LeaderShe: professional water polo player Mati Ortiz talks about challenges and success in high-performance sport

by Virginia Greco

A new edition of the LeaderShe seminar series has begun with an inspiring talk by Mati Ortiz, a professional water polo player who holds numerous remarkable achievements, including a silver medal at the Olympics.

The ICN2 Equal Opportunities Committee has launched a new edition of LeaderShe, a series of seminar which brings to the ICN2 successful women to share their experience in reaching a leadership position in their professional lives. The first invited speaker of this edition was Mati Ortiz, professional water polo player, who on October 25 gave a talk on ‘Dreams, goals and challenges: the path of high-performance sport’.

In her outstanding career, Otiz has achieved many important sporting results, including the winning of a silver Olimpic Medal (2012), a World Championship (2013), and gold and bronze Medals in European Championships (2014 and 2018), as well as over 50 titles (including 5 European Championships) obtained with her team, the Club Natació Sabadell. All these successes have also earned her the bronze and the silver Royal Order of Sports Merit Medal in 2013 and 2014, respectively.

Leadership presents challenges and aspects that cut across different fields, so first-hand accounts from women who are successful in distinct professions offer a variety of perspectives on a common theme. ‘I had the pleasure of inviting Mati Otiz to speak about her career path, as I believe she is an example of a woman who has achieved extraordinary success in a very competitive and demanding field,’ comments Núria Benítez, Secretary of the ICN2 Equal Opportunity Committee. ‘As I expected, her speech was extremely interesting and deeply inspiring for all of us.’

The full seminar by Mati Otiz is available on the ICN2 Youtube channel here. The talks of the 2021 edition of LeaderShe are also available here.

The next dates in the LeaderShe seminar series are: November 18, with computer scientist Dr Nuria Oliver –cofounder and Director of ELLIS Alicante, Chief Data Scientist at DataPop Alliance, as well first Director of Research in Data Science at Vodafone— and December 20, with philosopher Prof. Marina Garcés –Director of the Master’s Degree Programme in ‘Philosophy for contemporary challenges’ at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC).