Bernardo Hernandez

Bernardo Hernandez’s background

He is a graduate of ICADE, Pontifical University of Comillas, Madrid’s most prestigious business university. He received a masters degree in finance from Boston College and holds the chartered financial analyst (CFA) designation.

At the age of 29, after five years as an analyst and portfolio manager in the asset management industry with companies like Fidelity Investments, BBVA, and Putnam Investments, Bernardo Hernandez started his first internet venture, idealista.com, now the leading real estate site in Spain.

Since then, he has participated as an executive angel investor in other online start-ups, such as Tuenti, Glovo, Fever, Paack, Citibox and Wallapop. He was also founder and CEO of Verse, the leading payment App in Spain that was sold in 2020 to Block, Inc formerly Square, Inc.

Hernandez joined Google in 2005, where he held various positions in the marketing and product organizations. While at Google, he led the acquisition and later ran the Zagat team until departing Google in May 2013. Hernandez was also the head of Flickr at Yahoo until May 2015.

He currently lives in Madrid with his family, where he runs his personal investment fund. He is a member of the board of directors at Mapfre USA in Boston, a Senior advisor for PWC in Spain and a member of the Board of trustees of the Foundation of the Princess of Girona for the Royal House of Spain.

In May 2011, he was appointed to the jury of the Princess of Asturias awards of science and technology where he served for 7 years.

He is a member of several advisory boards like the Franklin Institute, Start Up Spain, Alumni Salamanca University and the 40th anniversary of the Spanish Constitution. He was a member of the board of trustees for the James Beard Foundation in New York and a member of the Board of Directors of Desigual in Barcelona.

He has received several awards like Entrepreneur of the Year by the Banesto Foundation and the Asocicación ICADE. He has been in the list of top tech influential people by leading Spanish paper El Mundo, Forbes o CNET. He received the 2013 GQ man of the year and the Alan Turing award 2018.

His entrepreneurial skills, conceptualizing and launching new projects, make him an ideal speaker for companies seeking a strategic advisor to achieve new horizons of innovation.