María Porta Ferrer | EEC Alumni Spotlight | April 2026 |

I am a person who lives by passion, curiosity, and a deep love for the path people take to find their meaning.

How did you get into coaching in general? And how did you get into EEC in particular?
The first person who spoke to me about coaching was Fernando Vallejo, who selected me for Globalvia 14 years ago. We no longer work together, but even then he spoke about coaching and the school in a way that made me think: “I want that.”.

What is your passion?
People. I'm passionate about understanding each other, listening to each other, and loving each other. Witnessing daily the challenge of being part of a deeply social species that is also aware of its individuality. Accompanying them in that dance amazes me.

How do you charge your batteries? What gives you energy?
Sometimes talking to other people and other times, the silence of a walk. Being able to hug my parents who are getting older and I'm still incredibly lucky to be able to cuddle them. A conversation with my children where I witness a piece of life's puzzle falling into place for them. Sharing a meal of good pasta and wine downstairs with my husband.

What takes it away from you? How do you deal with it?
Despair. Over time I've realised that it's an emotion I don't handle well. I like Brené Brown's definition of hope, which tells us it's not an emotion but a skill that consists of setting goals, charting paths to achieve them, and believing it's possible to reach them. When one of those legs falls away, I collapse, and I don't like that feeling at all.

What news would you like to hear?
May we find a way to walk hand in hand with technology, emerging stronger and better.

Complete the sentence: Through coaching I learned...
There is a space between what happens and what we do with what happens to us. That space is our freedom.

Which distinction of coaching do you agree with? Why and for what purpose?
Lightness. It is a distinction that has helped me so much. I was coming from a wonderful but excessive intensity. Conquering a gaze from a more present, focused, and less emotionally weighted perspective has given me the possibility to live and accompany from a place with an anchor that now has wheels.

What impact has what you have learned in coaching had on your personal and professional life?
Gigantic. It was a process in which I learned to chisel myself, to discard excess plaster that didn't benefit me, and to decide who I was going to be from that moment on, and for what and for whom. Coaching has helped me to shed unnecessary baggage and to understand and connect more deeply and presently in all my roles.

How and with whom do you currently apply coaching?
In my work it's a very important tool: in interviews, appraisal or follow-up meetings, analysing the results of climate surveys, in development conversations. The question becomes a fundamental tool that opens new paths. And also in my personal life: now I can talk from different perspectives.

What would you say to someone considering training in coaching?
Let him do it, let him go all in, let him agree to be stripped bare and barefoot in front of his beliefs, let him give himself the chance to choose himself and choose to be going forward. I would tell him yes, without hesitation.

What has been your greatest achievement?
To dare to accept all the colours and smells of life.

What is your biggest challenge?
Navigating uncertainty, conquering the present by accepting thoughts as if they were clouds that come and go, allowing none of them to fully define me. Being rather than existing.

What mistake have you learned the most from?
To believe one is in possession of the truth. I have learned the importance of narrative, of system, and of distinctions, and that has helped me to realise that I only have one truth: mine.

Complete the sentence: I would like to...
Continue my life by inviting people to dance through conversations so that each person becomes what they wish.

Complete the sentence: I never thought that...
I would conquer life wherever I went, that I would come to understand that I could build and dismantle my home wherever I went.

What is success for you?
A conversation where there's a possibility of changing one's mind.

Is there anything else you would like to add?
Thank you for giving me the opportunity.