Mrs. Bianca Muntean

Bianca Muntean, PhD.

Cluster Manager of the gold-labelled Transilvania IT Cluster
CEO of ARIES Transilvania
2019 EU Cluster Manager of the Year

Bianca Muntean is Transilvania IT Cluster Manager and Executive Director of the Romanian Association of Software and Electronic Industry – Transilvania Branch. She is also founder and vice-president of Transilvania Creative Cluster. A specialist in cluster policies and cluster management, in 2016 Bianca successfully presented her doctoral thesis – entitled “Excellence in Cluster Management in IT” at Babeș-Bolyai University.

Bianca Muntean has 17+ years experience in regional and sectoral development strategies, her most notable contributions are – Transylvania 2007-2013 Development Strategy, Public Sector Policy Recommendations, thus contributing to the Development Strategy for the Romanian IT Sector, as well as to the promotion and SME Mobilization for FP7. Through her multiple roles, Bianca Muntean contributes directly to the innovation ecosystem of Cluj-Napoca, one of the most important financial centers in Eastern Europe.

She is known as a “bridger” for establishing unique connections between apparently unrelated fields, thus creating projects and contexts which subsequently turned Cluj into a good practice model both at a national and European level. She is the 2017 recipient of the Innovation Luminary Award as innovation role model for dynamic, pragmatic, hands-on young specialists in OI2 bridgership in Cluj, during the OI 2.0 event of the European Commission.

As constant promoter and supporter of innovation, Bianca, together with her team, organized, October 2018, the second edition of Innovation Camp in Cluj-Napoca. The event  reunited experts who designed policy changes related to innovation in the context of Romanian EU Presidency 2019, which accelerated citizen participation in the creation of new markets, products and services as part of the framework of the Digital Single Market strategy. Innovation Camp germinated the co-creation process of innovative public services, supporting the establishment of change agents for transition to sustainable urban transformations, and of technological solutions in public administration.

Through her participation in different international conferences, high level business missions, workshops all over the world, she actively promotes Cluj and Transilvania business environment and their unique competences.