María Morfín-Gutiérrez: a remarkable entrepreneurial path

March 30, 2017

Full-time Lecturer María Morfín-Gutiérrez (International Business) has won the award for remarkable entrepreneurship, in the Premio Yucatán al Emprendedor 2016 competition held by the Instituto Yucateco de Emprendedores (IYEM), of Mexico. She was presented with this award by the Governor of Yucatán, Rolando Zapata Bello, on March 23, in recognition of her significant contribution to social entrepreneurship in this region and abroad.  

This is by no means the first distinction she has received. In 2014, she won the award for a socially engaged professional from the Chambre de commerce latino-américaine du Québec (CCLAQ) as part of its entrepreneurship contest, for her exceptional contribution to education in the field of international business in Quebec and Latin America. And in 2016, the Instituto Tecnológico de Mérida honoured her for her international professional achievements. She even has a library named after her, which opened in September 2016, in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

 Ms. Morfín-Gutiérrez holds a PhD from the Université de Paris X Nanterre. She heads up the Certificat en affaires internationales program at HEC Montréal, after working for many years in international trade for small and large companies in at least six countries. In 2013, she co-founded an organization named Educafrika’s Children and, in 2015, Ma Première Bibliothèque. As part of this latter project, in fact, she organized a book drive in 2015 in partnership with the Myriam and J. Robert Ouimet library at HEC Montréal that collected close to 3,000 books. 

In addition to her long-time support for other humanitarian projects in the field of education worldwide, especially for children, she is currently assisting small businesses, including an artisan cooperative in the village of Dzitya, in Mexico.