Ignacio Manrique de Lara

Ignacio Manrique de Lara

Marketing Director of BeeDigital

Ignacio has a solid background in Leading IT multinational companies, with deep knowledge and understanding of the Digital Business Models, Managed Hosting, Cloud, CDN, Online Marketing technologies, Cybersecurity and Strategy. He has a direct management experience in the areas of Product Management and agile development, operations, project management, finance, sales, marketing, customer success, human resources, and strategy. He also has a solid Financial background with experience in Budgeting, Financial Control, and M&A. After being named director of Alliance and Partnershipas at BeeDigital in September 2018, he became Marketing Director of BeeDigital in April 2019.

Now, meet the B-side!

Q. Is there something that you like to do every day? Do you have a kind of morning routine to get your day started? 

Well it is true that the pandemic has changed everything is for me the routine is to the meeting I have with the CEO every day at 8:45. That’s the way my day starts. But, in the end, this teleworking is really stressful. So in the end what I try to do every day is kind of find the right balance between work and family because especially with these times of pandemic. It’s been sometimes very stressful because you are connected all the time meeting after meeting so it’s a challenge.

Q. Did you use the pandemic to start new hobbies or to deep dive into previous hobbies? 

It’s more than new hobbies. It’s more on the ones that I already had. It is true that I love cooking, so I did some cooking. That was the challenge, not to gain too much weight, but that was one thing. You cannot do any other thing. I’m watching series. Those are the things that I put more focus on in my free time doing independently.

Q. You mentioned cooking, so what’s your favorite cuisine? 

Well, I do a lot of Spanish Cuisine. My wife is from Galicia, from the north of Spain, and my mother-in-law has taught us a lot of recipes. So I cook here with that style a lot. And that’s a lot of fish seafoods that is their specialty and the one thing that everybody here in Spain does is to make a good rice on the weekend, a paella. I am not from Valencia, where the paella experts are, but I get a good rice going. 

Q. If you were to have dinner with anyone, living or dead, who would that be?

Well, if it’s one person, I would pick, and I’ve been thinking about that, but the one person that I really like is Rafa Nadal, he a tennis player. He is really amazing as a tennis player and as a person and has a lot of values. If I could invite someone else, then it will be Federer with him. So that would be an amazing dinner. Nadal and Federer and talk about what they have achieved, I would love that.  I love tennis and I play tennis so that’s wonderful. 

Q. Do you have other sport hobbies that you like? 

Yes, I play golf nowadays, so that’s better than tennis in a way and I like a lot walking. We go out every weekend to walk in the mountains, close to Madrid or parks and that’s my main activity, being outside for me is great. 

Q. Do you have a favorite type of music that you like to listen to? 

Well, actually, this year, we will not during the pandemic. But in the last months, we’ve been going out a lot to concerts and the opera. We do these two things, I like musicals and I like both classical kinds of music and we go to the Opera House here in Madrid. But one thing that might be a surprise to see here in the B-Side is that, you see me now with little hair, but in my younger years I had long hair and I was a really heavy metal fan. So this is probably something that would make someone smile. 

Q. What was your first first non-desk job? 

My first job was, I was delivering food for a catering company. And I had a really old and small car and I went to all over Madrid’s, delivering food to finding new places at that time we didn’t have a GPS us now so finding some business was challenging, sometimes it’s stressful. 

Q. Do you have a favorite book or type of book that you like to read when you have time?

Yes, if I have to think about books, my favorite, I have many writers that I really like. If I had to choose one I’d probably would choose Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Colombian writer that wrote 100 Years of Solitude, Love in the times of Cholera, I think I’ve read all of his books.  And that’s something that I tried to pass along to my kids.  Another Spanish I’ve been reading in the past years is Javier Cercas he wrote a really impressive book about the Spanish coup in 1991, and that was a really, really good book. And then, when I want to read something by the seaside I take lighter bestsellers.  

Q. What message would you like to give to Siinda partners and members?

Yes. I think that to keep up with this is the co-operation spirit. I think that we must be proud to be part of an industry that is going through a really big transformation. And that has right now, especially with the pandemics, an important role in the transformation of the SMEs. So I think that we’re doing something that counts and that can make a difference. And I would say to everyone to take care in these complicated days and I look forward to seeing everybody in Berlin.