Natalie Batlle, president and founder of Juno House, joins AIJEC as a strategic advisor. The objective of this collaboration is to promote entrepreneurship and female leadership, while accompanying and advising AIJEC members in their objectives related to equality, inclusive leadership and strategic communication. The incorporation of Batlle aligns with AIJEC’s mission to increase the presence and visibility of women entrepreneurs and managers.
Boost female business talent
According to the 2024-2025 Executive Report of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) in Catalonia, the Entrepreneurial Activity Rate (TEA) stands at 9.8% for men and 7.5% for women. Although these figures reflect an improvement over the previous report and are above the Spanish and European averages, the study underlines the urgency of reinforcing resources and programs that promote equality in the entrepreneurial field.
Faced with this situation, AIJEC has established an alliance with entrepreneur Natalie Batlle, who becomes the entity’s strategic advisor, with the aim of promoting and giving visibility to female talent within the association. From this role, she will act as a connector between the emerging entrepreneurship and the established company, as well as promoting strategic alliances, both with women and with men committed to generating a real and lasting impact on the growth of projects led by women. In the current edition of AIJEC’s Comida de Futuro, conversations will be held around female leadership.
International inclusion as an engine of growth and innovation
Currently, 44.1% of entrepreneurs in Barcelona are of foreign nationality, with an entrepreneurial activity rate of 6% among this population, double that of Spain. They also account for 96% of the increase in self-employed people in the region. Its role is essential to revitalize the ecosystem and connect Catalonia with global trends and networks. This reality turns the city into an authentic multicultural hub, where the integration of diverse visions and trajectories not only enriches the local fabric, but also boosts the region’s own economic identity.
Diversity acts as an engine of growth and transformation in business projects. The multiculturalism of initiatives like Juno House shows that cultural and experience differences are a source of added value, networking and professional opportunities. These contribute to the development of new solutions and vital perspectives for local competitiveness. Foreign entrepreneurs, often protagonists of the initial stages of new businesses (TEA), bring an innovative vision and the ability to identify opportunities that are not always detected locally.
Two entities that share objectives
Natalie Batlle founded, together with her team, Juno House in 2022, the first club in Europe created by and for women, with the mission, as she herself declares, of “helping members to prosper both in the personal and professional sphere”. It currently has more than 600 members who believe in mutual support, cooperation and co-creation.
This philosophy is also reflected in the data of the gender gap report of the newspaper El Referent, which highlights that while 70.75% of male entrepreneurs have founded startups alone, only 32.36% of women do so without a partner. Both the report and the success of Juno House show that women choose to a greater extent to share experiences and concerns, an initiative that AIJEC wants to promote.
In fact, both Juno House and AIJEC offer meeting spaces where you can enrich each other with ideas, experiences and talents. Therefore, the union of both entities makes even more sense, since the members of the association will be able to count on the support of the club’s founder.
On the other hand, this alliance responds to the mission of Vicenç Del Mar Mullor, president of the AIJEC since July 2024: “Rejuvenate, energize and reconnect with the new generations of entrepreneurs, promoting innovation, digitalization and international openness”. The president of the AIJEC defends that the incorporation of Natalie Batlle is a safe bet that will add value, strategic vision, experience and, of course, female empowerment.
The measures derived from the alliance
The merger between Juno House and the AIJEC will entail a series of measures. Natalie Batlle will act as a strategic advisor, will be part of the jury of the 2025 Young Entrepreneur Award and will act as a bridge figure between Juno’s entrepreneurship network and the traditional business ecosystem. In addition, the design of a joint annual event, the creation of a shared brand and, ultimately, a common strategic line to promote female leadership and international openness is foreseen.