Get to know Karla Imbert!
Karla Imbert is a lecturer at ESBS (Madrid) in our Bachelor and Global programmes – she teaches Product Design and Branding (surfing), WordPress Design, and Digital Business and Media Strategy.
Karla also works for the brand Roxy as the responsible for international video campaigns, in addition to offering consultancy services to brands such as Adobe.
We welcome you to watch her amazing interview with us down below or read the transcript – thank you for all your work, Karla! 😊
ESBS: Hi, Karla! Could you introduce yourself?
Karla: Hello, my name is Karla Imbert. I manage all the global video campaigns for the surf brand Roxy and currently I also work as a freelance consultant for different brands such as Adobe managing creative projects. Within the university I teach Web Design with WordPress, Digital Business, and Product Branding, specifically in the surf industry.
ESBS: We know that you have a very creative and, at the same time, varied background: what are the skills that have served you most in your career? And the area or aspect you have enjoyed the most?
Karla: From the beginning, I think the first thing in my career has always been curiosity. Curiosity and trying to be self-taught in many of the things I was interested in in order to be able to train in them, such as digital product design, content creation and the whole audiovisual world in particular.
And well, I think that curiosity and having the desire to do things and having that restlessness inside has been the key for me to be here today. The area or aspect that I have most enjoyed in my career… I think that when I most enjoy it is when I am creating, because that is when, like all the skills I have been acquiring, they really become tangible to give rise to the creation of a new concept and it can be in various fields, from the design of a digital product to the conceptualisation of a service or a new product. So anything that creates this kind of discipline or excitement is what I enjoy the most.
ESBS: From your experience and perspective, what is the relation between creativity and strategy?
Karla: I think that the strategy is perhaps the tangibility to reach a specific objective, but creativity is what will differentiate us from the rest. Creativity is where we can go further, we can experiment and we can demonstrate perhaps a capacity to come up with new concepts that in the end increase the impact of the strategy that we have been able to have a lot more. And besides, for me, the creative part is definitely the most fun and the one that sticks in people’s minds the most.
Of course, within the classes I have set up, they are extremely practical. They are working on theory, but then they have the opportunity to at the same time, in situ, it’s like I give you a piece of theory, but at the same time within your team you have to apply it, because that’s the way they have to make that new knowledge tangible. And also, practically everything I teach always has a touch of creativity in it because it is inherent in me and because, as I said, I place great value on it.
ESBS: Why would you say it is important for future professionals in the sports industry to develop creativity?
Karla: You can be a good professional, you can be wonderful in terms of strategy development, but the creative environment is something that allows you to differentiate yourself a lot in any industry. And it also seems to me that it is one of the most valuable and perhaps one of the most sought-after talents as well.
ESBS: What main idea or concept would you like students to take away from your classes?
Karla: I think the most important thing or I think the most value that I feel I am bringing to them is if they come out of my classes and they have like a new approach to how they approach the different challenges that they encounter. Not only because we always put a lot of emphasis on having the user in the middle when designing things, but also because once again creativity is part of every step of the way.
I think it would be those two things, like having those two things always very present. In the end we design for users. And then also, I would love them to take with them the restlessness of wanting to keep learning and wanting to keep discovering and always go one step further.
