Startup Council
About the CCINP Startup Council
The CCINP Startup Council is dedicated to fostering collaboration, innovation and accelerating success for startup ventures both in the Netherlands and in the Portuguese-speaking world.
Mission
Our mission is to empower startup founders within the Netherlands and Portugal, as well as their diaspora communities worldwide, by providing essential resources and support to navigate the complexities of entrepreneurship and international business.
Services
The CCINP Startup Council offers a range of services designed to meet the unique needs of startup ventures operating within the Dutch-Portuguese economic landscape. Through expert content and insights, we provide founders with the network and connection necessary to succeed in today’s competitive market.
Global Perspective
While rooted in the Netherlands and Portugal, we recognise the importance of global collaboration and knowledge sharing. Within the CCINP, we proudly facilitate connections and exchange between Dutch and Portuguese entrepreneurs, as well as with partners and stakeholders around the world.
Location and Expertise
Based within the dynamic startup hubs of the Netherlands and Portugal, the CCINP Startup Council benefits from access to some of the top startup expertise available. We leverage this expertise to support startups within our network, providing them with the guidance and opportunities needed to thrive in the global marketplace.
Isabel Neves has been an entrepreneur and an innovator for over 30 years.
With a vast experience in supporting young entrepreneurs and innovators from a vast array of fields and sectors, ranging from traditional retail and commerce to bioenergy and tourism, education to name just a few.
She has been a consultant, project manager, a mentor and a lecturer all while founding and managing her own business. Her professional training as a Lawyer has provide her the opportunity to interact across various corporate sectors and specialize in achieving consensus through negotiation and solution finding.
This has proved to be an excellent foundation for her Business Angel activities and has led her to support and mentor entrepreneurs, innovators which has been her focus over the last ten years.
She was the first woman to found a Business Angels Club in Portugal as the first woman to join the Board of the National Federation of Business Angels. Currently Isabel is a member of the board of INVESTORS PORTUGAL, an Association that gather all the Early Stage Investors in Portugal.
She is a guest lecturer at various prestigious Universities on Post Graduate Degrees where she lectures Entrepreneurship and Innovation and capital markets, Investment and Competitiveness.
She was a member of the Investors Panel on the Portuguese TV version of Shark Tank. She is considered an inspiring figure and as such is often invited to speak and mentor women and young people who aspire to enter and succeed as innovators and/or entrepreneurs.
Currently, as a corollary of life, she is the President of UNA – UNITED NATIONS PORTUGAL, an association whose main objective is to promote the citizenship and contribute to a global awareness. Isabel has an adult son who is also following in her footsteps and is also an entrepreneur.
With the background of an economist (Universidade do Porto) and holding an MBA from Lancaster University, in the UK, Miguel Henriques has an extensive experience with entrepreneurs all over Europe. He was a member of the Board of EBAN, the European Business Angel Network, being invited as member of the jury of different entrepreneurship contests and acts as a mentor of numerous start-up projects. An entrepreneur himself, only recently Miguel has co-founded Mermaid Investments, Natural Grids and Goneutral, the latter two operating in the renewable gases and hydrogen fields.
He is also a business angel, investing and assisting the creation and scale-up of start-up companies. His career investing in start-ups dates back over twenty years ago, when he lead a venture capital fund for innovation and later run a corporate venture programme within a large industrial group in Portugal. Together, these two initiatives have invested in more than 50 new companies in different economic sectors, with a strong high-tech focus.
Miguel has also served as CEO or executive director of numerous big and middle-sized corporations. In the last 10 years, he has worked primarily in the cleantech, energy and forestry sectors, ranging from wind parks to distribution of gas, through water and wastewater treatment and distribution, residential and industrial waste collection treatment and deposit and territory recovery and biodiversity recreation.
Miguel Henriques is also a lecturer at Porto Business School.
