# Rosa Lavín

Rosa María Lavín Ibarra (born 1973) is a Spanish executive and businesswoman. Since 2015, she has been President of the Confederation of Cooperative Companies of the Basque Country, the Basque social economy business organization. She is the first woman to hold this position, and the first woman to lead a business organization in the Basque Country.
She was formerly president of the Federation of Cooperative Companies of Euskadi (ERKIDE), also being the first woman to hold the position.
She is a member of the board of directors of the Spanish Confederation of Social Economy Companies (CEPES), the Spanish business organization of social economy companies.
She is also the chief financial officer (CFO) and vice president of the company SSI Group, among other corporate positions.
She is a member of the Working Group of Women Leaders of the Social Economy, launched in 2023 by the second vice president and Minister of Labor and Social Economy of the Government of Spain Yolanda Díaz.

## Early life and education

Lavín was born in 1973 in Sestao, Biscay, Basque Country (Spain). She attended the Merciful Love School (Colegio Amor Misericordioso) in Sestao. The school is a Basque private Catholic school, belonging to the Congregation of the Sisters Servants of Merciful Love. She graduated from the University of the Basque Country with a bachelor's degree in economics. Later, she completed a postgraduate degree in social economy, cooperative companies and labor companies also at the University of the Basque Country.
Lavín also studied music and piano at the Municipal Conservatory of Sestao and later at the Municipal Conservatory of Bilbao, where she studied piano, which made it compatible with her university degree in economics.

## Career

In 1998, she started working at "SSI Group". She is currently the economic-financial director (CFO), director and vice president of the company Grupo SSI. She is also a member of the board of directors of the Elkar-Lan company, of the HAZIBIDE Seed Capital Company and of the SEED CAPITAL Venture Capital Company.
She is a member of different business organizations and federations of social economy companies. In 2019, she was elected president of the Federation of Cooperative Companies of the Basque Country (ERKIDE), being the first woman to hold the position. In 2020, ERKIDE became part of the Confederation of Cooperative Companies of Euskadi.

## Chairperson of the Confederation of Cooperative Companies of the Basque Country

In 2015, Lavín was elected president of the Confederation of Cooperative Companies of Euskadi, the Basque social economy business community, becoming the first woman to hold this position since its creation in 1996.
In this way, she presides over one of the two Basque employers' organizations (the other is the Basque Business Confederation ConfeBasque), which includes banking entities, credit companies, labor, associated work and others, among them the largest is the Mondragon Corporation.
The Confederation of Cooperative Companies of Euskadi represents all the companies of social economy in the Basque Country (it brings together almost two thousand companies), as it does the Spanish Confederation of Social Economy Companies in Spain or the Social Economy Europe in Europe.
She has appeared several times in the Basque Parliament, especially with the elaboration of the new law of cooperatives of the year 2019. She is a member of the Basque government agency Superior Council of Cooperative Companies of Euskadi and also of other councils and economic-business commissions of the Basque Government.
In 2022, at the presentation of the Strategic Project for Economic Recovery and Transformation (PERTE) at the Palacio de la Moncloa (Madrid), together with Pedro Sánchez, Nadia Calviño and Yolanda Díaz, she defended the participation of cooperative companies in the elaboration of public policies.
In addition, Lavín is member of the board of directors of the Spanish Confederation of Social Economy Companies (CEPES), the Spanish employers' organization.
She is a member of the Working Group of Women Leaders of the Social Economy, launched in 2023 by the second vice president and Minister of Labor and Social Economy of the Government of Spain Yolanda Díaz, a group of 26 women leaders in the social economy for the implementation of advances in gender equality in the social economy.
In 2015, when she was appointed president of the Confederation of Cooperative Companies of Euskadi, she became the first woman to lead a business organization in the Basque Country and also one of the first women to lead an employers' association in Spain.

## Personal life

She lives in Sestao. She is married and has two children.