Fairygodboss Radio: Beatriz Jaén Caparrós, Director of People Systems, Booking.com

About the Episode

In this episode of Fairygodboss Radio, we sit down with Beatriz Jaén Caparrós, Director of People Systems at Booking.com. Beatriz reflects on a turning point in her career, realizing her passion for international work and the importance of cultural understanding. She also highlights two key female mentors who shaped her career and helped her navigate challenges in a male-dominated industry. Beatriz opens up about the power of vulnerability—stressing that it’s a source of strength, not weakness—and encourages others to embrace vulnerability in their personal and professional lives.

She shares valuable lessons learned, including the importance of accepting what’s out of your control and focusing on how you respond to life’s challenges. Beatriz also talks about strategies for managing work-life balance and the importance of not striving for perfection but embracing “good enough.”

Listen to the full conversation above. We also provide a transcript of this exciting discussion in the following article.

Fairygodboss is proud to partner with Booking.com. Find a job there today!

About the Guest

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós is an engineering graduate from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. From a very young age, she was curious about life’s “what ifs,” which has translated into excitement and appreciation for the new and what is yet to come.

Her first job opportunity as an engineer was in the field of human resources management. This experience opened her eyes to possibilities of the the corporate world, including using technology as a key tool to help people grow within companies.

It has always been her goal to work with people from other cultures and she has been able to do so in brilliant São Paulo, elegant Buenos Aires, the 38th floor of the O2 Tower in Munich, Lowlands, Midlands, and Highlands in the UK...and now Amsterdam!

She’s open and eager to share her experiences and lessons learned from her previous professional opportunities including HRIS in the SaaS Tier 1 space, best-of-breed solutions for specific problems, machine learning, and RPAs efficiency projects. She’s also worked on data-driven approaches from data provisioning to predictive analytics and lately, use cases powered by Gen AI.

She has two great passions—one is books. Fortunately for the planet, ebooks exist, and Bea was an early adopter of the format. But she still actively seeks out some physical copies. Her other passion is spending time with family, both constructed and chosen, and the people who are most important to her.

Episode Transcript

Gabi Carachilo: Hello and welcome to Fairygodboss Radio. I’m Gabi Carachilo, Vice President of Client Operations, and I am thrilled to be joined today by Beatriz Jaén Caparrós. She is with Booking.com. Thank you so much for being here with us today.

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós: Thanks to you, Gabi. Thank you for inviting me.

Gabi Carachilo: We are thrilled to have you. And I’d love to begin with just quick introductions. Could you please tell us a bit about you and your role at Booking.com?

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós: Yeah, so I joined Booking a year ago. I’m taking care of people, technology, and data landscape inside the company.

Gabi Carachilo: That’s great. And I’d love to learn a bit about your career journey. So before you joined Booking.com, could you tell us a bit more about how you got to where you are today in the role that you’re serving in?

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós: Yeah, and it’s a very interesting conversation because as a background, I am an agronomic engineer. Nothing to do with that. So my specialty is crops, how to make more effective crops, but when I was at the university, I was having the need to earn some money. So I joined the program on programming that was offered by the government to work in some companies. And since then I have started my career doing coding. So I am the perfect example that anybody can do whatever they want, if they want to, because I didn’t have a technical background, more than being an engineer. I have joined the HR space very soon inside the CIO teams. So it was a tech profile, but taking care of the, what we call now, people, staff, payrolls,  performance, everything around that. And I discovered they are my passion. So I forgot about crops and I decided that I find humans more interesting and then I have to focus my time and my career on trying to make things more simple and more efficient so then humans can work better. Because at the end, the most important asset that any company can have is the human that is doing the job.

Gabi Carachilo: I agree. I served in an HR capacity for many years in my career as well. So totally can empathize with the passion for people. And gosh, I just love the sentiment that anybody can do anything they want. Right? There’s a wealth of opportunity and sometimes that path to finding your passion isn’t linear and you are such a great example of that. And as you talk about the work that you’re doing, I can tell how engaged and impactful you feel within your workplace, which is just wonderful to see. As you reflect back on your career journey, is there a particular moment or turning point that stands out?

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós: Yeah, I would say that was the moment I realized I like and enjoy international assignments. As you can see by my accent, I’m Spanish and I have been working with the Latin community and then with the European community, and it was great for me when I discovered that even the same words can mean something completely different in different cultures, although the language should be very similar. And then I realized how important [that] is that we use the language not as a weapon, but as a tool to build on and then construct it. And the second bit was when I realized that there were more opportunities when you are in an international space, but really home is where you are. It’s not where you were born. So you can make something good for you any place you are having fun, doing whatever you want.

Gabi Carachilo: Home is where you are, so important. Thank you for sharing. I’d also love to hear about your interactions with other women in your career. Do you have any mentors or folks that you’ve had the pleasure of working with who have had an influence on you in your career trajectory?

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós: 100%. So I would say there have been two women in my career that have been a great example and great mentors. IT is a very masculine world I will say, but I have the luxury of working with very strong women. People like Claire, that has taught me a lot about how to understand when you are dealing with your own things or when you are letting people deal with their own things. Because you know that as women, we are trying to sort out plenty of things at the same time. Or for example, Lou, I have been working with her for a while, she taught me how to handle myself with compassion when I’m not achieving what I want to achieve or what I thought was the good standard at this moment that was nearly perfection. I would say these two ladies have had a big influence on my life.

Gabi Carachilo: That’s wonderful. I’m so glad that you’ve had mentors within your work community— especially in a more male-dominated industry—who were able to be those colleagues, support systems, advisors of sorts along the way. You made a point about the importance of ensuring that we’re all working toward how we’re going to sort out the many things. And I love how you’ve captured that. We hear often about that juggling act. Sometimes it’s referred to as work-life balance or other terminology. And we’re hearing from the Fairygodboss community even more so now that they’re struggling with how to sort it all out, right? Whether that’s work priorities, life, home, and beyond. What strategies have you implemented that work for you? How do you keep it all sorted? 

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós: I wouldn’t say I keep it all sorted <laugh>, but I think I have arrived to a settlement in which I am in the good enough space. As women, we aim for the 100% of everything. I have learned a lot in my career that being 75 [or] above is a really good position and I’m trying to apply this in the things that I cannot change in one couple of hours, right? You know, that you teach your kids that if someone cannot change something, you are saying to them in five minutes, then do not tell them. So you cannot change if you are tall, if you are fat, if you are thin, right? I’m trying to do the same. If I cannot change something in the next four or five hours, then I need to put more time there, then let’s pause it, let it happen, or let’s put this on someone else that can do this better than you. And the second thing is recognizing that there are people that can do things better than you, that if you ask them for help, they will be there. And being vulnerable is not a weakness. Being vulnerable is just another way of being wise.

Gabi Carachilo: I wrote that down. Being vulnerable is not a weakness, it’s being wise and I love that sentiment. I believe everybody could empathize with that, especially those who are in positions where they have a bit that they need to sort. And thank you for being so transparent and authentic and saying that it might not all be sorted. It may not all be a hundred percent. There will be spaces and moments and in life and work where good enough is good enough in that moment. And how can we all lean in on one another, support each other, be vulnerable to generate the best outcomes in all of those areas that we’re showing up.

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós: And this will also be so useful then when you are managing people because then your empathy will grow and you will understand more the human behind the behavior. And then this will go to the root cause faster. So being vulnerable is something that only can give you good things in the long term. You need to learn. I have learned. I have had a coach for five years to teach me to put the cape on the hanger and be vulnerable, but now I am so happy I have arrived to this position.

Gabi Carachilo: That’s wonderful. It sounds like you’ve had some incredible coaches and you’ve already shared many lessons that you’ve learned in the workplace. Are there any other impactful lessons that you'd like to call out and share with our community?

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós: So my only one is “life happens.” I had a very sad personal thing with my first kid, I learned that you cannot control what you cannot control. And this has been also a very deep, hard but grateful moment after, because after that I was able to have two kids. But when you cannot control things, the only thing that you can do is control the way you are approaching it. And you should never lose yourself. You are your best asset. You are the thing that you need to take care of most. And when you forget that you will be really rich if you have people around you that will hold your hand until you are back. So what you cannot control, you cannot control. And the sooner you start to get over it, the less painful it would be for you.

Gabi Carachilo: Thank you for sharing that with us. I appreciate you being vulnerable and sharing that lesson learned. I believe it’ll resonate with our audience. So thank you. I’d love to transition to a section that we like to call our fast five questions—rapid-fire interview questions of sorts. And I’m ready to jump in if you are, Bea.

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós: Yeah, let’s go for that.

Gabi Carachilo: Okay. My first question is, what is your favorite karaoke song?

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós: It’s a very old one. I don’t know if you remember that. Uh, it’s called By the Moonlight Shadow.

Gabi Carachilo: Yes.

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós: I love this one.

Gabi Carachilo: Good. What is your favorite way to practice self-care?

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós: Reading.

Gabi Carachilo: That’s a great one.

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós: Yeah, reading because I can isolate myself when I read, even from my kids and my husband. Nobody can get into my world, which is good.

Gabi Carachilo: It’s a great way to compartmentalize and just zone in on something and tune everything else out for a moment. Which is a perfect segue to our next question, which is what book or podcast would you recommend to our audience? Is there one that stands out?

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós: I have found a very interesting book that is called The Cultural Map. That shares how different people will approach the same situation with different mindsets. But to be honest, anything that will make them feel happy for an hour. 

Gabi Carachilo: That’s great. Who is one celebrity that you would like to have dinner with?

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós: Mmm, this is a very good one because I don’t think I can choose, but I would love to have dinner with the guy that has designed how to recover the plastic from the rivers and recycle it without making a big fuss in TV or everywhere else. I would love to meet those people that are changing our lives without us knowing that.

Gabi Carachilo: That’s great. And my last fast-five question, and I’ll give a bit of context to this one. We see at Fairygodboss that women sometimes aren’t great at taking credit for their own accomplishments. And we can only get better if we practice. So we want to abolish imposter syndrome. We want to get loud and be very comfortable bragging. So I’m going to ask you, Bea, if you would brag for us right now and share an accomplishment. It could be personal or professional. What do you have for us?

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós: About me?

Gabi Carachilo: Yes, yes. About you.

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós: Yeah, you are right. We are super bad at that, but I would say I have a gift and it is I’m able to translate technical problems into natural language, so therefore I am a good mediator when we need to solve something. And this is creating in me some credibility, which is good.

Gabi Carachilo: That’s a great skill and competency to have. Thank you. My final question is, if you had to leave your number one piece of advice for our audience, what would that be?

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós: The sky is the limit. You can do whatever you want, if you want it. Nobody can tell you what you are able to do or what is your ceiling. Go and get it—it’s there for you. 

Gabi Carachilo: Thank you. That is great advice, and I appreciate all the insights and takeaways that you brought to our audience here on Fairygodboss Radio. And thank you to all of those who are tuning in. We look forward to the next episode and we will see you there. Thank you, Bea. 

Beatriz Jaén Caparrós: Thank you.