GONZALO VILLARAN ELIAS

Gonzalo Villaran Elias is an executive at Innovate Peru - the Peruvian government agency in charge of the operation of innovation and entrepreneurial support programs.

Gonzalo holds an Industrial Engineering degree from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru (PUCP) and a Master degree in Marketing from Centrum, the business school at PUCP.

Before joining the public sector, Gonzalo has worked for private enterprises on the design and supervision of engineering projects in gas and other industries.

Gonzalo is part of a new generation of Peruvian professionals with a strong expertise on innovation and entrepreneurship. Since 2009, his work has been related first to the performance assessment of the pioneer innovation programs in Peru through private consultancy, and then to the direct implementation of public innovation programs through his work for the Government.

As a public official on the innovation sector, Gonzalo has directly participated in the design and implementation of more than ten public instruments to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in Peru. One of these programs is Start Up Peru, the first government program that provides seed capital for innovative entrepreneurship projects and provides funding for enhancing business incubators and angel investors networks.

Gonzalo is part of the Lima Team of the Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program (MIT-REAP) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology .