A Coffee with: Jorge Barrero
Interview with Jorge Barrero, CEO of Fundación Cotec, by Teresa Zamora
As a man of science, Jorge Barrero would have liked to live as a scientist—and he certainly has the skills—but research wasn’t what he expected. So he decided to put aside what had been his dream, vocation, and life’s expectation for years—science—to take other paths that have not kept him far from it. He has worked in science policy, science communication, and economics, and even studied philosophy of science.
Analytical and calm, as well as a polymath, that is how Jorge Barrero appears and introduces himself at our coffee meeting in ILUNION Atrium, to hold an interview full of knowledge—knowledge that you carry with you to bring into environments that encourage dialogue and critical thinking.
Once a boy from a small, remote village in the Cantabrian mountains, today he is the CEO of Fundación Cotec. Son of a schoolteacher and a man who traveled the world only to return to his roots and build a life and family there, Barrero is clear that “those experiences in that village are the most important line of my CV and probably the one that has marked me the most.”
I’m finishing the book The Son of Caesar, and in one of the letters the author imagines written by Caesar Augustus, he says that when you are young you see your life as an epic, and as you grow and realize you won’t reach all the goals you set, it becomes a tragedy. But eventually, you get past that stage and live it all as a comedy. “One of the few good things about getting older is that you are more forgiving with yourself. I’m not who I expected to become, but that’s not so bad.”
For those unfamiliar with Fundación Cotec, could you explain the main features of this foundation dedicated to the analysis and promotion of innovation in Spain?
To understand what Cotec is, we need to look back a bit. We could say that the foundation has gone through four stages:
- A very brilliant phase in the early 90s when it had a monopoly on the discourse of innovation.
- It entered a period of crisis, becoming disconnected from the world, and its role was no longer as necessary; there was more experience, and each sector even had a certain ability to predict its trends.
- Then the current team arrived, and we had the opportunity to re-found Cotec and reinterpret innovation. We shifted from seeing innovation as business, technological, and “engineering” to a broader view. For us, innovation is any knowledge-based change that adds value.
This has allowed us to address topics that weren’t on the original agenda, such as innovation in the public sector or the third sector, or non-technological innovation. And, without abandoning the core of our work, which is the observatory and trends component, a much more inclusive approach has been added, which has allowed us to better understand technological and business development.
Regarding technology, the bottleneck is usually not the technology itself but humanity’s ability to leverage it. There are always non-technological barriers to change—regulatory issues, ethics, vested interests. It’s not about deregulating technology but using it as a valuable tool to advance toward a future planned together.
Our goal is a Cotec that better understands long-term and future changes. We avoid quick opportunistic analyses, aiming for some continuity in innovation policies despite government changes.
In that sense, we’ve fostered respect and good dialogue between public and private sectors—a kind of oasis amid polarization. Despolarizing completely isn’t possible, but we’re achieving very positive dialogues that other contexts may not.
The fourth stage starts now: making the innovation discourse interesting to different layers of the population and reaching thousands. This requires a new way of working. We’ve opened the debate, taking innovation out of economic elites to bring it to smaller regions because different realities need different solutions. We talk about retro-innovations, recovering previous knowledge. For example, the circular economy existed before: sharing, repairing, and reusing were already there—it’s knowledge inherited from our ancestors.
Another challenge is working personally with the large family supporting us—the Cotec members.
How does Cotec work?
At Cotec, we seek to bring about systemic change, and we aspire to do so through a methodology we have developed internally and which we call “the Cotec key.” We refer to it as a key because of its rich polysemy and because it has three elements that correspond to its parts:
- Paletón: experts who know what to do—defining problems and solutions.
- Eye: influencers.
- Stem: facilitators who know how to turn a good proposal into a movement that changes the system.
For each challenge, we combine these three: experts, influencers, and facilitators.
You’ve just presented your innovation report. Tell us about it and the main current programs and projects.
In recent years, we’ve reinvented this report in two ways. In form: the book itself is a design object that changes annually, decided by a contest among top designers worldwide. In content: we reflect on innovation and society. For example, innovation is useful but also generates new inequalities between regions and social classes.
This year’s special issue focuses on innovation and democracy, with fifteen international thinkers reflecting on topics like AI, genetic enhancement, citizen participation, and disenchantment, forming a compendium of mini-essays.
Innovation is key to increasing economic growth potential. Where does Spain stand? Are we innovative? What about the tourism sector?
Historically, Spain shares a problem with other European economies, but it’s more severe here: the difficulty in turning scientific knowledge into innovation and economic growth. Spain ranks 10th globally in scientific output but only about 30th in converting that into economic impact. This is common in hospitality, which has been innovative but not in deep tech based on science.
We are now entering a new phase of job automation. AI and robotics will bring disruption, and it will be more important than ever to discern which profiles truly add value. Those who get this right will have a significant opportunity to grow — and ILUNION Hotels is already ahead of the curve. The personal and human touch, and the feeling of being part of a greater purpose — as expressed in ILUNION Hotels’ campaign “where sleeping is awakening” — is something no algorithm can replicate. This is a decisive moment in which CEOs will need to determine which parts of human work are truly distinct from what machines can do. And it won’t be obvious — many will get it wrong.
Now that you’ve mentioned us, we always like to know how our guests see us — what’s your opinion of ILUNION Hotels?
Nowadays, as the debate around social sustainability has become more mainstream, companies like yours — which have always had a clear purpose — face two main challenges: to highlight the value of what you do, and to fight against social washing.
Not everything goes. We can’t dilute the concept of purpose or the idea of positive impact in organizations. Just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it comes for free. If you want to generate real social value, you need to invest resources and have a model that proves it.
And that’s the battle you should be leading — advocating for and demanding standards that make it possible to demonstrate that existing value. Purpose should be embedded in a company’s bylaws; it should clearly state that delivering value to shareholders is not the only priority. I’m not sure whether those of you already playing in that league should open the door to others, or instead choose to stand apart and differentiate yourselves.
Y, por último, un PENSAMIENTO y un APRENDIZAJE que nos puedas dejar.
A THOUGHT: Going back to the unique experience of growing up in a village — a village is a world in itself. In the town square, you play with the rich kid, run into the eccentric, and become aware of the relationship between humans and their environment. In a city neighborhood, you meet many people, but most are quite similar to you. In a small village, however, the idea of diversity and inequality becomes naturally ingrained in you from birth.
A LESSON: This is something I learned from Luis Ruiz de Gopegui, a physicist and writer who helped lead space missions like the Apollo Program from Spain. I met him when I was very young, working as an intern at a tech company that went bankrupt. Shortly after it shut down, the executives were already working again, while the junior staff remained unemployed. I couldn’t understand why those responsible for the failure faced no consequences.
And then, Gopegui explained to me that the business world is like a conservative field — very similar to a gravitational field. The Moon can orbit the Earth without falling, following a closed trajectory without losing energy. But to do that, you have to reach orbit first. Once you establish a certain professional “orbit” in your life, you can keep circling the Earth like space debris — doing nothing — and still not fall. I’ve seen the truth of that many times throughout my life.