In this episode, guest María Roa joins host Simon Hodgkins. María is an enthusiastic marketing professional specializing in events and communications with over 17 years of experience. She has worked across B2C and B2B companies such as GRUPO PRISA, the global leader in Communication Media in Spanish, and SModa Magazine. Maria has in-depth knowledge of managing a 360º marketing strategy, including rebranding, customer engagement, funnel creation, and brand awareness. She also has expertise in artificial intelligence and the customer relationship management industry.

María works as a Marketing Communications, Global Events Manager, and a new additional host of VistaTalks. She recently hosted our special VistaTalks episode for International Women’s Day, with Women in Localization founders Anna Schlegel, Silvia Avary, and Eva Klaudinyova. They joined María to discuss diversity and inclusion, empowering women, and localization. María Roa will be hosting future episodes in addition to the Founder and host of VistaTalks, Simon Hodgkins.

We cover María’s experience working on both the agency and client-side of marketing and how this became beneficial. María shares her interest and passion for events and event management and explains how the last number of years have impacted events for people worldwide. She describes how she wanted to be able to work with different brands during her career and how she has transitioned between media, PR, events, and of course, the localization industry.

We discuss the topic of remote working, particularly from an event management perspective, and how many events have had to become postponed, operate in a hybrid model, or have moved entirely online for many companies over the last few years. María shares her views on remote working from Madrid and how we see more events, going back to in-person or hybrid. 

María believes that a career in marketing is like a big university with infinite doors that you can open every day.