Javier Martínez Romero (Zaragoza, 1971), is the managing director of the European Business and Innovation Center of Aragon (CEEI) since December 2023. A few months after his appointment, he collaborated in the organization of The Wave, the Tech Expo held in March 2024, which seeks to consolidate the autonomous community as a European technology hub. Spokesman for Economy during two legislatures in the Aragonese Parliament, Martínez Romero is specialized in strategic consulting, a field in which he has designed a new model of strategic thinking called ‘Relative Management’. The director of CEEI has been founder of several innovative companies, such as Netwos, NTbit or Tom Sagan, and has served as professor of Marketing at the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas (ICAI-ICADE) from 2001 to 2005. A regular collaborator of institutions such as the IAF, Ibercaja or the University of Zaragoza, Javier Martinez has designed a restructuring of the organization he directs, two decades ahead, which seeks to adapt the CEEI to the changes that technological advances are causing in companies, business models and society.
Before the summer you presented your CEEI restructuring plan before the Aragonese Parliament. What are the main lines of this plan?
We want to consolidate a new model, to adapt to the changes that have taken place in terms of startups and innovative projects. These changes are occurring for several reasons. On the one hand, there is more private and public initiative in other autonomous communities, in this field, with totally different models: from Lanzadera to Patio or La Nave in Madrid… many initiatives that operate in a completely different way to ours.
matriX is one of the most advanced programs at the national level.
On the other hand, in Aragon, when the CEEI was created, there were not so many actors dedicated to promoting entrepreneurship. And, finally, the technologies available at the moment are going to allow a new wave of changes and the appearance of innovative projects of different types: purely technological companies used to be supported, which had to be helped on the business side, now we will probably find companies that can be born from people who know about business, and who need support on the technological side. I think these changes are powerful enough to cause us to have to adapt. We are innovating in the way of operating an instrument that supports innovation. That is what we set out to do from the beginning of the legislature. What we have done is to adopt a new model which, moreover, is one of the most advanced at the national level.
A new model for the next twenty years
The fact that it is for the next twenty years implies a structural change, it is not just a simple image washing or improvement of the programs. The CEEI model had to change completely, and that entails, first, a change at the operational level, i.e., what programs it implements, such as matriX. Second, in terms of philosophy. Our philosophy is no longer to help, our philosophy is to “invest”. In short, we work with the resources of the Government of Aragon, with the resources of all Aragonese, and what we have to do is to invest them so that more companies are created, and that these companies bill more, create more jobs, and that these jobs are of higher quality.
Javier Martínez. Photo: N.M..
The difference is that, when you give aid, you disengage. This is another important change: we do not disengage: we work project by project, in a personalized way, for two years. I remember perfectly well, when the Internet appeared, that we all believed that the businesses that would develop thanks to its appearance would be one, and then there were completely different ones. That is why we have decided to create a flexible model in which, at each moment, we detect the most interesting projects with the greatest potential, to see if we can invest resources and provide solutions. We are not closed to any type of project.
You come from the world of entrepreneurship, although you also have first-hand knowledge of the workings of the institutions thanks to your experience as a member of parliament for two terms in the Cortes de Aragón. How does this dual experience influence your management of CEEI?
The fact of having been an entrepreneur and, in addition, having participated in the entrepreneurial world for many years, has allowed us to design a program that fits like a glove to what the projects want and what those who promote them are already telling us. Basically, when matriX is designed, it is done thinking about what the projects need. And thinking about what would have helped me in each of the projects I’ve been involved in has had a big influence. In fact, my first moves in the technological entrepreneurial world took place in the CEEI twenty years ago. I participated at that time with many others who are now leading entrepreneurs. Knowing, at an institutional level, how things should be approached has allowed us to make a design with a public interest aspect. For example, the model also acts against depopulation and in favor of structuring, because we promote projects wherever they are.
What are the main assets of CEEI at present in terms of companies and relevant projects?
CEEI was the instrument of the Government of Aragon that generated the companies that today are benchmark technology companies in the productive fabric of Aragon. When we were here twenty years ago, what I call ‘the old guard’ (we all know each other), the CEEI was the place where you came and saw different things, where you could interact, where ambitions were developed, where they were put on the table and nobody had any problem, where the ‘geek’ visions, which sometimes were not understood, could be raised and carried forward. And it is true that there were a series of programs that had a great impact at that time. This has given rise to companies such as Hiberus, Embou, Liberium, Scati or Certest Biotech. Today we have companies such as Zepren, Moontech, Mecanus, Signos IoT, Intergia… very interesting projects are still being born.
The CEEI will be more than just a business incubator.
Until now, the only thing that new projects were looking for at the CEEI was a physical space. And there will continue to be spaces, but we understood that we had to design a program that was operational and that would more effectively promote innovative business projects. Innovation can be purely technological, or innovation in existing models through technology: blockchain, IoT, AI… We are not going to recognize the world we live in fifteen years from now. Technology is changing the economy and will completely transform it.
Aragon has attracted, in fact, technology giants such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google.
We at CEEI will take advantage, together with matriX, of this pull. In Aragon, the government has facilitated the arrival of large investments. This means income for the community through the investments that are made, the jobs that are created, the taxes that are going to be paid here, etc. But this also produces a call effect or image effect. We have to take advantage of it.
We are not going to recognize the world we live in fifteen years from now.
Besides, we are not a region of multinationals, but of small and medium-sized companies. How can we take advantage of the pull of multinationals to encourage the emergence of new small and medium-sized companies? That is another of CEEI’s functions; we have created a program that is one of the most advanced at the national level, which is open and attracts businesses with an innovative business model.
Are we moving towards a more stable model than the one that depended on a large company that required suppliers?
It is much more stable. Diversification is enormous. And if you know how to do it, it brings much greater stability.
Aragon attracts many companies because of its characteristics: access to renewable energies, land at competitive prices, stability?
This is an advantage and a disadvantage, we are talking about an economy where companies can relocate their projects with astonishing ease. We are talking about companies that ‘close’ their computers and tomorrow they are in Boston or Valencia. That is why we have to continue creating an attractive territory, with programs such as matriX, the most advanced program at the national level at the moment, which helps companies to stay here.
Javier Martínez, at the CEEI facilities. Photo: N.M.
There is a concept that I call the floating economy. And we are going to have to get used to the fact that there are companies and a lot of talent that are passing through, and we have to accept that. In the future, people will no longer be looking for a job for life, people with capacity will change projects as they are interested, and they don’t care exactly where the project is: the important thing is that there are many projects in the territory, some will leave and others will come, but we have to maintain a critical mass that is attractive to talent. The arrival of the technological giants in Aragon has brought to light that there was a much more powerful fabric here in relative terms than in most of the autonomous communities, with companies like Hiberus, Integra, Inycom, NTT Data, Nologin, Apser… we have national champions, companies with only Spanish and even Aragonese capital. Everything is adding up and positioning Aragon.
How will matriX influence this process of change?
It is an advanced program that is designed in such a specific way that we believe that its potential to promote projects is well above average, it will be very effective, and we have to demonstrate this over time. It is a program designed thinking about what any entrepreneur would want at this moment, and it is created to compete not with other initiatives of the Government of Aragon, but with initiatives of other territories, of which there are many. We know that there has already been interest in matriX from some national initiative that wonders what is happening in Aragon: if you add an event like The Wave to the arrival of the technological giants, which seeks to be a reference, and then create a project to promote innovative initiatives… you become a national reference. Fifteen days after the launch of matriX, we had approximately 30% of applications at the national level.
What is the innovative aspect of matriX?
The projects can be of any type (pre-seed, seed, scale…). What we do is to select, we see the potential of the project and we also evaluate whether we have the capacity to promote it in terms of the needs it has. Promote it in the sense of providing resources, of investing so that the project can go ahead. For example, if they need an AI solution, we will evaluate the cost and put it on the table. If they need to open doors in the market or research institutes, we will knock on those doors, that is to say, we will do everything that an entrepreneur does not control, or does not reach. We are operational, we bring customized solutions to the table.
In the first edition of The Wave, all our expectations have been exceeded.
If the project is selected, it enters a two-year program. Each project will have 10,000 euros in resources that we will provide in the form of solutions. Every six months the project will be evaluated. Each project defines where it wants to go and we establish what we will provide along the way, in a personalized way. In addition, you can apply to matriX at any time.
One of your first mandates at the head of CEEI was the participation in the organization of The Wave. What would be your balance of this first edition of the Tech Expo of the Government of Aragon?
In the first edition of The Wave all our expectations have been exceeded, in the second edition is where we want to consolidate this Tech Expo, which has established itself as an event at national level. With The Wave we have gone outside, we had to explain who we are, how we are and what we intend to do. And I think we have achieved that.
Can you advance anything about the 2025 edition?
The second edition of The Wave will be on March 19, 20 and 21, 2025. The first day will be more dedicated to the technological part, the second day will be more dedicated to the entrepreneurial part, and the third day will be focused on startups and investment, which is where CEEI will once again lead the organization.
You have witnessed first-hand the transformation of Aragon, with a clear orientation towards the most cutting-edge sectors of the economy. Did you expect at the beginning of your professional career that this autonomous community would become one of the most recognized technology centers at national and international level?
Twenty years ago I did not believe that we could have such a modern economy as the one we have, literally in almost all sectors. If we have survived, and at this moment we are competing, it has been because of innovation, both technological and in terms of business models, and in terms of opening new markets. And I think we have to start selling it. That is going to be a radical change, because the only thing I think we were missing was something very simple and at the same time difficult, and it is called ambition. There is a phrase that I think is fantastic from Teresa Fernández, director of Corporate Banking at Ibercaja, who says that in Aragón we are too ambitious before our time. We are capable of doing wonders and suddenly, ‘this is as far as we have come’. And that is changing.
An example of this is the change in the CEEI model and the launching of matriX.
You often say that Aragon has to sell itself better.
You have to have ambition and go out and sell yourself. Hopefully, matriX will awaken ambition.
