Presenting the EIC Scaling Club Council

We are honoured to present the seven exceptional leaders who will support the EIC Scaling Club as Council Members in the coming years.

Jan is a quantum physicist and co-founding CEO of IQM, building next-generation quantum computers. IQM has assembled an exceptional team of international quantum experts developing on-premises systems for HPC and special applications.

IQM has raised €128 million in Series A2 funding (in 2022), largest ever funding round raised by a European quantum computing company. Jan did his doctorate on superconducting quantum circuits at TU Munich and worked as a Marie-Curie Fellow in Helsinki at Aalto University, where he holds the title of docent.

In 2020, Capital magazine selected him as one of 40 under 40 in Germany and he received an entrepreneurship award from the KAUTE Foundation. Jan was in the Board of the European Innovation Council EIC, the European Quantum Industry Consortium QuIC, and member of the German Federal Economic Senate as well as a Digital Leader and Global Innovator at the WEF.

Jennifer Schenker

Jennifer, an award-winning journalist, has been covering the global tech industry from Europe since 1985, working full-time, at various points in her career for the Wall Street Journal Europe, Time Magazine, International Herald Tribune, Red Herring, BusinessWeek and Les Echos.

She is currently the founder and editor-in-chief of The Innovator, a global publication that puts technology news into context for business.

Jennifer was named one of Europe’s 50 most inspirational women in technology in 2015 and 2016. She is based in Paris and has dual French and American citizenship.

Jussi Hätönen

Head of the EIC Division at European Investment Bank (EIB) - Venture capital and quasi-equity investments

Maria Zubeldia

Maria is the Executive Director of the Entrepreneurship Centre at Said Business School, University of Oxford. The Entrepreneurship Centre plays a key role in supporting student futures at Oxford, working with other departments to underpin the curricular and co-curricular, innovation and entrepreneurial goals of students.

She is a tutor for the Entrepreneurship Project, an integral part of the MBA and EMBA programmes. She has created a strategic vision for the Centre building on the ecosystem strengths to enhance innovation at Oxford.

She has a wealth of experience in innovation, entrepreneurship, business development, international negotiation & partnerships management.

Her professional career has spanned a range of sectors including publishing, banking, B2B, public sector and consulting. 

Marie Wall

Marie is responsible for policy to strengthen innovative startups and scaleups, in all areas from social innovation to deep tech, at the Swedish Ministry of Climate and Enterprise. Marie Wall has a MSc in computer science from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm.

With a wide range of positions in the world of start-ups and the innovation system she is the bridge between the ministry and the start-up ecosystem.She started her career in IT research, but soon joined the 90’s start-up scene in Stockholm.

Before joining the Ministry, she was responsible for the national incubation program, providing financing to incubators and young start-ups, at the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation System (Vinnova).

Marie has also spent time in Silicon Valley as technical attaché and as visiting scholar at Stanford University.

Stéphane Ouaki

Stéphane Ouaki, the Head of Department of the European Innovation Council (EIC) in the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency. In his role, he ensures effective and efficient implementation of the EIC from the emergence of new technologies having the potential to generate game changing innovation up to the scaling up of deep-tech enterprises (mainly startups and SMEs).

Previously, he was the head of unit for Financial Instruments in DG Research and Innovation at the European Commission. Before joining DG R&I, he was the head of unit for the Connecting Europe Facility and investment strategies in DG MOVE. Beforehand, he was Deputy Head of Cabinet of Commissioner Vladimír Špidla, responsible for employment, social affairs, and equal opportunities (2004-2010). Previously, he was part of the Commission’s team negotiating with the Czech Republic its terms of accession to the EU (2001-03), and then moved on to be part of the team coordinating the enlargement strategy (2003-04).

Thomas Louis Ferré

Thomas is a venture and growth equity investor with nearly 20 years of experience in investing in companies across the world. Today he works at the European Investment Bank serving the EIC Fund in investing across Europe. He specializes in AI, quantum and semiconductors, and industry 4.0. He is a former award-winning circular economy entrepreneur and an engineering graduate of the Arts et Metiers ParisTech and the University of Michigan.

Victoria Hernandez-Valcarel

Victoria is a non-executive Director (NED) at CaixaBank Payments & Consumer, the top bank in Spain and one of the largest banks in Europe.

Jury expert at the European Commission, in charge of approving EU proposals for the European Innovation Council (EIC) Horizon Europe funding applications.

Likewise, she represents the interests of the EIC €10,2bn fund as NED in the Belgian telecommunications company, Tessares. She is also NED of TeamEQ, an AI & ML powered service start-up that offers solutions in the field of human resources, and a member of the advisory board of Cashway, a financial technology innovative company based in Paris.

Previously, she was Alliance’s Director British Telecom Europe, Executive Chairman Orange Spain, and Senior Vice-President International Proximus.

In her social contribution, she is member of the Board and President Europe of the Global Telecom Women Network (GTWN.org), the international forum for women executives active in high technology, to contribute to the evolution of the information society in a positive way.

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About the EIC Scaling Club

The EIC Scaling Club is a curated community where 100 European deep tech scale-ups with the potential to build world-class businesses and solve major global challenges come together with investors, corporate innovators and other industry stakeholders to spur growth.

The top 100 European deep tech companies will be carefully selected from a pool of high-growth scale-ups that have benefitted from EIC financial schemes, other European and national innovation programmes, and beyond.

The EIC Scaling Club is an EIC-funded initiative run in partnership by Tech Tour, Bpifrance (EuroQuity), Hello Tomorrow, Tech.eu (Webrazzi), EurA and IESE Business School.