Gemma Guilera Ferre

Bio

Dr. Gemma Guilera is a chemist, an entrepreneur and an enabler of innovation. She currently serves as a Managing Director at the Sustainability Accelerator within the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.

Prior to joining the Accelerator, Guilera was Senior Manager at Plug and Play tech Center, an innovation platform and early-stage startup investment firm in Silicon Valley. Specializing in sustainable materials and packaging, she facilitated relationships between corporations seeking innovative solutions and the dynamic startup network at Plug and Play. Earlier to this role, Guilera was co-founder and CEO of Moving Beans, a venture backed-up sustainable startup developing more environmentally friendly, home-compostable materials for consumer goods.

During her time in the UK, Guilera was part of the original team that implemented the human-centered, solution-led Accelerator for Cities at Connected Places Catapult, where she led the startup team. The team provided support to startups in their growth journey through strategic multi-stakeholder engagement and accelerator programs. She also developed and led the open call for one of the largest large-scale IoT demonstrators globally, now the EU standard for innovative open calls.

Prior to her work in innovation, Guilera built the X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy Beamline at ALBA Synchrotron (Spain), overseeing its construction and operation and conducting research in various areas such as catalysis and nanomaterials. Her career began as an industrial post-doc, followed by her role as a scientist at the ESRF (European Synchrotron Radiation Facility), where she worked in the field of heterogeneous catalysis and collaborated with Toyota to co-develop a three-way catalyst for petrol cars.

Gemma holds a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Barcelona, as well as an MSc in Supramolecular Chemistry and a PhD in Organometallic Chemistry from King’s College London. She was selected as one of the finalists in Women in Tech Global Awards 2021.