“Three words that define me: I’m an optimist, passionate, and a creator of connections.”

An industrial engineer who loves to sing and play guitar, Marisol Menendez believes deeply in the power of trust to drive change, and in collaborative innovation. She was Head of Open Innovation at BBVA – one of Spain's largest banks and Chief Open Innovation Officer at South Summit, the global Open Innovation platform that connects startups, corporations and investors and former. She is CEO and founder of Bilakatu, a company based in Bilbao that is committed to Open Innovation and Ecosystem Orchestration, and CEO of WITH an ecosystem of women executives and leaders in Spain. She is perfectly positioned to connect the dreamers and visionaries and bring the latest technology to all of us. Her favourite quote is, "True innovation will come, not from new technologies, but from new forms of collaboration." Read more

“To work in Open Innovation, you have to be very curious. You have to be a multidisciplinarian, mixing and connecting different sectors.”

Marisol Menendez

“I believe there’s a macro-trend taking shape towards increased collaboration"

This comes from the understanding that all of our ambitions in our respective fields, we can’t achieve them alone. We need to work in open, collaborative, multidisciplinary teams. This is what Open Innovation is all about –Marisol Menendez