InvestEU Team

The Invest EU team is formed by Aitor Bilbao and Rafael Carnicero:

Aitor Bilbao is part of the team of the European projects at the Bilbao headquarters. He is a graduate in Business Administration and Management from the Public University of the Basque Country, with a postgraduate degree in business internationalisation. He has experience working in innovative start-ups and doing commercial work in the Commercial Office of the Spanish Embassy in Paris.

He has been working at Zabala since 2019, advising companies and public bodies on EU grants for R&D&I projects, both from the Paris and Bilbao offices. She is a specialist in EIC Accelerator projects and in supporting consortia in improving the market impact of their innovative proposals.

Rafael Carnicero is a consultant in European innovation projects. He holds a degree in Law and Political Science from the Carlos III University of Madrid and a Master in International Business Management from ICEX-CECO. After working at the Spanish Trade Office in Tel Aviv and a startup in the printed electronics sector, he joined Zabala Innovation in 2020.

He has specialised in developing business plans for innovation projects, negotiating consortium agreements and proposals for social innovation and circular economy. She is also involved in the circular economy project in rural areas GO-GRASS and in the management of the ETIP-SNET consortium.