Entrepreneur Rebeca Minguela wants investors to feel good about which companies are getting their money.
The daughter of two public school teachers, Minguela grew up in Spain, but earned an MBA at Harvard in 2010. She went on to work at Bain Capital Private Equity, Boston Consulting Group and as an engineer at the German Aerospace Agency, Siemens and IBM. In 2011, she launched Blink Booking, a hotel booking mobile app in Europe that saw investments from SoftTech VC, ProFounders, Charles Petruccelli and American Express Travel, Radisson Hotels, Kibo ventures and others.
The app had more than 800,000 downloads and 3,000 hotels attached in six European countries before it was acquired by Groupon in 2013, and Minguela joined the company as its General Manager and Senior Director of Product and Operation.
She is now the founder and CEO of Clarity, which uses data science to address the problem of unequal capital allocation. The tool uses scientific research, quantitative assessment and global preferences to help investors maximize the social impact of their investments by expanding the ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) framework—allowing users to see which companies are truly having a positive influence on the world. Its platform covers more than 250,000 companies in 198 countries, allowing to input the importance of each social metric to build their own customized scores.
Due to her endeavors, in 2017, Minguela was the first winner of the “Women in Fintech” prize at the BBVA Open Talent 2017 competition.
“I’m truly grateful for this award because I believe that it is essential to shine the spotlight on women to inspire others,” she said while accepting the award. “We need more women in the tech and financial sector.”
In fact, females make up about 40 percent of Clarity’s workforce. The team includes VP of Global Partnerships Paloma Baena Olabe, Talent Acquisition Specialist Lucía Narvaiza Yturriaga, Paloma Mele de Juan, VP of Business Development, and Carmen Boulet Bunzl, Sr Business Development Manager.
While the company originated in the United States, most of its employees hail from Spain. “There is a lot of talent in Spain, with very good preparation, and also the loyalty that we have in our country towards the firm in which we work is greater than that of the workers in the United States,” explained Minguela.
