Bio

Marisol is an expert with more than 20 years of experience in the areas of open innovation, collaboration between startups and corporations, specially in fintech and digital transformation. 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’s Head of NFI Connect and Initiatives for Nordic Future Innovation, the biggest executive network that aims to bring all Nordic companies into a single group and work as a unit to shape the future in connection with the most visionary players in the world, leveraging in Nordic strengths. It began with all Nordic banks, and now are working with retail, real state, sustainability and other sectors as well. She is acting Chief Open Innovation Officer at South Summit, the global Open Innovation platform that connects startups, corporations and investors in the spanish speaking world. She’s also business advisor for Axyon AI (Italy) and Changelabs.ai (Israel), both AI fintech startups. Former Global Head of Open Innovation at BBVA – where she designed and developed the Open Innovation project since its beginning. This experience has given her a unique understanding of both the corporate and startup worlds, needed to develop successful collaborations. She has developed a close-knit, global network of allies and partners that have proven critical to the success of the open innovation project. 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.'' From this experience, the framework “3 dimensions of Open Innovation” is born, applying first hand learnings and from the +90 corporations from different sectors and 9 different countries