Daniela Lopes

Daniela is the Leadership Fellow for Entrepreneurship and Consulting on our Berlin Campus.

For over a decade, Daniela has been applying and teaching human-centered design and agile methodologies across academic, public and corporate settings. She has led innovation projects, designed entrepreneurship programs and created transformative learning experiences for organizations including the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, Berlinale Filmfestival, SAP, Daimler Benz, Trustpilot and Airbus.

Her work spans product, service and process innovation, with a focus on sustainable impact and multidisciplinary collaboration. Deeply rooted in the international startup ecosystem, Daniela has held leadership roles in incubators and accelerator programs for early-stage startups in mobility, energy and digital health, while also developing EU-wide ecosystem-building initiatives for the European Commission.

Daniela lectures on Human-Centered Innovation and Entrepreneurship at universities across Europe and mentors entrepreneurs in startup programs in Europe and Africa.

She holds degrees in International Business and in Human Resource Management with a specialization in Training & Development. Her academic research focused on Psychological Capital—specifically its dimensions of self-efficacy, hope, optimism and resilience—and investigated the effectiveness of cultivating these capacities through short-term training interventions. She is a certified Design Thinking coach through the HPI School of Design Thinking in Potsdam and is trained as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner.