Irina Spekman, M.A.
Irina Spekman, M.A. is a pioneering entrepreneur, venture capital investor, and advisor with an exceptional track record in developing new market opportunities across emerging economies. Irina’s guidance has enabled small and medium-sized B2B technology and service companies to expand internationally and increase revenues by as much as 50%, while maintaining strong profit margins within compressed timelines through strategic integration of market access, technological capabilities, and financial resources across diverse industry sectors.
Irina is the founder and managing director of Marecon and the founder and CEO of the MyHealthMirror longevity platform. Irina has cultivated expertise across diverse technology sectors, from food processing and renewable energy to digital health, AI, and blockchain applications. Her work emphasizes sustainable infrastructure, including smart buildings and green data centers. Irina maintains active partnerships throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Scandinavia and the United States.
Irina has played a critical role in brokering international market entry breakthroughs for many large and successful firms who are leaders in their respective fields. Companies Irina has assisted include Meyn Food Technology, Deerns, and Engie Refrigeration.
Her tenure at Meyn Food Processing Technology from August 1987 to December 1990 in the marketing and PR department was a formative experience that hinted at the kind of business leader Irina would later become. She was tasked with positioning the company in its first international market — the Soviet Union. Within one year, she achieved a breakthrough by launching the first complete line for production of value-added products with a leading poultry integrated producer, which met economic transition goals and enhanced the client’s competitiveness. This success was followed by a multimillion assignment as part of the state industry modernization program by the governmental purchasing body.
During her tenure at Meyn Food Processing Technology from January 1991 to July 1993, Irina served as Export Manager for Eastern Europe and Asia AFAK, where she achieved significant commercial success despite challenging market conditions.
Her most notable achievement during this venture was the rapid and successful repositioning of Meyn’s poultry product line in the Russian market. Again, in under a year, she secured more than 20 complete production line sales to Russian state purchasing bodies, establishing Russia as a major international market for the company at a critical time when Meyn was experiencing financial difficulties due to over-dependence on the Netherlands market.
Additionally, Irina developed and implemented a comprehensive market strategy in partnership with YVC Bolnes (now part of Damen Shipyard) to revolutionize trawler conversion services. Her market-oriented approach to fish handling concepts successfully reduced operational costs while improving quality and competitiveness. This initiative resulted in multiple trawler conversion projects being realized in Rotterdam within two years. Read YVC Bolnes Dockyard, Rotterdam, Gets Two Conversion Orders.
As the leading sales executive, Irina was responsible for generating 70% of the company’s turnover during her tenure. She managed the complete sales cycle, including contract negotiations, client relationship management, coordination of quality and delivery schedules, and oversight of payment processes and risk management. Her strategic pivot from the struggling Dutch trawler market to the emerging Eastern European markets demonstrated exceptional business acumen and helped stabilize the company during a challenging financial period.
In August 1993, Irina founded Marecon in the Rotterdam area of the Netherlands, establishing what would become a leading international business and project development company. Under her continuous leadership as Managing Director and owner, Marecon has specialized in sustainable development initiatives across developing and emerging economies for more than three decades. The company partners with clients, governments, and stakeholders to initiate, co-develop, consult on, manage, and implement projects that incorporate global best practices and innovative solutions across diverse sectors including green data centers, urban development, food and fisheries, shipbuilding, smart green buildings, renewable energy, decentralized infrastructure, and smart grid technologies.
A significant milestone in Marecon’s evolution occurred in 2012 when Irina established Deerns Marecon LLC in Moscow, where she served as General Director and shareholder until December 2019. This joint venture emerged from a successful collaboration between Deerns and Marecon, wherein they partnered on an international green data center project that achieved TIER III certification from the Uptime Institute. Through this Moscow-based entity, she expanded Marecon’s capabilities to deliver comprehensive consultancy services across multiple sectors while securing complex multimillion-dollar assignments with leading international companies. Read Largest data center in Moscow certified by Uptime Institute.
Irina also was a cofounder of Maxfield Capital, where she acted as Director and a Venture Partner from September 2017 to March 2018. Maxfield Capital is a venture capital firm with a track record of successful investments in early-stage tech companies and global seed rounds. A notable investment during Irina’s time at Maxfield is in Edwin, an AI-powered learning platform that was acquired and integrated into Buddy.ai. Edwin used artificial intelligence to deliver personalized English learning experiences supported by human tutors.
Following her successful forays at Deerns Marecon and Maxfield Capital, Irina has continued to shape the intersection of sustainable technology and strategic business development through a portfolio of high-impact advisory roles. Between 2018 and 2019, she provided strategic guidance to a diverse array of innovative ventures, demonstrating her versatility across emerging technology sectors.
Her advisory engagements during this period reflected her deep expertise in sustainable development and capital formation. At Tresorio, she advised on green infrastructure initiatives, business strategy, and ICO fund-raising approaches. She simultaneously guided multiple technology startups through critical growth phases, including Loyakk, where she focused on fund-raising and strategic partnership development from June 2018 to March 2019, and Support2U’s YOKdata venture, where she advised on business strategy, marketing, and funding initiatives through 2019.
Irina’s commitment to fostering innovation extended to her board positions at OpenGift and her strategic advisory role at Hi:Health, where she concentrated on partnership onboarding and fund-raising strategies. Her work with Sustainable Quarry from August 2018 to April 2019 further exemplified her ability to bridge international business development with sustainable technology implementation. Across these engagements, she consistently focused on three core areas: developing robust business strategies, cultivating strategic partnerships, and strengthening investor relations to ensure sustainable growth for emerging technology companies.
Her commitment to renewable energy is exemplified through her role as general director of Project Invest, which funded wind energy development initiatives on the Kola Peninsula, where she noted that the wind park would cut CO2 emissions by 170 tons annually. Read Demand for Wind Energy on the Kola Peninsula Growing.
Irina embarked on her academic journey in 1974 at the prestigious State University of St. Petersburg, where earned a Master of Arts degree in Linguistics, specializing in the English language. Here, she would hone her linguistic expertise, laying a robust foundation for her remarkable international career in innovation and entrepreneurship.
Irina is also a sought-after public speaker, having contributed to both the Unicorn Summit and Startups World. She has led talks examining the potential for Digital Therapeutics to transform health, a laudable aim that her MyHealthMirror longevity platform is working towards actively creating. Watch International Conference Startups World – January 15th 2022.
Irina’s career trajectory exemplifies the rare combination of visionary entrepreneurship and pragmatic execution across emerging markets and transformative technologies. Her ability to identify nascent opportunities, from facilitating cross-border technology transfer to the Soviet market in the late 1980s to pioneering sustainable infrastructure solutions across multiple continents, demonstrates an exceptional capacity to navigate complexity while delivering measurable results.
What distinguishes Irina is not merely her breadth of expertise spanning food technology to digital health, but her consistent ability to create value at the intersection of innovation, sustainability, and international business development. Through Marecon and her various advisory roles, she has established a lasting framework for how technology transfer and market development can drive both commercial success and sustainable impact in emerging economies.
As global markets increasingly demand leaders who can bridge technological innovation with practical implementation, Irina’s three-decade track record of building bridges between markets, forging strategic partnerships, and delivering high-margin growth positions her as an architect of the modern approach to international sustainable business development. Her continued engagement with cutting-edge sectors suggests an enduring relevance to the evolving landscape of global innovation and entrepreneurship.
Watch International Conference Startups World – January 15th 2022, International Conference Startups World – July 16th 2022, and International Conference Unicorn Summit.
Read Demand for Wind Energy on the Kola Peninsula Growing, YVC Bolnes Dockyard, Rotterdam, Gets Two Conversion Orders, and Largest data center in Moscow certified by Uptime Institute.
Connect with Irina Spekman on LinkedIn to follow her ongoing work in sustainable technology and international business development. Subscribe to the Unicorn Summit and Startups World YouTube channels for her insights on innovation and entrepreneurship alongside perspectives from leading global entrepreneurs and investors.