Leila Lunguleac-Bardasuc,
Head of partnerships at CONNECTS and Professor at Universidad Europea

Over the past 8 years Leila has developed markets and a network of international partners through new strategies in the IT sector. She is an advocate of a new commercial model, that focuses more on helping, building trust and not selling. Therefore, she is working with CONNECTS towards achieving a B4B (business for business) approach and platform, where businesses can grow stronger together and also as a teacher of new business models at the Master in Industry 4.0 and digital transformation strategy within Universidad Europea.

With a Business Economics PhD in innovative methodology from the European University in Madrid in 2016, she is currently finishing a second PhD in new communication techniques at Malaga University.

Joost Visser,
Founder and CEO TIAO NV/SA

There’s an African proverb that says it takes a whole village to raise a child. Likewise, it takes a whole community to build a successful business that can grow and contribute to a healthy economy. 

This is the motto of TIAO, the company behind CONNECTS, the global B2B matchmaking and collaboration platform for business networks and their members, co-founded by Joost in 2016.

Joost’s career spans over 25 years as a marketing, sales and strategy expert working in senior executive roles in multinational FMCG businesses in Europe and the Americas and as a management consultant and entrepreneur in other sectors and industries.

In the last 10 years Joost has increasingly been working with international business networks, public and private sector trade development organizations, using digital tools and new ways of working to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of (international) trade development for SMEs and entrepreneurs.