreditors for Continuing Education and Training – IACET, a global organization that accredits the quality and excellence of continuing education programs under ISO standards in professional training; and that allows us to grant Continuing Education Units (CEUs) as a measure of performance and career development in the working world, valid internationally.

As a guarantee of the highest quality standards in business education, EE-USFQ obtains its second international accreditation from the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI), an organization internationally recognized for promoting a systematic, evidence-based approach to performance improvement. The accreditation reinforces our commitment to the growth and development of individuals and organizations.

The Covid-19 pandemic boosted virtuality and with it the resilience of the Escuela de Empresas team. Led by Ana Maria, we created an offer of 100% synchronous virtual programs, with which we positively impacted thousands of professionals nationally and internationally, as was the case of the Guatemalan Federated Sports System.

Escuela de Empresas takes on the great challenge and integrates USFQ’s Master’s in Business Administration (MBA, Marketing and Finance Management) to its portfolio. With the support of the entire team, in its first year of management it achieved a 20% increase in sales.

Our passion and commitment to business education led us to obtain reaccreditation from the International Accreditors for Continuing Education and Training – IACET, which guarantees our quality and academic excellence in continuing education programs.

With only one year of managing the master’s in business, Escuela de Empresas obtains the reaccreditation of the Association of MBAs – AMBA, one of the most prestigious organizations in the world that accredits the academic and professional excellence of MBA programs globally. EE-USFQ becomes part of the select group of 300 universities and business schools in the world to have this recognition for its Master in Business Administration.

With the objective of improving leadership performance, emotional intelligence and the performance of professionals and managers, we launched the first neuro-leadership laboratory in Ecuador that uses neuroscience, state-of-the-art technology and a methodology for the assessment and development of emotional (EQ), social (SQ) and cultural (CQ) intelligence competencies to record the emotions and verbal and non-verbal behavior of the participants.