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j21consulting MIT ENTREPRENEURSHIP by J.A. Latasa
Juan is currently a Director in a new Corporate Venture unit at UNIR, Universidad de Internet (www.unir.net ), a new Spanish unicorn in online education (BME: PROE).
He has also been teaching Entrepreneurship for several years at the International Program of Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, then at the Global MBA of Instituto de Empresa, and since the launch in 2019 of the new Master in Management (MiM) Program at IESE in Madrid, and currently with Accenture in new emerging countries such as Saudi Arabia.
Additionally, Juan has worked for many years part-time as an advisor for technology startups mainly in areas of Marketing and international Business Development. He has collaborated in the last years with Allot Communications (www.allot.com , Nasdaq: Allt), a leading Israeli B2B cybersecurity provider with customers worldwide. He is currently contracting with Accenture in entrepreneurship projects in the Middle East.
A natural of Madrid, Juan’s career started at MiT (Cambridge, Massachusetts) where he studied since 1987, and graduated in Physics with honors in 1991, and later worked at the MiT Media Lab.
Later, Juan did the Executive MBA at IESE, and moved to work +18 years in the telecommunications industry, in many positions in the 3 world’s largest Operators (AT&T, Telefónica, and Vodafone) primarily in Business Development, Strategy and Marketing functions around Internet and Broadband products. During those years of the Internet revolution, he was a “serial Intrapreneur” contributing and creating from scratch new business units or new companies (eg, Telefónica’s Terra, B2B Adquira, and O2’s Broadband business in UK and Ireland), or designing and launching new innovative products.
In 2012, he founded his own Consulting and Investment firm for technology startups, J21 Partners Consulting & Ventures (www.j21partners.com ), where he launched and led several startups. Together with other partners and with Israeli fund Giza Ventures (www.gizavc.com), he was co-founder GP SwanLaab VC (see www.swanlaab.com), a new international €40 Million fund in Spain, which has invested to date in a dozen top technology B2B companies. He is also a founding partner in Impaqteq, a new sustainable technology VC fund, powered by MiT Alumni.
Investor´s Forum with BBVA CEO Carlos Torres
Last December 13th, the MIT Enterprise Forum Spain, the local Chapter of the MIT Enterprise Forum, a global organization based at MIT devoted to promoting Entrepreneurship and Innovation worldwide (see www.mitef.org), held its 7th annual Investor´s Forum, with the CEO of BBVA, Carlos Torres Vila (MiT BS 1988) as opening speaker. Also, this year was the official first event with Juan A. Latasa, Founder and CEO of J21 Partners (MIT BS 1991), as new President of MiTEF Spain.
Additionally there was also a Panel with high level speakers about “Disruptive Technologies: The impact of Big Data, AI and Industry 4.0”. The picture below taken at the beginning of the Panel shows (from left to right):
- Fernando Sandoval (Manager Enel Innovation Hub Madrid / Endesa)
- Arturo Derteano, (Partner, Head of Business Consulting for the Financial Sector, EY)
- Clara Pombo (Patron & Co-founder MIT Enterprise Forum Spain, General Manager Clarke, Modet & Co)
- Carlos Torres Vila, CEO BBVA
- Ana Segurado (Managing Director Telefónica OpenFuture / Wayra)
- Beatriz Giménez (Head of Strategy, New Digital Businesses, BBVA)
- Juan A. Latasa, President MITEF Spain
The main part of the event was the speed-dating among Entrepreneurs and Investors (this year there were over 45 selected startups, and 26 professional investors). With over 30% investment ratio from other years (over 300 startups have been present in total during the 7 editions), the MITEF Forum has become one of the reference events in the industry in Spain.
Needless to say, J21 Partners is excited to support the entrepreneur / investor ecosystem in Spain through the Presidency and active membership of the MIT Enterprise Forum for this event and other activities.
Please refer to some of the media coverage of the event for more information (see some examples below):
https://www.bbva.com/es/innovacion-abierta-clave-transformacion-bbva/
http://www.efeemprende.com/noticia/torres-vila-bbva-investors-forum/
http://www.ciospain.es/finanzas/gracias-a-open-talent-bbva-ha-contactado-con-700-startups-y-puesto-en-marcha-20-pilotos-en-2017