Executive Board

In 1988, Diego co-founded and was CEO of a start-up called Knowledge Engineering, which dealt with industrial controls systems using artificial intelligence and neural networks. Three years later he joined Sema Group (acquired by Schlumberger in 1998), and started a long career with private companies.

At SchlumbergerSema, Diego headed multicultural working groups all over the world in the field of energy with revenues of $650M. Between 2002 and 2010, Diego was the CEO of Atos Origin, a leading international IT service provider, where he was responsible for Spain and South America with 9,000 employees and an annual turnover of €450M.

Since 2010 and under his leadership, EIT InnoEnergy has become the largest global organisation supporting innovation and entrepreneurship in sustainable energy, having deployed directly €650M to nearly 500 innovative products and services.

Diego is an electrical engineer from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, with a major in electronics and automation.

Bart has extensive experience in working with large multinationals, including Reed Elsevier and Cisco, where he held senior financial roles. Before joining InnoEnergy in February 2011, Bart worked as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of an international printing company with 850 employees, and €130M revenue. The experience he gathered in his previous roles gave him the broad scope necessary for his current role as InnoEnergy's CFO. Bart holds a degree in economics.

Elena Bou cofounded InnoEnergy in 2010 and since 2011 she is the Innovation Director and member of its executive board.

In her Innovation Director role, she has led the development of major InnoEnergy efforts in creating and accelerating new ventures in the energy field, including the investment process in such ventures. Having supported around 450 companies in the sustainable energy field, today, InnoEnergy portfolio counts with 200+ companies including two unicorns, five centaurs and sixteen ponies.

Prior to that, she founded her own company and developed her professional career in the field of management consulting in both private and public companies, nationally and internationally, giving her the opportunity to coordinate and manage European Multinational Projects involving a high degree of complexity and stakeholders.

In addition to the professional arena, Elena has also developed an academic career being Associate Professor at ESADE Business School since 1998. Former Director of the Executive Master of Operations and Services and cofounder and former director of the GRACO Research Group (currently: The Institute of Innovation and Knowledge Management, IIK) at ESADE. Consultant and researcher in the field of knowledge and Innovation Management and author of several publications in the fields of knowledge management, collaborative innovation and entrepreneurship. Her experience on Corporate Entrepreneurship includes the creation of two spin-offs: InnoEnergy and Ten.

Elena Bou holds a PhD in Management Sciences from ESADE-URL (Doctor Europeus) and has a degree in Business Administration and Management and an MBA from ESADE Business School. She also studied in Florida University (MBA-exchange programme) and Copenhagen Business School (Marie Curie Fellowship).

Prof.Dr.ir. Gielen has extensive experience with R&D in the telecommunication and software technology sector as well as in raising venture capital, university-industry collaborative research and spin-off creation.

Prof.Dr.ir. Gielen held a number of technical and management positions in the software industry. He started as a software architect with AT&T Bell Labs in the USA and was director of software technology at Alcatel.

In 1998 he joined Tellium, a US based start-up company in optical network technology, as the VP of Software Engineering. Tellium had a successful IPO on NASDAQ in 2001. He then returned to Europe in 2001 as the CEO for Tellium EMEA.

From 2010 to 2015 he was the Director of the Incubation & Entrepreneurship at iMinds, the leading digital incubator and business accelerator in Flanders. The iStart incubation programme of iMinds was ranked number 4 in UBI’s global ranking of university accelerators in 2015.

Prof.Dr.ir. Gielen was head of the EIT Digital Professional School with the ambition to lead the innovation of professional development and executive education for companies, organisations and individuals going through a digital transformation.

Since 2017 he has been the Education Director at InnoEnergy.

Today, he is also a professor of software technology entrepreneurship at the University of Ghent. 

Kenneth has worked for over 20 years in high tech manufacturing industry areas such as telecommunication, power conversion and renewable energies, and he has gained an extensive experience  in complex technical systems, development and business operation in international markets.

Kenneth Johansson holds an MSc in Electrical Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden as well as a BSc in Economics and Business Administration from the Uppsala University in Sweden.

He has held various executive management positions in listed SMEs as well as corporate organisations, focusing on operational efficiency, product and business development, strategy and people management.

Mikel has an extensive experience in bridging research, business and education within the renewable energy sector.

Before joining InnoEnergy, Mikel was head of the wind turbine technology division of the Spanish engineering company Apia XXI, and head of analysis and design of wind turbines at the Spanish National Centre for Renewable Energy. Prior to that, he worked in Germany and France as research engineer at Robert Bosch and as quality engineer at Valeo.

Between 2007 and 2009, Mikel was also a part-time Associate Professor at Public University of Navarra´s Mechanical Engineering Department where he lectured on Wind Turbine Dynamics and Machine Elements and Vibrations. Mikel was also involved in different wind turbine technology innovations that led to the filing of six patents.

Since 2010, Mikel has been CEO of InnoEnergy Iberia and a member of the executive Board.

Mikel holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from the University of Navarra, Spain, a PhD from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of Otto-von-Guericke University in Germany and an MBA from University of Deusto.

Before joining InnoEnergy, Jakub worked for over 10 years in various international leadership positions in the engineering sector including mining, construction, and energy industries. Jakub also worked for the non-governmental sector. In each of his roles he has helped develop various regional and national programmes as an energy expert.

Jakub received an MBA from Georgia State University and Poznan University of Economics. He also holds a MA in Psychology from Adam Mickiewicz University.

Jakub joined InnoEnergy in 2014 and since January 2016, he has been the CEO of InnoEnergy Central Europe.

Dr. Müller then started working as a project manager in the corporate technology units of the former Hoechst AG, which was subsequently acquired by Siemens AG, in 2000. In several management functions at Hoechst, and respectively at Siemens, he was involved in the commercialisation of technologies and services, as well as in the creation of new businesses.

Dr. Christian Müller studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Karlsruhe and at the University of California, Berkley, United States. In 1996, he received his PhD in technical thermodynamics.

From 2006 until 2009, Christian was responsible for the global business development of Siemens in the Food and Beverage industries. Other positions in Christian´s professional career included the management of the global Center of Excellence for Chemical industry at ABB, and the start-up of the business development department at Infraserv Höchst.

Since 2013, he has been CEO of the InnoEnergy German office.

Jacob has held various positions in a wide variety of companies all related to energy. In his previous role he was the Director, Country Manager Energy Advisory of Benelux at DNV GL, where he was responsible for energy and renewables advisory activities in the Benelux, Africa and Middle East.

Previous to that, he worked for Dutch Utilities company, Essent, where he had a number of roles including Managing Director for metering data, Managing Director for local energy solutions and Managing Director for B2B.

Jacob began his career with oilfield service company, Schlumberger, as a wire-line field engineer. It was from there that he moved onto more commercial roles, starting with the position of Regional Manager Europe for drill pipe manufacturer Grant Prideco.

Jacob holds an M.Sc. in Mining Engineering from the Delft University of Technology and an MBA from the Rotterdam School of Management.

Karine brings over 20 years of experience in the global energy industry, having successfully led numerous programmes in the clean energy sector, notably with energy giants ENGIE and GRTgaz. Her entrepreneurial track record and passion for innovation, having founded two companies in the natural gas and digital sector, and managed a third one in the clean fuel sector. These experiences give her a unique outlook on the start-up industry and invaluable insights on how to embrace its challenges and opportunities. Co-located in the Paris and Grenoble hubs, Karine will drive EIT InnoEnergy’s vision for a vibrant, sustainable European economy forward by supporting sustainable energy innovation across France.