On 19 November, the International Day of Women Entrepreneurs, the Spanish government has published the guide “Mujeres Referentes del emprendimiento Innovador en España” (Referent Women of Innovative Entrepreneurship in Spain) in which 276 women entrepreneurs from all corners of Spain are featured. This first edition of the guide aims to give visibility to some of the many women entrepreneurs in our country.
According to the European Institute for Gender Equality, Spain is the sixth most egalitarian country in the European Union, having moved up one place compared to last year. However, there are many obstacles that women entrepreneurs encounter simply because they are women. Investors continue to choose men more often (Harvard University, 2014), despite the fact that women perform better (Boston Consulting Group with Mass Challenge, 2018).
In February 2021, the government published the “Estrategia España Nación Emprendedora” (Spain as an Entrepreneurial Nation Strategy) with 50 measures that aim, among other things, to reduce the gender gap. Shortly afterwards, the Women’s Institute and WStartup Community presented the “Report on female digital entrepreneurship“. This report emphasised that one of the main keys for women entrepreneurs to encourage them to become entrepreneurs has been to have references among their family members and close environment. This is why this guide aims to make women entrepreneurs in Spain less invisible, showing that 14% of start-ups are led or co-led by women.
The guide offers “a list of the profiles of the most influential women in the Spanish entrepreneurial ecosystem so that the information is available to the entire sector”. In the guide we can find managers, investors, public administrations and leaders in the field of education.
Among the almost 300 women represented are two entrepreneurs from the Basque Health Cluster:
Clarisa Salado, founder and part of the board of directors of Basque Health Cluster. Since 2007 she has been managing the company she founded: Innoprot. Before that, she directed the cancer chemoprevention unit at the Inbiomed Foundation and worked at the company Dominion Pharmakine as head of the biochemistry and proteomics laboratory and as director of the biotechnology division.
And Carla Zaldua, founder and CEO of Accexible. Accexible is only a few years old, but has won countless awards and recognitions for the innovation of its platform.
You can find all the guide of Women Referents of Innovative Entrepreneurship in Spain here: https://www.lamoncloa.gob.es/presidente/actividades/Documents/2021/191121-GuiaMujeresReferentesDelEmprendimientoInnovadorEnEspana.pdf
About Innoprot:
Innoprot is a company that provides products and services for screening new drugs. The catalogue ranges from primary cultures to recombinant cell lines and in vitro disease models, including cellular biosensors developed in-house.
About acceXible:
acceXible work is aimed at early detection and monitoring of diseases through speech analysis by identifying vocal bio-markers using artificial intelligence techniques. It has sites in Bilbao and Barcelona.
