Xantal Llavina: "We must have more respect for entrepreneurs"

Since the age of 15, Xantal Llavina (1975) has been clear that she wants to be a journalist, but with a family of entrepreneurs, she opted to graduate in journalism and business: "I'm from the humanities and accounting got a bit complicated for me. In fact, I begged the teacher to average me with the theoretical exams because I would never be an accountant but a journalist. A year later, when I was already on television, I met the teacher and she told me I was right that I wanted to be a journalist," she explains. Inquisitive and hardworking, Llavina has ended up building a career that goes far beyond journalism.

She entered the world of work with an internship at Betevé: "I have always been very diligent, studious, and hardworking in my job. And I think that's why I've never lacked anything." She has always been chaining jobs, in fact, she stayed working at Betevé: "It was my first salary, which was around 120,000 pesetas, about 700 or 800 euros, not bad at all." She has learned from great masters, working with Joaquim Maria Puyal or Albert Om, and also from great publications, such as Barça TV, from where she assures she took away "brutal learning."

When she was young, Llavina began to be interested in what has become her specialty – the internet, social networks, and technology–: "I have always looked to the future, to what was coming." And since the newspaper she worked for didn't talk about it, she proposed addressing the topic: "And even now, technology companies are the most powerful in the world, they are deciding current geopolitics."

In 2011, she founded her own production company and took on all the roles in the game: presenter, director, and executive producer. And so she began directing and producing her projects for the media, talking about ICT. But it wasn't new to her, as she had grown up in a family of entrepreneurs: "My parents set up car dealerships in Barcelona and Catalonia. And my father brought Toyota here in the 90s; it was daring for a Japanese brand to come here."

In this regard, she believes that the self-employed and entrepreneurs should have more prestige: "Private enterprise is also necessary and creates many jobs, and I think there should be a lot of respect for the person who invests their money and even their assets to create jobs. More value should be given to this discredited figure." "And as a woman, I am concerned that in Catalonia only 4 out of 10 female entrepreneurs are women. And when we talk about technology companies, female presence drops below 20%." The talent is there, she assures, but representation is lacking.

In fact, she herself has prioritized jobs that have allowed her to combine motherhood: "Before my daughter was born, I had different hours and jobs, I did afternoons on Ràdio 4." But she wanted a more compatible job: "My daughter's education is very important to me, and I decided to do it on my own because I am a mother."

"I have worked in almost all media: Betevé, TVE, Catalunya Ràdio, RAC1, El Punt Avui, and I have also collaborated with El Periódico", she explains. In fact, working in so many teams has allowed her to grow professionally. She defines herself as a person with many ideas and constant desire to do things: "I couldn't have stayed in one place doing the same thing all the time."

AI Expert

Llavina, expert in artificial intelligence (AI), currently presents the Revolution 4.0 on Catalunya Ràdio: "To celebrate the tenth season we went to Silicon Valley, where technological entrepreneurship begins". There they interviewed Catalans working at large tech companies like Netflix, Nvidia, and Apple, explains the recipient of the 2024 Alumni Ambassador Award from Ramon Llull University.

Her curiosity, besides leading her to give lectures, has also driven her to write three books. The latest, published in 2024, Emprendre el teu futur: "I have done more than 800 interview programs with more than 2,000 entrepreneurs from Catalonia, such as Nandu Jubany, Rosa Tous, Ferran Adrià, but also Casa Tarradellas, Munich... We have many examples and they all have three things in common: attitude, a lot of perseverance, and above all, patience." And that's what she talks about in the book.

On a personal level, she considers herself a saver: "I have worked a lot, but I haven't believed that money was the most important thing in my job, but rather doing what I liked. It is clear that I have worked for many years and I haven't stopped, and in my case, this has allowed me to save, which not everyone can do." With money, she has chosen to buy an apartment and travel: "One of my dreams is to travel around the world in stages. Counting Europe, I have already visited about 20 or 30 countries."