Two women at the head of MAD FinTech in this new stage. Allison Castillo and Susana Gimeno will lead the management of the cluster to further boost its vocation to generate Open Innovation, Collaboration and Co-Creation.
Allison Castillo takes over the management of the Madrid Capital FinTech (MAD FinTech) cluster and maintains her focus on Relations with Partners, Commissions, Groups and Activities; while Susana Gimeno will focus on Public Affairs, which is becoming increasingly important with the incorporation of MAD FinTech into the European Clusters Collaboration Plaftorm and other international networks in Europe and America.
MAD FinTech adds female talent in line with its ethical commitment to Equality, already shown since its beginnings with the constitution of the Gender Economy Commission, chaired by Carmen Mª García, president of the Woman’s Week Foundation, European representative in FEMELIC and member of the board of the Women Economic Forum. This committee has produced an important report on the impact of women in the world of business and finance, which has been directed by the international consultancy firm Business Integration Partners (BIP).
The purpose of MAD FinTech is oriented since its constitution to the defence of the principles of Good Corporate Governance and the fulfilment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations. In addition, ECOFIN Forum, as a founding partner of the cluster, has transferred to the cluster its #GivingThemVoice commitment signed in 2019 with the Woman’s Week Foundation. This embodies its commitment to SDG 5 which aims at ‘Gender Equality’ and SDG 17 which calls for ‘Partnerships to Achieve the Goals’.
#Giving them a voice is a voluntary commitment to seek gender balance and representation in all management bodies, public events and work teams. And it ties in with other international initiatives such as the one launched in 2018 by the European Parliament regarding all events held in the framework of the European institutions under the slogan #WhereAreThey.
Female Talent
Allison Castillo has a degree in Economics from the Universidad Europea de Madrid and more than twenty years of experience in business and communications. For the past five years, Allison Castillo has been leading all the Innovation and FinTech topics of the ECOFIN Forum, including the management of the FinTech Circle, which is the promoter working group of the MAD FinTech cluster itself.
Since the creation of the Madrid Capital FinTech (MAD FinTech) cluster, Allison Castillo has been in charge of Partner Relations; although she has also had other responsibilities in the financial environment, such as Institutional Relations and Advertising in the magazine Seguros, which is the publication of the Colegio de Mediadores de Seguros de Madrid.
He has also participated in the FinTech Observatories jointly organised by the Expansión newspaper and the ECOFIN Forum, as well as other media partnerships on financial innovation and FinTech with Radio Intereconomía, Másqueunaradio, El Español, La Razón and other media outlets.
Allison Castillo Solano, prior to joining the ECOFIN Forum and now the MAD FinTech cluster, has more than twenty years of experience in the Communications Management of technology firms, in the financial media and in the media. Nueva Empresa and even started her own business publication, of which she was editor and publisher until the crisis of 2020: Revista E.
Public Affairs
Susana Gimeno as Head of Public Affairs will bring focus to the association on the backbone of public-private collaboration, as well as collaboration with other international Innovation and Finance networks in order to consolidate a large network of connections between disruptive FinTech ecosystems.
Susana Gimeno is an expert in organisation and integrated project management, with a background in languages and experience in Public Administration. She was head of Marketing and Institutional Relations at the Madrid Foundation for Excellence (2016/2020), advisor to the Directorate General for Training of the Community of Madrid and head of the Vice-Rector’s Secretariat at the European University of Madrid.
She holds a degree in English Philology from the Complutense University of Madrid and an official Master’s degree in ‘Dubbing, Translation and Subtitling’ from the European University of Madrid. And in addition to her fluency in English and Spanish, she also has knowledge of German and French.
Susana Gimeno was responsible for the organisation of the national phase of the International Quality Innovation Awards (QIA) since 2017. He presented the Spanish candidature in Prague, where CEX (Centres of Excellence) was approved to join the group of entities administering the Quality Innovation Award, which includes organisations promoting quality, excellence and innovation from Botswana, China, Spain, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Israel, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Russia, Sweden, Thailand, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.
He has lived and worked in several European countries such as the Netherlands and the UK. During his stay in Miami (United States), he worked closely with the Spain US Chamber of Commerce, as well as with other chambers of commerce and economic institutions with representation in Florida.
