Global Business Professor’s latest audio interview, “Intercultural Business Skills in Mexico,” features Maria Garaitonandia, senior consultant at Berlitz.
In the 18-minute audio interview, Garaitonandia discusses and answers these questions:
- What would be the most important elements to consider when doing business with Mexicans?
- How does the importance of building relationships impact planning and decision-making in Mexico?
- What is an example of face-saving in a business interaction?
- How time is perceived in the Mexican business environment?
Garaitonandia specializes in global leadership development training and coaching. She has more than 20 years of business and senior management experience with clients in both the U.S. and Latin America. Maria has experience as an expat entrepreneur establishing her own consulting firm in Mexico, offering services such as cross-cultural training and coaching for expats and families, global team management, diversity and inclusion, and leadership business competencies.
Among recent projects, Garaitonandia has been working with Banco Santander, designing and facilitating leadership skills workshops as part of its employee development program. She also has been involved in leadership skills and agility with Roche in Latin America. She was certified by Up Your Service College in Singapore and provided service excellence training to close to 1,000 employees at Nokia from 2009 to 2011.
Garaitonandia has worked extensively in Latin America facilitating courses, such as service excellence, coaching in the moment, presentation skills, effective communication, time management, negotiation skills, conflict management and teamwork. Some of the other clients she has served with intercultural skills solutions are Mabe, Holcim-Apasco, Pernod-Ricard, Banco Santander, Philips and Philip Morris.
She was a professor at Monterrey Tec University, Cuernavaca Campus in Mexico from 1999 to 2008, teaching courses such as intercultural communication, international negotiation, Mexican business management and doing business in the global marketplace. She also coordinated the Cross-Cultural Internet Project (CCIP) there, which provided a virtual setting for cross-cultural teamwork among university students around the globe. Garaitonandia has published articles in Business Mexico and Corporate Relocation News on intercultural management and has done some benchmarking research on diversity in Mexico.
Garaitonandia holds a Bachelor of Arts in international relations and a certificate in Latin American Studies from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and a Master of Science in management and organizational development from Alliant International University in Mexico City. She is certified in various instruments such as the DISC, SDI and COI evaluation tools.
She also has an Intercultural Foundations Certification from the Summer Institute of Intercultural Communication (SIIC) in Portland, Oregon. She is a Coach U graduate and member of the Global Coaches Network. Garaitonandia is fluent and trains in English, Spanish and Portuguese, and is conversant in French and Italian. She is Cuban-American and has lived in Italy, Puerto Rico and Mexico and currently resides in Miami, Florida.
