Cristina Juc

President, Executive director

With a background in architecture & arts, I took a step towards the tech world a few years ago, staying on the creative side of things. I believe in collaboration & partnership, which is why I strongly encourage people & communities to work & evolve together.

What I like about working with the Spherik team is the extent to which everyone is involved in every step of the program, making it an outstanding experience for all the startups involved.

Mădălina Sumedrea

Board Member

During the last 5 years being a financial and operational coordinator for various projects, I have discovered that the recipe for outstanding and successful start-ups it’s a mix of an enthusiastic team, their understanding of the problem they want to solve and commitment to implement the best version of the idea into a competitive product.

My key role at Spherik Accelerator is to regulate processes and legal issues, budgets and cost management practices with the responsibility to maintain and increase the efficiency of the organization.

Mircea Vadan

Board member

Along the years I’ve worked in startups as business developer, marketing or product manager. In the last four years, as Managing Partner at Activize, my focus was on working with companies and startups on product management, on creating acceleration programs for startups and on delivering workshops on topics like customer validation, product definition, product metrics, user acquisition, user engagement and investment. Moreover, my drive to help startups made me active in several tech startups communities (Cluj Startups, FreshBlood, Fintech Camp, Cluj.AI, Transylvania Angels Network). At Spherik I help startups with product management & product marketing and get involved in the customization of acceleration programs.

Andrada-Diana Todea

Marketing Manager

Disruptive thinker, highly attuned to the why behind the work. Andrada questions assumptions, connects dots across domains and aims for change and innovation.

As a communication specialist with a foundation in marketing, public relations, and event planning, she brings over a decade of experience in developing impactful strategies that connect people, ideas, and spaces. With a background in architecture, combined with expertise in UX research and design, she crafts clear, user-centred narratives that translate complex concepts into engaging and accessible communication.

Paul Brie

Program Expert

I have spent the past 20 years in the digital industry as a coder, manager, investor, and partner for various European start-ups and corporate innovation initiatives. The main focus of my work is to design comprehensive innovation strategies, to implement them into the core activities of private and public actors.
I am currently the Founder and CEO of teleportHQ, an AI-powered code-generation platform, and Co-Founder of the JSHeroes community and JSHeroes international conference.
My role at Spherik is to lead think-and-do programs, to create innovation process transfer opportunities, to build strategic private and public partnerships, and to support the creation of public policies that leverage the potential of deep and social technologies.

Ecaterina Silova

Program Expert

I have a background in music and economics – seemingly unrelated, but definitely generating a blend of pragmatic approach and creativity. This has taken me into management consulting, where the diversity of engagements has led me to pursue innovation ecosystem projects. Over the past 5+ years, I’ve organized several startup community events of various scope and size, from small thematic meet-ups to large regional conferences, co-founded an NGO aimed at informal education on digital communication subjects, and helped multiple CEE startups raise EU funding.

Sergiu Popa 

Program Expert

With a background in finance and banking, I first worked in large corporations, such as Vodafone, Unilever, and Procter & Gamble, in various positions across Finance and Marketing. I then took the leap into the tech world a few years ago when I was a General Manager for an Internet Marketing, Lead Generation, and Sales company. After this, I developed a startup in the FinTech space, where, as a Director of Operations, I covered all aspects of the business, from leading the commercial side to leading the product development, to legal, financials, hiring, and operations.
My role at Spherik is to drive the organisation’s development by leveraging our present programs and developing new ones through various partnerships with both public and private sectors so that we are better placed to help startups on their journey.

Valentin Maior

Program Expert

Full-time human being, with a background in software development and a huge passion for education and business development. I am now focused on helping the tech ecosystem thrive and grow by connecting the dots between entrepreneurs with a vision and focus for innovation, and the necessary resources, to transform their ideas into real projects.