Today, Netmentora Madrid by Réseau Entreprendre was presented. Réseau Entreprendre is an association of business people and managers whose objective is to generate stable, good quality employment from their involvement, promotion and support of sustainable entrepreneurship projects. Netmentora Madrid has the support and more than 30 years of experience from Réseau Entreprendre, the largest international network of business associations with leaders dedicated to the support of entrepreneurs.
Netmentora Madrid by Réseau Entreprendre was developed by the strong support of the initiative Réseau Entreprende Internacional with the main executives from Auchan Group, HP Inc., Delaviuda, Axa, Heineken, Pernod Ricard, Campofrío, Unilever, Nueva Pescanova, Saint Gobain and Page Group. Therefore, since its establishment, in addition to the founding members, other company managers have joined from ATREVIA, DLA Piper Global Law Firm, Seur, Pikolin, Crit Consultores, Alstom and GÓMEZ-ACEBO & POMBO Lawyers, S. L. P., as well as some independent professionals. Thanks to the direct involvement of business people who promote the creation of small and medium companies, entrepreneurs can take advantage of leading companies expertise in their respective sectors because of their advice and their ability to maximize entrepreneur’s initiatives.
In addition to the support from managers, Netmentora Madrid facilitates the project financing, by granting a free loan of between €10,000 and €30,000 at 0% interest. This comes without warrantees and 18 months free from payments and a 3 year repayment period.
This association plans to promote the creation of more than 800 job positions by 2020, which will positively contribute to the business sector in Madrid. Juan Pablo Lázaro, president of CEIM (Business Confederation Madrid – CEOE) declared that, “it is necessary for institutions, business associations and leading companies in our country to agree emphatically and clearly for the need to create new jobs. I will keep saying that Spain is short of 500,000 companies who can give opportunities to unemployed people in our country. Without a doubt, collaboration within the framework of corporate social responsibility is focused on the search of new formulas for the generation of employment, supporting value in society and strengthening the business network which will therefore increase competitiveness”.
For his part, Javier de Agustín, president of Netmentora Madrid, acknowledged that “with the creation of Netmentora Madrid it demonstrates anew the commitment of companies and those in charge for economic growth and boosting small and medium companies. In Netmentora Madrid, we have the more than 30 years of experience from Réseau Entreprendre and the support of members what will allow us to make our experience and business methods more available to entrepreneurs so that this can help make projects a reality”.
During Netmentora Madrid´s presentation, main executives of some leading companies analyzed in a moderated debate by Asun Soriano, CEO of ATREVIA, how the private sector can help generate employment.
In this sense, Patrick Coignard, Executive President of Auchan Retail Spain, highlighted the difference between Netmentora Madrid and other support entrepreneurship initiatives which is “the excellence of the support given to entrepreneurs. This has come from 30 years of experience by Réseau Eentreprendre which converts them into an international network association of business people and managers from leading companies. We have achieved a survival rate of 86% of those companies that are only 5 years old who are sensibly superior to the average rate of survival of companies, both in Europe which doesn’t surpass 60% as well in Spain that it doesn’t reach 50%”.
For his part, Jaime Aguilera, president of Unilever in Spain stated that “we want to put our experience to the service of entrepreneurs to contribute to the sustainability of ideas to positively affect the business environment. Combining entrepreneurial spirit with experience in areas like sales, marketing, social media, finance, logistics… we guarantee the necessary skills to convert ideas into true successful, future projects”.
During her intervention, Helena Herrero, president of HP Inc., revealed that “our country offers big and attractive possibilities and other motives for the talent available. Multinationals should involve themselves so that this talent helps us gain competitiveness. We are going to convey to entrepreneurs not only our knowledge but also security. We need people that do not fear of failure and that have ideas to be valued. HP supports entrepreneurship because it was this entrepreneurial spirit what made the company arise from a garage in Silicon Valley”.
“Commitment with the social environment where we operate allows us to involve ourselves in a direct way with one of the main challenges of our society: unemployment. From Delaviuda, we boosted the creation of internal employment and similarly, we want to go a step farther by focusing on entrepreneurship. We think that small business initiatives are the ones that can provide significant solutions. Hence, we are convinced that Netmentora Madrid is able to maximize our social initiative through collaboration and the union of strengths which should increase results”, stated Javier de la Morena, Director General of Delaviuda.
In Netmentora Madrid´s framework initiative, Juan Lopez de Sagredo, Sales Manager at Campofrío Spain highlighted that “Campofrío is a success story boosted by the entrepreneur, José Luis Ballvé. Today we are more than 3,000 employees only in Spain. We can solve the problem of unemployment in our country if, between everyone, we can help 500,000 entrepreneurs and if every company hires an average of 6 people. The support from Netmentora Madrid arises from our commitment to employment and entrepreneurs in Spain and the belief that must be addressed from all of these areas: public, legislative, business, university, social and even family”.