Cristina Garmendia

Cristina Garmendia is President of the Cotec Foundation for Innovation, a Spanish foundation that promotes innovation as a driver of economic and social development, whose honorary president is King Felipe VI.

She served as Spain's Minister of Science and Innovation from 2008 to 2011. During her tenure, she led the Spanish Innovation Strategy and the Law for Science, Technology and Innovation, and forged key international agreements during the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2010.

Before entering government, Garmendia founded Genetrix in 2000, the first private company to emerge from Spain's National Centre for Biotechnology, and co-founded the life sciences venture capital firm YSIOS Capital Partners and is also co-founder of Satlantis Microsats, a Spanish-American company operating in the New Space sector.

Garmendia is an independent board member of CaixaBank and a member of the European Union's Space Advisory Council. She served as Vice-President of Logista Group until February 2026 and was President of Mediaset España from 2024 to 2026.

She has received numerous distinctions, including the Grand Cross of the Royal and Distinguished Spanish Order of Charles III, awarded by the Government of Spain; the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays, conferred by the Government of Japan; and the rank of Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, awarded by the Government of the Italian Republic.

She holds a degree in Genetics from the University of Seville and a PhD in Molecular Biology from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, where she trained in the laboratory of Margarita Salas at the Severo Ochoa Centre for Molecular Biology. She also holds an MBA from IESE Business School.