Javier Suárez

Founder & CPO at TravelPerk

Javier Suarez is the CPO and Co-Founder of TravelPerk, named Europe’s fastest-growing tech startup by SaaS1000. TravelPerk is modernizing the business travel sector by offering companies of any size, a tool for booking and managing all their travel in one place. TravelPerk has raised $75m to date by some of the world’s leading investors including Spark Capital, famous for Twitter, Trello and Slack. Prior to founding TravelPerk, Javier worked in several strategic roles within Booking.com’s HQ. Mostly recently, leading the company's #1 priority as a founding member of the the global innovation team. Javier started writing business plans at 14 and is a frequent speaker at industry events. He’s lived in six countries and speaks Spanish, English and German, fluently.

Laura Urquizu

CEO at RedPoints

Laura Urquizu, CEO and Partner of Red Points, is leading the worldwide innovation for online IP protection. Laura joined the initial founding team in 2014 and has led the company since its infancy. Red Points is the game-changer in online brand protection, online copyright protection, and the prevention of illegal online content distribution. Sales have grown exponentially under Laura’s leadership with the company surging from 10 to 170 people. She is leading the way for global adoption of Red Points’ technology and continues to bolster worldwide sales throughout Europe and the United States. Previously, Laura held executive and management positions in Arthur Andersen, Caja Navarra, and Corporacion CAN. In addition, she was the Advisor for the Board of Directors and Corporate Development at Lokku as well as being appointed to numerous Boards across European technology companies. Laura holds a Masters in Management Development from IESE for Caja Navarra and an Economics degree from Universidad del Pais Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea. In August 2018, Red Points was named one of the hottest European start-ups to follow by Wired (world reference publication in technology) and in October, CEO, Laura was included in the “50 most influential women entrepreneurs and investors in the European Technology Industry.

JF Gauthier

CEO at Startup Genome

JF Gauthier is a Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur and Founder & CEO of Startup Genome. He advises more than 30 governments across 25 countries on how to accelerate the growth of their entrepreneurial ecosystems through evidence- based policymaking. He also is the co-founder of Exit Reality, a fast-growing VR startup, and active angel investor. Based on the voice of 10,000+ entrepreneurs, 300 local partner organizations and with more than 50 cities across 28 countries, Startup Genome has built the largest body of knowledge on what fuels the performance of startups and their ecosystems. Based in Silicon Valley for 20 years JF has founded and played pivotal roles in companies active in the Tech, Life Sciences and Cleantech sectors as well as led several exits and acquisitions on both sides of the table. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Derek Andersen

CEO at Bevy & Startup Grind

Derek Andersen is the founder and CEO of Startup Grind, a community of over 200 Chapters in 80 countries designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs. Startup Grind's values of giving, helping others, and making friends have spread across the world. Since 2012 Startup Grind has hosted 4,000 events for more than 200,000 entrepreneurs. In 2009 Derek founded Vaporware Labs, incubating many products including Startup Grind and professional social network Commonred, which was acquired by Income.com in 2012. He lives in Palo Alto with his wife and three children.

Sergio Gago

CTO at Zinio

CTO, Digital Nomad, Wanderlust and Scuba Diving instructor. Sergio has been taking CTO positions for over a decade, specializing in cross cultural management, startup ecosystem and in finding a common language between business and technology.

Shruthi Chindalur

Regional Managing Director at Criteo

Shruthi Chindalur is Regional Managing Director across Europe, Middle East and Africa for Criteo, which is the world's leading advertising platform for the open internet. In her role Criteo’s technology provides the opportunity for smaller businesses to use big data and machine learning to deliver personalised and effective communications to their shoppers, and hence compete with huge online retailers. Shruthi has almost 20 years of experience primarily working with mid-sized business in EMEA complimented with large account experience across EMEA & LATAM, and a deep understanding of digital sales across a wide range of industries having previously held roles at LinkedIn and Oracle. Shruthi is an advocate of coaching, personal and leadership development, and diversity and inclusion. In her spare time she’s a Patron for the Hope Foundation.

Juan Margenat

COO and Founder at Marfeel

Juan Margenat is a Founder and Chief Operating Officer at Marfeel. Margenat has a talent for spotting and investing in technology companies that are at the forefront of the industry and has served as a mentor, angel investor and advisor to numerous start-up companies around the globe. Margenat founded Barcelona Experience and Weekendesk Iberia that have both received international recognition for their encouragement of tourism and commerce in Spain. Margenat has also worked as a private investor for many years and is known for his strategic vision and planning. He served as the Founder and General Manager at PlanB!, which is now part of Barcelo Group, one of Spain's leading tourist companies and founded and served as the General Manager at Smartbox, which was later sold to Smart & Co. Margenat is often relied on for counsel and support in the technology community in Barcelona and is the power behind a lot of successful companies coming out of Barcelona.

Christopher Pommerening

Partner at Active Venture Partners

Christopher Pommerening started his professional career in Spain in 1998 co-founding AutoScout24 Spain as CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Christopher was appointed Managing Director of Scout24 Spain in 2001, Europe’s leading operator of virtual market places. While preparing the internationalisation of the Scout24 Group, he also set up B24 Networks, a Europe wide on-line market place for the yachting sector. In 2002 he decided to devote himself full time to entrepreneurship and venture capital through his already established venture catalyst company VCMORE by offering consulting services and investment to start-ups through a network of business angels. Alongside the latter, in 2002, he co-started the Spanish chapter of the Entrepreneurs Organisation (EO) being one of the largest entrepreneur organisations in the world, and in the same year he co-founded Active Venture Partners, one of Europe’s first entrepreneurial driven VC companies. In 2006 He has been elected to be the Ambassador for EO Europe & Africa, growing the organisation in 12 countries. In 2007 Christopher co-founded Linqia, the first marketplace for online communities. In 2007 he created the terminology for Venturepreneurship and Venturepreneurs and created the Venturepreneurs’ Organisation. In 2008 he initiated the Global Entrepreneurs Week in Spain and created the vision for the Barcelona Entrepreneurship City Commission. Currently he is Managing Partner of Active Venture Partners, member of the Board of Directors of BuyVIP, Non Executive co-founder and Advisor of Foundum and Linqia, member of the Venture Committee of ASCRI, Advisor to Gild International and Chairman of the Venturepreneurs' Organisation & of the Barcelona Entrepreneurship City Commission. Specialties: Venture Capital, Early, Expansion & Development stage, Venturepreneurship, Venturepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurs.

Eduardo Manchón

CEO at Mailtrack

Co-founder of Panoramio.com, acquired by Google. Previously partner at Loquo.com, acquired by eBay. Currently at Mailtrack.io.

Erik Brieva

CEO at Strands

Award-winning entrepreneur and strategist, with extensive experience driving companies to successfully achieve innovation, revenue and business growth. Named among the top 50 Most Admired CEOs (The Technology Headlines, USA, 2019), top 100 Leaders of the Future (Capital Magazine, Spain, 2009), and Entrepreneur of the Year (Entrepreneurs Magazine, Spain, 2006) among other recognitions. CEO at Strands (www.strands.com), empowering with Artificial Intelligence 650 banks worldwide, boosting international expansion and strengthening its position as global FinTech leader. Previously, founder of Polymita (acquired by Red Hat) pioneering the Business Process Management (BPM) software industry, recognized as a Visionary by Gartner (Magic Quadrant 2009 & 2010) and Major Player by IDC (MarketScape 2011). Co- founder of multiple companies within enterprise software, mobile and Internet businesses, including Intelligent Software Components - iSOCO (acquired by Santander) and Enzyme Advising Group (acquired by Nexe Group). Founder of Bcombinator (www.bcombinator.com), helping startups to scale up through incubation, acceleration, education, mentoring, advisory and fundraising. Raised €30M among all portfolio companies. Board Member and President of the Entrepreneurship Commission [email protected], Member of the CEO Collaborative Forum and Member of the Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO). Academic Director and Professor at Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Lean Startups and Leadership.

Kamran Elahian

Global Catalyst & 500Startups

Chairman and Founder, Global Innovation Catalyst, LLC; Chairman, Advisory Board, Global Venture Alliance; Global Innovation Advisor, 500 Startups; Founding Mentor, Unreasonable Institute; Founding Board Advisor, Harbour.Space University; Advisory Member, Seedstars World; Advisory Member, UNICEF Innovation Fund. As an Innovation Catalyst, Kamran advises various governments on the needed transition from fossil based economies to sustainable innovation economies.Startups and Founding Advisory Board Member at Harbour.Space University.

Orit Kopel

Founder at Wikitribune

Orit Kopel is the Co-Founder & VP of Business Development of WikiTribune, an inventive Wiki-based news platform which brings together a community of volunteers with hired professional journalists in an effort to create a collaborative news space. With a background as a qualified Human Rights Lawyer, Kopel is CEO of the Jimmy Wales Foundation for Freedom of Expression, advocating for bloggers and social media users who are persecuted for speaking out online. She previously acted as Jimmy Wales’ Special Adviser for Google’s Expert Advisory Council on the ‘Right To Be Forgotten’, defending Internet freedom.

Ryan Bubinski

Founder at Codecademy

Ryan is an entrepreneur, educator and software developer. He has over 10 years of experience in the education technology space, and over 15 years of experience building software companies. Ryan has been recognized on Inc. Magazine's 30 Under 30 list, and selected as a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum. He is the Co-Founder and former CPO of Codecademy, an online startup-up company that has taught over 45 million learners around the globe write to their first lines of code.

David Okuniev

CEO at Typeform

Born in Belgium and educated in England, David Okuniev started his professional career as a musician. Expression through music soon turned to expression through product and brand design, which led to David founding the Barcelona-based design studio, Fat-Man-Collective. From working in the same co-working space, David later met Robert Muñoz, and the two went on to co-found Typeform. Today, David is joint CEO and heads the Design team at Typeform.

Peter Read

Partner at Vitruvian Partners

Peter is a Managing Director at Vitruvian; a venture partner at BlueYard and LocalGlobe; an advisor to Entrepreneur First; and a Trustee of Frazzled Cafe, Doteveryone, and the Oxford Mindfulness Centre (Oxford University). He is an angel investor/advisor in over 100 tech startups. Previously, he was an angel/advisor at NevenVision, General Partner at Google Ventures; Board Director of GP Bullhound and Entertainment Insights; President of Nielsen Entertainment; Governor at Beaconsfield High School; Fellow of Wellington College; a film awards judge at BAFTA; and a digital advisor to Oxfam, Sport England, and The Roundhouse. He is an active supporter of Founders Forum, Founders4Schools, AppsForGood, Speakers4Schools, Cambridge Wellbeing, Mindfulness In Schools, Mind & Life, CSAP, and NFTS. He was an Associate Producer on Rabbit Fever and an (uncredited) actor in Flyin' Ryan which both received some of the worst reviews in movie history.

Anne Driscoll

CMO at Startup Genome

Anne Driscoll is a current CMO of Startup Genome; an international effort providing insight to entrepreneurs and partners alike in order to help foster success within global tech startup communities. Based in Silicon Valley, Anne’s experience in the Valley also stems from a background as a former Google Executive. Her passion for startups has led to a passion for global connections, and is also an advisor for multiple roles and companies at the CMO level. In March, Anne recently launched Startup Genome’s Global Startup Ecosystem Report for 2017 – providing data analysis and knowledge for startup ecosystems from around the world.

Michael Eckhardt

Crossing the Chasm 3.0

Michael Eckhardt is Managing Director at Chasm Institute in their Silicon Valley Office, where Michael has been a partner for over 15 years:

• a veteran of PwC, Harbridge Consulting, HP, and Pepsico.
• a Harvard MBA and Wall Street Journal Award winner, Michael is a recognized expert in new product launch success & go-to-market tools + best practices. He has lead over 500 client engagements in the US / Europe / Asia Pacific.
• Michael’s clients include: Adobe, Spotify, Citrix, Google / Nest, NetApp, RSI, HotChalk, Intel, Cisco, Xilinx, 3D printing ventures, Autodesk, SAP, Agilent Life Sciences, Jive, QAD, Micron, Philips Medical, Samsung, Logitech, and many other tech-based businesses, from large enterprises to mid-sized companies to venture-backed start-ups.
• his firm’s books include the newly-updated 'Crossing the Chasm 3.0' -- with 25 all-new tech company examples best practices, as well as the companion books 'Escape Velocity' and 'Zone to Win'.
• these best-sellers -- over 3,000,000 books sold -- continue to be proven playbooks for entrepreneurial success in B2B and B2C markets.
• its frameworks underpin the way tech companies around the world plan & fund their investments in disruptive innovations.
• Michael’s client focus, through 2-day strategy workshops and consulting services, drive three client outcomes:
  1. accelerating new product success in next 12 to 24 months
  2. best practices and tools for revenue growth
  3. launching profitable innovations
• Michael served as editor and contributor for both the updated for 2017 'Crossing the Chasm 3.0' and 'Escape Velocity' books, which have sold more than 3 million copies worldwide.

Carina Szpilka

Partner at K FUND

Partner at K FUND.

Alexis Bonte

Partner at Atomico

Entrepreneur. co-founder and angel investor with a strong general management background and a 19 years 360 degrees experience in all types of start ups from early stage to post IPO (lastminute.com, eRepublik Labs etc.) Recognized by the World Economic Forum (Davos) as a Young Global Leader (YGL) in 2012. Passionate about building successful organizations and management teams in fast growing environments, to deliver maximum results by offering the best service to customers. Building great companies is hard its also an incredibly interesting adventure.

Chad West

CMO at Revolut

CMO @ Revolut

Dhiraj Mukherjee

Co-founder at Shazam

Dhiraj Mukherjee is one of the cofounders of the music identifying service, Shazam. He completed his Master's at Stanford University in 1997 and currently serves as the Head of Banking Innovation for Virgin Money in the United Kingdom. Prior to starting Shazam, Mukherjee worked in consulting for Bain & Company and as a Project Manager for Viant Corp.

Tom Studd

Partner at Vitruvian Partners

Investor focusing on high growth technology-enabled businesses. Invest in both late stage venture rounds where we take a minority stake and in growth buyouts. Slightly eclectic range of expertise ranging from online marketplaces, software, adtech/martech and fashion/luxury in the online world. Currently Board representative or observer at Carwow, Ebury, Farfetch and Vestiaire Collective. Other deals at Vitruvian include Just-Eat, Snaplogic, Trustpilot, Group IMD, Inenco, Inspired Gaming Group, Instinctif, JacTravel and OpenBet.

Casey Fenton

Founder of Couchsurfing

Casey Fenton is currently co-founder and CIO of CouchSurfing International, a network of welcoming people worldwide. The concept was born in 1999 after Casey traveled and had several experiences staying with locals. After attending college for computer science in 1997, he worked as a technology and Internet consultant before starting several technology companies. Nowadays, he's spearheading Mastly, his new startup. Mastly is a performance-based equity tool to help startups reach goals.

Derek Andersen

CEO at Startup Grind

Derek Andersen is the founder and CEO of Startup Grind, a community of over 200 Chapters in 80 countries designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs. Startup Grind's values of giving, helping others, and making friends have spread across the world. Since 2012 Startup Grind has hosted 4,000 events for more than 200,000 entrepreneurs. In 2009 Derek founded Vaporware Labs, incubating many products including Startup Grind and professional social network Commonred, which was acquired by Income.com in 2012. He lives in Palo Alto with his wife and three children.

Clancy Childs

CTO at Dow Jones

Chief Product & Technology Officer, Dow Jones Professional Information.

Carlos Kuchkovsky

CTO New Digital Business @ BBVA

CTO New Digital Business @ BBVA | Board Member Hyperledger.

Xavier Redó

Founder & CTO at MarsBased

Xavier is a founding member and CTO at MarsBased, an all-remote Ruby on Rails & Javascript development agency. He's responsible for architecture and development and an expert in managing teams of remote developers. Xavier started his career freelancing before joining the corporate world, working for companies like ATOS Origin and Gnuine, where he discovered the wonders of Ruby on Rails, which inspired him to create a specialised company just a few years after.

Mar Alarcón

CEO at SocialCar

Founder and CEO of SocialCar, the first platform in Spain for P2P car rental. Mar, is a benchmark in sharing economy, sustainable mobility and legality. Founding member of Sharing España and board member of ADigital. Mar supports Barcelona's tech ventures as a member of BCN Tech City's board of directors. She is also a promoter of innovation as part of the Creafutur advisory board. Graduated in Law and PDD by IESE, she began her professional career at Cuatrecasas Abogados and her social entrepreneurship interest began at Grameen Bank with Prof. Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Howard Love

CEO at LoveToKnow

Howard Love is a life-long entrepreneur who has founded, co-founded, funded and managed startups for over 30 years. He is the Founder & CEO of LoveToKnow, one of the largest US digital media companies, whose web properties include lovetoknow.com, yourdictionary.com, trails.com, and golflink.com. Love founded his first company, Inmark Development, while an undergraduate at Colgate University. Inmark Development was eventually sold as Rogue Wave and subsequently went public. Since then, Love has founded or co-founded over 15 businesses and invested in over 50 startups. Love speaks frequently on entrepreneurship for conferences, summits & events in North America and overseas, including Techtoberfest, Startup Grind, Start-Up Week, TechStars, Plug & Play, Capital Factory – as well as Slush Helsinki & the Government of Spain. Love recently published his first book, the Amazon bestseller The Start-Up J Curve. Recently, he's opened a development center in Barcelona.

Pepe Agell

CSO & Founder at Chartboost

Pepe Agell leads Chartboost’s strategic planning, marketing and corporate development efforts. In this role, he oversees the company’s strategic partnerships, key future product developments, m&a activities, external communications and thought leadership. He holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from the UPC Barcelona and the ETH Zurich. Prior to joining Chartboost, Agell led product management and operations teams in both multinational (Hilti AG) and startups (3scale and Innovalley).

Svetlana Velikanova

CEO & Founder at Harbour.Space

Svetlana Velikanova is the co-founder and CEO of Harbour.Space - Europe’s state of the art university for technology, design and tech entrepreneurship. She is driven to create a space of learning where the most gifted young people in technology and design from all over the world can evolve and emerge as the most ground-breaking graduates in their field. With the Harbour.Space board, she shares a highly innovative vision for university education: to connect the best professionals of today with extraordinary young people through immersive and progressive learning, which will revolutionise our technology-led future.

Toni Raurich

CBO at Wallapop

Internet professional since 2003, focused on transactional sites, specialized in hyper-growth marketing, operations, product and financing. Academically investigating the problems generated on employees with artificial intelligence, low labor and high capital intensive technologies and what we as society will do to mitigate its effects on the labor market.

Xavier Noria

Ruby on Rails Core Team Member

Xavier Noria has been doing software professionally for the last eighteen years, twelve of which remotely. An independent consultant from Barcelona with a math background, Xavier has taught dynamic languages at the University of Barcelona, and has been an active member of the open source community for many years. Most notably, he was into Perl in the 2000s, he's been in the Ruby on Rails core team since 2011, and he's also personally interest in Erlang and Elixir, projects he has contributed a bit too.

Julia Barrett

Program Offering Manager at e-Residency

Julia Barrett recently joined e-Residency to help transform the program. Previously the Global Program Director of Startup Relations at Salesforce, Julia initially joined Salesforce to assist acquisition Heroku on corporate alignment, strategic partnerships and go-to-market strategy. Prior to Salesforce, Julia drove early-stage marketing for Wealthfront, the fastest growing fintech startup in the United States. Julia has also managed several global e-commerce partnership programs, including the eBay Partner Network, after time on Wall Street.

Laura González

HR Manager at Schibsted

Laura is an experienced international Recruiter and HR Manager, specialist in Talent Acquisition, HR Processes and Policies, Payroll and Compensation management, with experience ranging from top corporate environments to start-ups worldwide. Talent is everywhere. Why search for the best engineers only in your city? Laura has been working in recruitment, creating remote environments and establishing processes and operations for full remote startups. Building an engineering culture, improving communication amongst teams and dealing with cultural differences is her day to day life. Her passion is people, she’s an advocate for company culture and loves creating a strong talent landscape wherever she goes. After leading the HR teams for retail companies such as Bershka or Deichmann, and managing Recruitment and HR Processes for Couchsurfing, Sovolve and Divescover, she moved to manage the Talent Acquisition and HR for the international hub of Schibsted in Barcelona. She’s also the mother of two girls and a dive instructor.

Jacinto Roca

CEO & Founder at RakutenTV

CEO and Founder.

Marek Fodor

Chairman at Kantox

With 15+ years of experience in managing tech companies and strategic consulting, Marek is also the Head of the Marketing at Kantox. Before joining Kantox, he co-founded Atrapalo. Additionally, he is an investor and acts as a mentor at Seedrocket.

Vicenç Martí

Chairman at Billy Mobile

Vicenç Marti is half entrepreneur, half executive. A full time leader who loves getting involved in exciting projects, with more than 17 years of experience focused on strategy, business development and relations with investors. He is currently President of Tangelo Games (ex-Akamon), the biggest Gaming Community Platform, and of Billy Mobile, a 100% mobile Ad Exchange focused on performance. Also involved as a strategic advisor in elrowFamily, a music entertainment company, and as an investor and advisor in Ubiqum, a Code Academy, and Finizens, a Fintech startup, among others. In the past he had various other roles including the CEO of Akamon Entertainment, CCO of the low cost airline Vueling and a part of the team behind its successful IPO, and CEO of the Interactive Division over a five-year tenure at Spain's largest gaming company Cirsa.