14 Oct 2014
Loughborough academic elected to Council of Europe’s top entrepreneur organisation
Loughborough University’s Carmen Torres-Sanchez has been elected to the Council of the Confederation of Junior Enterprises (JADE).
Dr Torres-Sanchez, a senior lecturer in the Wolfson School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, will spend two years on the five-strong Council of JADE, the largest young entrepreneurial network in Europe with 20,000 members, and a think tank for the European Commission in Youth and Entrepreneurship.
She said she was delighted to get a chance to help an organisation which helped her when she launched a noise-pollution mapping company, Cenet Consulting, in 1999 while at University of Granada in Spain.
Dr Torres-Sanchez, an engineer and an entrepreneur, said: “I am really happy because it gives me a chance to give something back to the Confederation.
“I’m excited because they want me to contribute to the young entrepreneurs of tomorrow in terms of what they need to equip themselves successfully in this difficult world.
“Also, they want me to help with strategic planning and inter-country relationships, not only in the European Union, but other parts of Europe like the Balkans.
“If I can oil the wheels and help the different national confederations become more collaborative with each other that would be for the benefit of Europe because there are big issues with unemployment.
“Entrepreneurship has a lot to offer in that sense and the Confederation can have a big impact in that section of society.
“Today’s young entrepreneurs are the chief executive officers of the future, the people who make things happen.”
Dr Torres-Sanchez, who served on the JADE executive board a decade ago, is the only engineer on the Council and she hopes her experience in that area and in business will help her to make a difference.
“I hope I can add value to the team,” she said.
Dr Torres-Sanchez received a MEng in Chemical Engineering from the University of Granada, her home town, and did a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Heriot-Watt University.
She was a research fellow at the University of Strathclyde and a lecturer at Heriot-Watt before joining the Wolfson School as a senior lecturer in 2013.
Dr Torres-Sanchez says she is an entrepreneur as well as an academic. “The research I do is very much industry-facing. I like to work with companies because I like solving problems, creating things that are going to be used, and making firms more competitive.”