Cristina Helguera Sánchez

I like to start by telling my personal side. I am married and a mother of three young children, my last two twins currently two years old, who have been strengthening and challenging my multitasking skills and patience in equal parts.

I studied Architecture at the Polytechnic University of Madrid. I chose this career because of the combination of interests that I was equally passionate about: physics, structures, mathematics, drawing, creativity? I enjoyed and suffered in equal measure the career, with many sleepless nights that nevertheless passed quickly and turned into mornings of many nerves for the presentation of projects.

I lived in Germany and spent time in India, broadening my perspective. I complemented my studies with a master’s degree at IE, after which I joined a strategic consulting firm where I continued with many sleepless nights but where I learned a lot about projects, that everything is easier in a team and I understood different sectors (banking, insurance, telecommunications, industry, retail…). Those were intense but very valuable years. Subsequently, I joined Telefónica, where I have spent the last 10 years practically all of them in the Corporate Strategy and Strategy and Finance team in Latin America.

I am always asked how an architect ends up working at Telefónica, and the truth is that I think my studies and past experiences were key. In my degree I developed skills and muscle in tackling diverse projects in which it was necessary to understand the need, propose options and draw solutions; and in consultancy I faced more of the same, every 2-3 months we had new projects that involved a change of sector, client and team, which gave me the opportunity and capacity to face the blank page without fear. In Telefónica, from the strategy and finance teams, we face challenges with that approach, understanding the context, the opportunities and risks, our options and proposing solutions.