Alma Yadira Bayona Arrieta is the Research Leader at CEC and holds a PhD from Mondragón Unibertsitatea. She received the international award for participatory research in sustainable entrepreneurship and the evaluation of social economy and systemic change.
She is the founder of the Hub New Economies program, funded by Canada's IDRC, where she leads 10 research projects on circular economies, feminine economies, and conscious capitalism. Additionally, she chairs the Innovation Node, a committee of 13 government institutions, triple-impact businesses, universities, and social organizations.
She collaborates with the UN (ECLAC) to develop skills for conscious entrepreneurship and promotes the use of the metaverse and artificial intelligence to create businesses aligned with the SDGs, working with universities in Colombia, Brazil, Honduras, Spain, and Mexico. Over the past two years, as a professor and researcher at Tec de Monterrey, she has taught over a thousand students about conscious entrepreneurship and innovative social businesses. She is currently implementing a collaborative platform for researchers and entrepreneurs, supported by the Novus 2023 award.