Imanol Rego, new president of the Basque Innovation Agency Innobasque

A member of the Agency’s Board of Directors since September 2022, he is an industrial engineer, with training at the University of Leuven and the Harvard and CCL Business Schools in Singapore, and has an extensive professional career linked to industry, technology and the foreign market.

He takes over from Manuel Salaverria, who has been able to promote the value of the Basque public-private innovation ecosystem as a strategic path for the development of the Basque Country.

The current CEO of the Irizar Group, Imanol Rego, will be the fifth president of the Basque Innovation Agency, Innobasque, after being unanimously approved this morning by the members of the Board of Directors, who met in an extraordinary session. Imanol Rego takes over from Manuel Salaverria, who has chaired the Agency since 2017.

Following the appointment of Imanol Rego Iturralde as the new president of the Basque Innovation Agency, the outgoing president, Manuel Salaverria, briefly addressed the Board to thank them for their support in a joint journey of which he said he was proud. ‘All of us, Innobasque, its more than 900 public and private partner organisations, the Basque innovation ecosystem and Basque society in general have worked tirelessly for innovation in the Basque Country’.

Before saying goodbye, Salaverria addressed the new president-elect: ‘Imanol, you have a great challenge ahead of you. Profound and radical transitions, a geostrategically confused world and a country, the Basque Country, with enormous values and potential, and at the same time, with great weaknesses, some of them structural. These are going to be your environmental conditions. But I am convinced that Innobasque has the talent and energy to continue to be the great driving force behind innovation in the Basque Country’.

Imanol Rego

The fifth president of the Basque Innovation Agency, Imanol Rego, has assumed his position ‘with the honour of taking over the baton from Manuel Salaverria after a key stage in which the vision of Innobasque has been consolidated, to achieve through the Basque innovation ecosystem that the Basque Country plays in the league of the leading regions in innovation at European level. This progress has been possible thanks to the commitment of many people and agents who have worked to make innovation a driver of competitiveness and progress for the Basque Country’.

The new president of Innobasque has also shown his ‘enthusiasm to continue with the work of Salaverria in a transcendental historical moment. We are at a turning point, with multiple factors that require special attention, from geopolitical reconfiguration and decarbonisation to the energy transition, the technological revolution and the socio-demographic challenge. Ensuring the sustainability of our business and industrial fabric will require a strategic vision and the ability to attract and retain talent in a world in constant transformation’, he stressed.