Travel Diaries: Personal and Professional Networking in Madrid

Despite what you may be reading about the Eurozone crisis, not everyone’s in panic mode. For example, PowerAxle, our IPREX public relations partner in Madrid, seems to be on the up and up.

I had the opportunity to tour PowerAxle’s offices and meet Mayte González-Gil (at right), CEO of PowerAxle, during a return trip to Spain, where I lived for four years until late 2009.

In an old apartment in the center of the city, PowerAxle’s work environment reminded me a lot of ours here in Milwaukee. It’s an open office that allows for constant communication and collaboration. Some of those efforts are put towards clients such as AXA, the French insurance company, Chicco, the Italian baby care brand and Scania, the Swedish automotive company. Working primarily in the B2C sector, PowerAxle specializes in market research reports (many of which are used by various ministries of the Spanish government) as well as brochures and other collateral material.

We had a chance to sit down for la comida, a typical 2 p.m. Spanish lunch (which ended around 4 p.m.) at a lovely place near Plaza Olavide called La Huerta del Duque. We ordered some cheese and ham to start and shared an amazing rice dish (similar to paella) and talked about everything from business to politics to life. We found common ground on what our companies are doing in the digital space and also talked shop in terms of copy writing, design and billing.

Mayte mentioned to me they were looking for a new hire, which I passed on to my friend Juan, who was looking for a job. He’s starting there this week.

It just goes to show there’s nothing stronger than a good network, whether on a global level like IPREX or a simpler level like two friends. So keep up the networking on whatever scale and wherever that may be.