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With more than 700 professors, including 175 permanent professors-researchers, IÉSEG offers to its students a high-quality learning experience, based on 4 key elements: an active, interdisciplinary learning process, focused on the acquisition of competencies, offered through customized curricula.

Each month, “Faculty in the spotlight” invites you to meet one of the School’s professors who presents their vision of teaching, their methods for transmitting their expertise and passion to students and shares their best memories and stories at IÉSEG.

This month, we are meeting Miguel Vega Pérez, Professor of Accounting at IÉSEG.

Miguel, what is your background?

I graduated in Business Administration from the University of Barcelona, and then I worked for 4 years as Accountant in a company. After that, I moved to Scotland and I got my second Bachelor’s degree in Accounting before pursuing a Master’s in Strategic Financial Management, an essential and strategic matter for any company. During that period, I also worked full-time in different managerial positions. Then, I realized that the pedagogical side and the research pleased me a lot, and I decided to continue with a PhD in Ireland. I got my PhD in Management Accounting at the National University of Ireland in Galway, and I started teaching there, before moving to France and joining IÉSEG.

What course(s) do you teach at IÉSEG? Could you explain it in a few words?

What I teach is basically Accounting topics. Broadly, in Accounting, you have two different fields. One of them is Financial Accounting, which is the analysis of the reports on your balance sheet , income statement, etc. The second specialization is Management Accounting where you put together Management and Accounting through the analysis of financial and non-financial information to help organizational managers in their decision-making. My courses are focused on Management Accounting. For instance, it helps to know which department in a company is profitable or not by calculating what the cost of a product should be, its margin and its selling price. We can also calculate which kind of clients are profitable or not, etc.

How has the teaching of your course evolved over time?

My teaching has evolved with the profession itself. One of the main differences we can notice between the Management Accountant from before and today is the role it now plays in the organization. In the past, Management Accountants used to have their own office, working alone, dealing with numbers and the Financial team. Nowadays, they need to understand how the different parts of the organization work altogether. They need to understand the business models of the company, its marketing side, the production aspects… because all these decision-making activities are now interconnected within the different departments.

In my way of teaching, I have always tried to keep everything very simple. Management Accounting can be very technical as you need to know the terminology and understand the logics of Accounting. So, I use practical examples that my students can understand, from companies like Tesla or Apple. They learn about the issues that Tesla has with electric cars, or the problems that Apple face with their iPhones. The technical part can be then easily assimilated using practical examples.

As my profile is somewhat hybrid since I worked for more than ten years in managerial and accounting roles in Small & Medium Enterprises, I can understand quite well the challenges and practical expectations of managers, especially middle managers. I always try to find a very clear and practical example of a manager’s job and use it in my classroom to illustrate what I currently teach.

Why did you choose IÉSEG?

During my PhD, I had been following the evolution of the School and I could see that it was very young, very dynamic and clearly on the wave going up through the rankings and many other things. I could also see that this would be the right place since the school was attracting other young talents to start their career in academia: IÉSEG had many things to offer me!

How do you integrate the Vision “Empowering Changemakers for a Better Society”?

When you teach Accounting, you can easily show people how to become a changemaker within a company. For me, it is important to convey this idea to our students, and that’s why I so much use case studies in my pedagogical approach. At IÉSEG, I had the opportunity to learn how to write and teach case studies. Some of them are fictional but many are based on real-life stories covering topics such as electric cars (Dyson), bricolage companies (Castorama, Leroy Merlin), hospitality industry (Accor), airlines (La Compagnie), etc.

Our students need to learn to think more deeply! They have already learnt the basic required skills, but now they need to improve their analyses and interpretations of the different choices, the impact of transforming a business model through CSR actions or sustainable transformations, etc. They need to understand which accounting results/methods they can rely on to be able to defend their point of view, their convictions, etc. That, I think, is the value and the change that they can bring to the companies.

According to your students, what are your strengths as a teacher?

I think what they appreciate a lot is that I’m a very dynamic person in class. I cannot stay sitting down on my chair. I like to move around and test them all the time by asking questions, to make sure everything is well understood. I try to use many real examples from different sectors and different companies to explain the same topic from different angles. What I have also improved is the way of providing feedback. I became very efficient in giving feedback, having my own template to deliver it. My feedback is around two minutes, very straight to the point, explaining the strengths and the weaknesses, and I think the students appreciate that I’m very clear on the message I want to give to them.

What differences have you noticed between your teaching experience abroad and in France?

First, I knew that IÉSEG was very international, but I really didn’t expect the School to be that international when I came here! A very clear example is that the language of communication at the School is English, you can survive here not even speaking a word of French! And we have so many different nationalities in our department, it’s just great. But the main difference is the size of the classrooms. When I was in Ireland, I was teaching in front of 200 students, so I hardly had any contact with my students because there were far too many. Attendance was not compulsory, they were not asking questions… At IÉSEG, classrooms are much smaller, and it is a real added value compared to other institutions. This is very good for students and teachers from the pedagogical point of view but it’s also very challenging for us teachers: I have a high level of exposure, I need to be very well prepared when I come to class because students might ask many questions, etc. I can even say that here at IÉSEG, we have very talented students that always go the extra mile and want to know always more, and that’s very gratifying for us teachers to see the students’ commitment.

What are your best memories so far at IÉSEG?

Well, my best memories with students are related to when I supervise them in their thesis. This is an exercise I take very seriously. I like to meet them frequently, sometimes I can have 8 or 9 meetings during the entire semester because I want to make sure they have no problems during the process… I want to know even if they have a personal problem because it really affects their performance during the thesis semester. During the sanitary crisis, I had a student that had certain personal difficulties, and I really tried to support and motivate her to complete her thesis on due time. I’m very proud of the efforts she made and I was very happy because she validate the thesis with flying colours. I really like to stick close to the students, it’s important both for them and me, and at the end they really appreciate all the mentoring effort that I have done, it’s a special reward!

How has the School evolved since you arrived?

I have clearly seen the School change since I’ve arrived. For instance, when I was the Course Coordinator for Performance Management in 2017, we had around 650 students, and three years later we had almost 1,000 students… which also means a massive increase in the number of professors, infrastructures, etc. The new campus over here is also another proof of change. The visibility of the School has also improved: we hire more international and high-profile professors, our research is more visible, and we are now able to compete against other organizations and institutions that have been in the game for a very long time. I joined IÉSEG because I had the feeling, at that time, that it was on the wave going up, and 6 years later I can only say I was clearly right and I’m very proud to be part of the community!

Outside of class, how do you participate in the life of the School?

For a year, I acted as the “Audit & Control” Track Coordinator. It was a challenging job because you are the mediator between the team of professors and the large pool of students. You’re the one who communicates with the administration and the top Management. It may be a little bit stressful sometimes, especially at the end of semesters, but it’s globally a gratifying experience that really helps to have a good overview of the School in general.

I’m also looking forward to organizing events with my colleagues, I really miss that! When I joined IÉSEG, a karting event was organized with other professors and staff members of the School and I keep a very nice memory of that day because it was a great opportunity to meet all kinds of people in a very nice atmosphere. We had a great mixture of nationalities, great food… A great time!