Albert Colomer i Espinet

President Autoocupació

Albert is an innovative social entrepreneur, entrepreneurship guru and active Business Angel.

Driven by the power of entrepreneurship to tackle both personal and social challenges, Albert co-founded (1986) and presently chairs Autoocupació, an independent NGO charity, committed to the empowerment of entrepreneurs and to support them through all stages of business development, by means of training, counseling, mentoring and financing. Together with the involvement of public and private institutions as well as fellow partners, Autoocupació has helped thousands of start-ups and entrepreneurs to get born, to grow and to scale up.

During his career as a consultant, manager, advisor, early stage investor and coach, Albert has gathered profound knowledge of the entrepreneurial skills. He is a passionate entrepreneur’s coach as well as an inspiring and compelling speaker, as well as recipient of the Euronews EU Business Personality of the Year 2017 Award.

Pursuing his life’s mission, Albert founded Youth Business Spain, an organization devoted to helping the young generations to startup and to grow their own business. Presently, Albert serves as Board member of Youth Business Spain which in turn is part of the worldwide network Youth Business International. After organizing several organizing Global Entrepreneurship Week in Spain he have been appointed Spanish country manager on the Global Entrepreneurship Network.

Albert has also had a role as think tank guru, lobbyer and policy maker: as President of CAT Formació (trade union representing the Catalan training sector), as well as member of both the Catalan and the Spanish Employers’ Confederations (CECOT and FOMENT, respectively), Albert main achievement has been to successfully shape pro-enterprise policies for business to seize market opportunities, thus removing barriers for growth and liberalizing economic activities.

Furthermore, Albert was also member of the Advisory Board of the Catalan Institute of Finance, the public financing institution of the Government of Catalonia. Being appointed by the highest institution in Catalonia (the very same Parliament of Catalonia), Albert designed and helped to set up the first Catalan Microcredit Facility for those collectivities that do not have regular access to the most traditional and low-risk-focused financial institutions. In addition, Albert is also partner in a myriad of companies specialized in training, design, consulting and project management.

To go on, Albert has been at the forefront of the angel investor movement in Spain and Europe, since its very beginning. In 2002, he founded BANC (Business Angels Network Catalunya) the first of its kind to operate in Catalunya. Later on, he fostered the creation of the first Spanish Federation of Business Angels Networks, Fundación ESBAN (2006). ESBAN Foundation main goals are to raise awareness and to promote Angel investment