Catarina is NECEC's Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship program Cleantech Navigate Northeast. With an international background Catarina was previously part of the Building Global Innovators team (BGI), a global startup accelerator created by the MIT Portugal Program, the University Institute of Lisbon and MIT to support early stage tech-based new companies namely in the cleantech, smart cities and water economy space. She and her team built BGI and helped it gain global traction having developed expertise in program design & management, strategic relations, market & community building. More recently she was the business developer focusing on the Boston entrepreneurial ecosystem where she created an extensive network. In past roles Catarina lead several positions including research at L’Oréal (France) and product development and regulation at Confiança Personal Care (Portugal). She also mentored entrepreneurs at COTEC (Business Association for Innovation, Portugal).