Mentors

Our growing network currently consists of 50+ mentors with solid experience and proven track record in developing successful solutions in the FoodTech and AgTech. They represent different parts of the vertical across the value chain: from field to fork. Their combined expertise guarantees a holistic, uniquely fertile landscape for co-creation and innovation.

Meet our mentors

Krasimir Todorov

10+ years in FMCG sector in Bulgaria

Mariya Hristova

EIT food RIS Policy council, mentor at EWA women in agriculture program, expert strategies and innovations in the Ministry of agriculture in Bulgaria

Stefan Zhelyazkov

With over 12 years of experience and a BBA major in Marketing Strategy, hospitality and new ventures, Stefan has been part of the creation and running of several hospitality and startup projects in the Netherlands. Since his return to Bulgaria in 2019, he has been involved in business strategy and setting up 2 exciting businesses: Kitchen59 and the SaaS enabled Marketplace FoxCrop that connects farmers, producers, restaurants and other food service providers. His expertise lies in marketing strategy, product and leadership.

Petya Angelova

Petya is a Procurement, Strategic Sourcing and Supply Chain Expert with 8 years of experience in production environments. She is also a Lead ambassador for Food Hack Sofia. Petya is passionate about the high tech and tough engineering environment, and how it operates. She loves to connect to the entrepreneur community to exchange creative ideas, innovate and help them scale. She has MEng Industrial Engineering and Management, a diploma in Procurement and Supply Chain Management @ Oxford College of Procurement and Supply and a certificate in Production and Inventory Management @ Association for Supply Chain Management.

Sid Varma

Private market investor with interests in novel quality IP products, generating sales and providing impact. Helping startups navigate their go-to-market strategy and help with addressing market needs.

Olga Vassilevska

Olga is a majority owner and manager of MW LOGISTICA and a third generation freight forwarder. Focusing on developing its own grouping lines and warehouse logistics, today the company manages over 200 Bulgarian and international companies’ supply chains. Olga is part of Forbes "30 under 30" ranking. Her role of mother to Ekaterina (5 years old) and Borislav (3.5 years old) is the main reason for a complete change in outlook and attitude towards herself and the world.

Georgi Gavazov

Georgi Gavazov is a brand/communication strategist with over 20 years of experience in the field. After a successful career in some of the leading global advertising networks, in 2018 he founded Black Sea Catch – a company aiming to redefine Black Sea region culinary while making sustainable fishing practices the norm in the Black Sea. Georgi is a vocal advocate of brands taking a clear stand and active position on the major challenges society faces, and considers the brand a key element in the process of tackling them. He urges companies to consider brand equity just as important as technology and/or innovation.

Claudia Marcusson

Over 20 years of mentoring experience and board advisory to start-ups & scale-ups, SME's and large corporates in different industries and at all maturity levels in Singapore, Germany, Netherlands, UK, US, Uganda, Ghana, Nepal, India, Kenia, Vietnam - excellent understanding of finding the right product-market fit suiting customer needs and developing a go-to-market strategy as well as scaling for international expansion - Brought several ventures to life within Standard Chartered Bank as B2B and B2C model; expert in sharpening business models & value propositions, gaining customer insights in a cost-efficient way, customer validation & testing, localisation & go-to-market strategies and an open network connector - 22 years of work experience in investment management, banking, and insurance – having led innovation & digitalisation projects with global clients from several industries like Agriculture (built also an AgriTech Venture), Energy, Manufacturing, FMCG, etc. - worked in various leadership roles in Innovation, Business Development & Sales, Change Management, Legal & Risk, Market Data & Procurement with corporates like Standard Chartered Bank, ING, NN Group, ABN AMRO, and State Street Bank to name a few - University lecturer on sustainability/Green Technology, FinTech & digital transformation as well as corporate innovation & entrepreneurship at the National University of Singapore and trainer to corporates and C-suite executives - broad and diverse network in different industries in Europe and Asia - Investment committee member of Venture Capital funds in Singapore and Europe. Angel investor and LP in several growth VC funds - Masters in law and quantitative research as well as licensed instructor and expert in Human-Centred Design & Design Thinking, Lean Start-up, agile methods and a certified SCRUM Master - I love sharing my knowledge and network with startups and get energised by working closely with the founders & team to find creative solutions for ‘hairy problems’.

Yani Dragov

Yani Dragov founded Smart Organic in 2008, when he was 28 years old. Since then, he has been the company's executive director. Before starting his own business, he worked for 3 years in finance as a portfolio manager. Yani holds a bachelor's degree in financial mathematics from the Technical University of Munich and a master's degree in economics from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany and is skilled in management, finance and sales. Yani has been a vegetarian since the age of 18 and has a passion for healthy food and a holistic lifestyle. Yani has been practicing meditation and breathing exercises for more than 20 years. He is also a qualified instructor of meditation as well as the Happiness Program course of the international Art of Living foundation.

Zornitsa Mitkova

Zornitsa is a managing director of Teenovator. She has a strong background at PR and communications, with projects on the themes of technology, climate change, design, architecture and social causes.

Ivan Draganov

Ivan leads Growth at US-based LyRise, a platform that connects organizations with vetted AI talents to maximize their impact. He co-founded Unilease VC, a self-funded alternative investments firm investing in Indian early-stage startups where his focus lay in Foodtech and Agritech. He is marketing manager at AgroHub.bg, the Bulgarian digital innovation hub for agriculture. At Dealroom.co, Ivan led custom research projects for top-tier VC such as Atomico, Accel, Five Seasons Ventures and supra-national agencies such as the European Innovation Council. Ivan has been a speaker at Techsylvania, Deep Foodtech Conference, Edtech roundtable by LocalGlobe, Foodtech Invest Days, ICMA, EduData Summit, Icos Capital Innovation Summit, AgroCode, AgriFood 2021, and more. He has a background in econometrics and financial economics and helps founders strategize, grow and fundraise.

Mariya Konstantinova

Mariya is a FoodTech pioneer, supporting AgriTech, FoodScience, FoodService, Coaching, Delivery and Retail. Mariya supports startups developing new food products in answering transparency, health, and environmental concerns. During the last 10+ years, Mariya has gained solid experience in finance as a CFO for the Japanese and Chinese affiliates of AGRANA Group. Leading investment projects in Algeria, Russia, China and Japan equipped her with knowledge and skills that are invaluable to an investor in the food sector. Mariya moved to Shanghai in 2018, where she worked on creating Superhuman Studios - a venture studio investing in plant-based food products.

Ilia Iordanov

Iliya Iordanov is CEO of ONDO Solutions - a company specializing in the development of next-generation automation solutions for agricultural. For the past three years, he has been responsible for business modeling and fundraising at ONDO.

Katarzyna Gil

Principal, Sustainable Food Systems at ICOS Capital Management; Pharmacist by background, PhD in Life, and Environmental Sciences with focus on FoodTech; Due diligence, investments in FoodTech (alternative proteins, health promoting food and food ingredients) companies

Ivan Aleksandrov

Ivan Alexandrov is the founder and CEO of eBag, an online retailer that specializes in delivering high-quality groceries and home goods. eBag's mission is to make grocery shopping easy and convenient, allowing customers to focus on the things that matter most. Thanks to Ivan's leadership, eBag has quickly become one of the fastest-growing companies in Bulgaria and a leader in e-commerce.

Janet Todorova

As a Director at the Founder Institute accelerator for Eastern Europe, my focus is to help early-stage startup founders turn their business ideas in to global tech companies with a scalable business model. I can help with founders with customer validation, business model and pitching to investors.

Kaloyan Kumanov

I've been in the AgTech space for a while (14 years more or less). My journey started at 19 when I joined my brother in managing NIK (today the biggest AgTech company in Eastern Europe) and since then I went through activities as sales, marketing, business development and market expansion as currently I am Co-CEO responsible for part of the business of NIK (300 people, 10+ countries, 50 mln Euro revenue for 2022). My strengths are knowing the regional ag markets and more specifically farmers' focused products and solutions.

Ralitsa Kassimova

Culinary enthusiast, appreciating food in all its aspects. Passionate about nature, foreign languages and connecting people and opportunities. Left the corporate world for the cause of supporting small scale Bulgarian producers and helping them reach their end customers. 11 years experience in Hrankoop (food cooperative). Responsible for planning and organisation of events (markets, festivals, solidarity actions), communication within and outside the organisation. Coordinating, motivating and mentoring participants (farmers, artisans, craftspeople), and representing the cooperative at numerous events on clean healthy food and sustainable living.

Viktoria Dotcheva

Product marketing professional focused on strategic sales support throughout the sales cycle – pre-sales, implementation, adoption. In addition to 6 + years in the world’s leading travel technology player working on one of the most impactful digital transformation initiatives, I have also worked in professional services as well as in the organic food sector. I bring expertise in business strategy, market positioning, value proposition building as well as sales enablement strategies and go-to-market approach in getting your service/products to the market locally and internationally. I am passionate about the food industry and its importance for health and (local) economic development and want to contribute to the growth of businesses in the sector. As the co-chair of a network focused on supporting professional development for women and I’ve driven various mentoring programs and workshops. I hold a Masters degree in Corporate Communications from IE Business School/ IE School of Science and Technologies and Bachelors in Business Management from Edinburgh Napier University. Having had the opportunity to live, work and study in 4 different countries around Europe, I have now come back to Bulgaria in 2022 and am eager to contribute to the local community.

Semi Hakim

Co-Founder of Kök Projekt with diverse experience within the agri-food sector. Works together with food, agriculture, water, and energy sector corporates, governmental organizations, and investment funds on startups acceleration and corporate innovation programs development within the Emerging Markets.

Konstantin Haralampiev

Experienced business developer and product market fit expert with background in finance and marketing. Worked in product development and sales in the hispitality industry with industry clients such as Diageo and Bacardi. Started his first business 11 years ago in London and scaled it internationaly. Returned to Bulgaria in 2018 to start a truffle consultancy business and grew to multinational supplier of high end and fine dining establishments. In 2020 started developing business case for promoting regenerative farming with the use of AI and co-founded Climate Agritech start up AGROVAR CC in 2021.

Peyo Staribratov

As a seasoned business strategist and entrepreneur with a passion for mentoring, I am excited to bring my years of experience in finance, logistics, and business analysis to help guide and support aspiring entrepreneurs in agritech and foodtech. As a Business Intelligence Analyst, I've worked with wholesale companies, hotels, and supermarkets, using data-driven insights to improve their business performance. During the pandemic, I served as a Business Strategist for the largest logistics company in Bulgaria, where I navigated the challenges of the pandemic and kept the business moving forward. I also oversaw funding for a startup that sold electric vehicles through the sale of primary equity shares. In addition to my corporate experience, I've founded two successful companies. One company specialized in financial engineering and helped clients improve their financial models and strategy, while the other provided upskilling and training in digital areas such as AI. I'm passionate about mentoring and teaching young entrepreneurs. I teach management and entrepreneurship to students at ODK Plovdiv.

Vania Ivanova

Vania is the creator, innovator and founder of Vanilla Kitchen - a pioneer in alternative pastry art. She has ten years of running a small, boutique business; developing a brand and creating numerous unique recipes.

Plamen Medarov

Plamen is an experienced entrepreneur in the organic food industry and raw material production. 15 years ago he established his first brand for e-cigarettes and the first drive-thru coffee shop business in New Zealand. At some point he realized that eating something tasty should not generate guilt. So in 2014, he turned to health and wellness and established the company Super Foods. Their first brand Go4Raw was awarded Best New Product at Biofach and is currently exported to 15 countries. Plamen’s next business project - Brain Foods - offers people healthy alternatives, while minimizing ecological footprint. Brain Foods can be found in around 250 stores in Sofia and around Bulgaria. Plamen’s strong suites are vegan food, food production, project management, start-up development, strategy creation, brand management and leadership.

Victor Penev

Serial entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Edamam. He is also a mentor and investor in food technology startups and advises early stage entrepreneurs. Previous to Edamam, Victor co-founded and sold Bulgaria’s largest Internet Company, NetInfo BG. He also ran the international digital business of Playboy Enterprises, and was instrumental in starting the digital marketing efforts of BMG and in creating key e-commerce capability for Bertelsmann’s book clubs. Victor holds an MBA from Stanford.