Marisa Lazo Corvera, Founder and Director of ‘Pastelerias Marisa’
In this episode, Ashutosh Garg engages in a conversation with Marisa Lazo Corvera, Founder and Director of ‘Pastelerias Marisa’, one of the most prominent baking companies in Mexico. Marisa is a qualified psychotherapist turned entrepreneur.
Podcast
Overview
In this episode, Ashutosh Garg engages in a conversation with Marisa Lazo Corvera, Founder and Director of ‘Pastelerias Marisa’, one of the most prominent baking companies in Mexico. Marisa is a qualified psychotherapist turned entrepreneur.
Maria shares the inspiring story of starting her business from a garage. She shares the three key milestones of her life. She shares her experiences running her business with her children. She talks about ‘Pastelerias Marisa’, the biggest name in the cookie and cake business in the entire Mexico.
Marisa’s success story is as delicious as a cookie. She shares the story of expanding the business to a point where 45,000 cakes are baked every week by 900+ employees. She talks humbly about her overwhelming success as a baker.
Marisa analyzes the challenges startups face describing her case as an example. From a founder’s perspective, she tells what she looks for when hiring a person.
“85 percent of our employees are women”, Marisa says with pride. She talks about her involvement in several charitable foundations. She analyzes the role of millennials and Gen-Z in changing business. Before concluding, the highly successful woman entrepreneur shares her recipe for success.
Profile
MARISA LAZO CORVERA
Despite having studied psychology (with a master’s degree in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy), Marisa was carried away by her passion, desserts. Like many other great entrepreneurs, her story also began in her garage.
Founder and director of Pastelerías Marisa since 1992. It currently has 83 branches, including Pastelería Tía Lola and Dolce Natura, adding a group of 900 collaborators. Her business philosophy is based on seeking to build a business that is of benefit to all who collaborate in it, where they have the opportunity for growth, feel valued, and where they receive much more than a salary. There are programs that dignify their homes, others that support their children with school supplies, as well as a directory with forty private doctors (including child and adult therapists), with whom they can make an appointment whenever they need it, without having to pay for it. This is a benefit the employees can access besides the state Social Welfare. We also have high school within the company and a number of human development courses, as well as skills that allow each employee to grow and be better people.
In the same way, the company is committed to its community; promoting the citizen participation of its collaborators in four different projects, financially supporting more than forty ONGs in the state of Jalisco, and above all giving thousands of cakes each month to the different ONGs that require them to celebrate the birthdays or celebrations of the most needy (e.g. various orphanages, children with cancer, elderly in nursing homes, etc.). This year the company was recognized with the distinction of Socially Responsible Company.
With her optimistic personality, she manages to motivate people who listen to her story, which has led her to participate in local, national and international forums. Marisa also participates in various councils, among which are; DIF Jalisco, TEC de Monterrey, CitiBanamex, Chamber of Commerce, Coparmex, Jalisco Como Vamos, YPO (Young Presidents Organization) at the local and regional level in Latin America, and is a Member of the Commission Anticorruption of the State.
She has received several awards and recognitions, among which are: 2015 ENDEAVOR de México business career, EY Entrepenuer of the year 2016. And she was the first woman to receive the Mercury Business Merit Award 2011 Awarded by the National Chamber of Commerce of Guadalajara.
In a search to have a more positive, organized and far-reaching impact, Fundación Marisa was born in August 2020, with the purpose of laying the foundations for a more just society, where women have equal opportunities to develop the capacities that allow them to transform their living conditions and their environment. And work to diminish the violence against women in the state and country.
