Eiken renews its board of directors

Facing the new challenges of the audiovisual and multimedia ecosystem with internationalization and cooperation as axes will mark the strategy of the new Eiken board.

On this occasion, the Begoña Room of the Hotel Gran Bilbao hosted the General Assembly of Oak, the Audiovisual Cluster of Euskadi, in a day that brought together the representatives of the Basque companies associated with the Cluster, and in which the Cluster's Board of Directors was partially renewed. At the end of it, the professionals from the 30 companies that are part of the Association celebrated the 10th Anniversary meal that Eiken will celebrate next October.

During his speech, Juan Mari Gurrutxaga, re-elected president of the Cluster, highlighted that with the new Board of Directors, and after the first ten years of Eiken, a new period begins which will be responded to with a new operating structure based on sectoral Vice-Presidencies. "As an inverted pyramid," he said, "this structure will respond to the objective of generating concrete projects that respond to the real needs of companies and thus provide, from the business base, effective responses to the current complex situation."

Gurrutxaga has also highlighted that "in the Working Groups that will be set up and that will replace the Strategic Committees, internationalization, innovation, cooperation, and training will be transversal lines to all of them, in line with the reason for being of the Cluster Association itself."

These positions were elected at the first meeting of the new Board of Directors that took place at the end of the Assembly, and are completed by the aforementioned President of Eiken, Juan Mari Gurrutxaga, Managing Director of Mixer, whose work over the two previous periods has been endorsed by the associates. Two new faces join the Cluster's management core, the Vice President, Alejandro Echevarria, CEO of The Blackout Project, and Ignacio García-Legaz, Director of Television at Euskaltel, who will from now on be the Secretary of Eiken.

When taking stock of the year, Gurrutxaga has focused on three issues that in his opinion have characterized it: "the difficulties of the Sector derived - he said - from the austerity policies of potential clients, both public and private. The determined effort that, in light of this, the Sector is making to open itself to the trends and opportunities of Internationalization, in which the Cluster has played a relevant role in supporting companies. And - he concluded - cooperation. That which is forced by circumstances, and the desired or sought towards projects or towards stable cooperation structures, in which the companies associated with Eiken have been particularly active.

Juan Mari Gurrutxaga concluded his presentation by highlighting the value of the most relevant “Eiken actions”, which, as he indicated, are: Innova Basque Audiovisual, the project for the real and effective internationalization of the Audiovisual that will soon be launched in the Sector with relevant changes, and which is part of the Eiken Internationalization Plan; EikenTALENT, to support youth employment in the Sector; Smart Culture, the European project in which Euskadi, through Eiken, participates in the Consortium of 8 European regions to offer business possibilities to the Creative Economy Industries; and, finally, the strategy related to the filming economy in which the Cluster plays an active part through the revitalization of the Bilbao Film Commission and its conversion into the Bilbao-Bizkaia Film Commission.

En relación a ello, Juan Diego, el director general de BEAZ, ha remarcado la importancia de Eiken como miembro del BiDC (Bilbao-Bizkaia Design & Creativity Council) y también de las empresas del Audiovisual en la Estrategia Bizkaia Creativa, acción interinstitucional liderada por BEAZ y el Ayuntamiento de Bilbao, pero alineada con el Gobierno Vasco y otras instituciones y organismos. “El balance de los tres años de funcionamiento del programa Bizkaia Creativa es muy positivo para el Audiovisual, uno de los sectores estratégicos de Bizkaia Creativa – ha informado Juan Diego en su intervención- ya que se han financiado un total de 20 proyectos de creación y crecimiento de empresas audiovisuales que han proyectado a tres años una facturación de 10 millones de euros y la creación de 91 puestos de trabajo”

Eiken Board of Directors

• President: Juan Mari Gurrutxaga (Mixer)
• Vice President: Alejandro Echevarria (The Blackout Project)
• Secretary: Ignacio Garcia-Legaz (Euskaltel)
• Cinema Vice President: Fernando Larrondo (Irusoin)
• TV Vice President: Iñaki Eizmendi (Pausoka)
• Video Games Vice President: Ignacio de Otalora (Digipen)
• Vice President Multimedia Ecosystem: Aletxu Echevarria (The Blackout Project)
• Vice President Services: Begoña Ayarza (Itesa)
• Vocal: Andoni Aranburu (EiTB)
• Vocal: Ricardo González (K 2000)
• Vocal: Igor García Olaizola (IK 4)
• Vocal: Carlos Juarez (Basque Films)
• Vocals: Salvador Rodríguez (Basque Stream)