An entrepreneur with career success and a heartbreaking personal tragedy will talk about both in a lecture about resilience and optimism. Eduardo Fernandez, a 2003 graduate of the Vanderbilt School of Engineering and managing director of Grupo Ayucus, will deliver the spring 2025 Chambers Family Entrepreneurial Lecture, a semi-annual lecture series in the school that is endowed by the Chambers Medical Foundation.
The lecture—”Resilience and Optimism: It’s the Difference Between Entrepreneurs Who Thrive and Those Who Falter”—is scheduled for Thursday, March 20, at 4:15 p.m. in Vanderbilt’s Stevenson Center, room 5326. It is open to the public. A reception will follow the lecture.
Fernandez earned an MBA in 2010 from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He began a career in banking, first at HSBC and then at Credit Suisse in the Latin America group. Then, he launched a private equity fund with a childhood friend. In 2013, Fernandez returned to Central America to join an agro-industrial group in the region and is now managing director of Grupo Ayucus.
“In entrepreneurship, resilience means understanding that failure is not a reflection of your worth—it’s a feedback loop for the model of reality you have in your mind. Every failure teaches you something valuable,” Fernandez said.
In 2022, the Fernandez family suffered a tragedy when they lost their toddler son in a drowning accident.
“That experience, though heartbreaking, shaped my perspective on resilience, the power of focusing on what truly matters, and what you can control,” Fernandez said. “Optimism, on the other hand, is the motive force that keeps pushing you ahead. It’s not about ignoring reality or pretending everything is fine when it isn’t. It’s about believing that solutions exist—and that you have the power to find them.”
Fernandez says resilience and optimism are not just tools for surviving the entrepreneurial journey—they’re tools for progressing through life.
The School of Engineering’s Chambers Family Entrepreneurial Lectureship was endowed in 2014 by the Chambers Medical Foundation. The lectureship encourages entrepreneurial activity among engineering students and throughout the Vanderbilt community by inviting successful business leaders to share their experiences.
Contact: brenda.ellis@vanderbilt.edu