Ricardo Bustos Gardea

Ricardo Bustos Gardea is a Mexican entrepreneurship ecosystem builder, nonprofit executive, educator, and institutional leader with 19 years of experience across civil society, government, academia, and the private sector. His work focuses on building stronger entrepreneurial ecosystems through governance, institutional collaboration, public policy, capacity building, and equitable access to opportunities.

He is the Executive Director of Emprendemos, A.C., a Mexican nonprofit organization dedicated to entrepreneurship, economic development, and ecosystem strengthening. He also serves as President of the Chihuahua State Entrepreneurship Network and Red Emprende Chihuahua Capital, bringing together public institutions, universities, companies, chambers, civil society organizations, investors, and entrepreneurship support organizations.

Ricardo is the creator and methodological director of EDIS, a governance, institutional coordination, and territorial infrastructure model designed to strengthen impact ecosystems and expand access to opportunities. The model emerged from Chihuahua’s experience in organizing entrepreneurship networks and has supported the development of regional ecosystems throughout the state. Today, the network connects more than 130 institutions through regional and statewide collaboration structures, while the EDIS approach has generated interest and implementation opportunities in other regions of Mexico and Latin America.

His work has contributed to the direct support of more than 7,000 entrepreneurs, with an additional indirect reach of more than 10,000 people through entrepreneurship, training, mentoring, ecosystem development, and institutional collaboration initiatives.

Ricardo has also worked at the intersection of entrepreneurship and public policy. He participated in efforts that contributed to the development of the Entrepreneurship Promotion Law of the State of Chihuahua, published in 2023, which formally recognizes entrepreneurship networks as part of the state’s ecosystem infrastructure. He has also promoted the institutional recognition of collaborative entrepreneurship networks at the municipal level.

Alongside his nonprofit leadership, Ricardo has more than 15 years of teaching experience, having taught over 2,000 university students in entrepreneurship, finance, innovation, accounting, and professional development. He regularly participates as a mentor, evaluator, speaker, and ecosystem expert in entrepreneurship initiatives in Mexico and internationally.

He has served as an evaluator and mentor for the Startup World Cup and, through Red Emprende Chihuahua Capital, collaborates with Pegasus Tech Ventures in the organization of the competition in Mexico. His work has included identifying and supporting high-potential startups, connecting founders with ecosystem actors, and strengthening Chihuahua’s position within national and international entrepreneurship networks.

Ricardo has participated in international leadership and ecosystem development programs, including the American Express Leadership Academy, the CAF–Fundación Carolina leadership program, and entrepreneurship ecosystem development training through BID/PRODEM. He has also participated as a speaker or contributor in entrepreneurship, innovation, and ecosystem development forums in Mexico and abroad.

His professional interests include entrepreneurship ecosystem development, collaborative governance, social innovation, entrepreneurship policy, inclusive economic development, artificial intelligence applied to ecosystem coordination, institutional capacity building, and the design of scalable models for territorial development.

Ricardo holds a degree in Financial Engineering and a Master’s degree in Finance from the Universidad de Alcalá and CIFF, completed with a Santander scholarship.

Based in Chihuahua, Mexico, he is particularly interested in connecting local and regional ecosystems with national and global networks, sharing methodologies between territories, and building collaborations that allow entrepreneurial opportunities, knowledge, capital, and institutional capacity to reach communities beyond traditional innovation hubs.

His central belief is that entrepreneurial ecosystems become stronger not simply by creating more programs, but by improving the way institutions coordinate, share information, build trust, create pathways, and connect people with real opportunities.