The six changemaker skills for entrepreneurs
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Almost all entrepreneurial people want to be change agents. Irene Milleiro knows a lot about this, guest in the TalkX that launched the second edition of Santander X Explorer in 2026. From the organization she leads in Spain and Portugal, Ashoka (the world’s largest network of social entrepreneurs, founded in the 1980s by Bill Drayton), promotes these changemaker skills:
Active empathy: moving from feeling to action to solve what you observe.
Shared leadership: decentralizing decisions and responsibilities.
Teamwork: collaborating without trying to do everything alone.
Entrepreneurial spirit: testing, experimenting, and seeking solutions.
Creativity: finding new ways to solve complex problems.
Determination: persevering despite difficulties.
She spoke about them with Patricia Araque, Executive Director of Santander X Explorer, in a live-streamed talk through our social media: questions, concepts, and doubts were explained clearly and directly. If you want to change the world with your idea, this is for you.
Positive impact vs. social entrepreneurship: what sets them apart?
Most Explorer participants want their project to have a positive impact, but what’s the difference between that and social entrepreneurship? “They’re very different. In a conventional business, positive impact is considered a success if there's growth: more revenue, more customers, a larger market share… Along the way, they do something positive, but their main goal is to generate wealth for their owners. In social entrepreneurship, the mission is a bit more complicated, because it only truly succeeds when it solves the problem at its root. Losing credit or having others copy the idea doesn't matter; on the contrary, it wants that solution to be replicable in other places, without always expecting something in return” explained Irene.
A social entrepreneur doesn’t give fish or teach how to fish: they revolutionize the fishing industry and make it fairer and different.
Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka.
How to truly make things change
If you're at the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey, you'll surely want to prove that your idea is good and that it will bring about change, a revolution. The keys to social change highlighted by the director of Ashoka are:
Determination: “Social entrepreneurs need to have an ironclad determination.”
Collaboration: “Without it, nothing happens. For it to exist, more open and horizontal leadership is needed, knowing how to work as a team, listening, and being open to other ideas. The people who succeed in social change are those who have asked for help and collaborated”. If you’re thinking about leaning on the community… you’ve got it right.
“We love hero stories, but they’re almost never true. Every person who has achieved something has had a lot of collaborators behind them.”
Don’t fall in love with… AI
Irene and Patricia continued their conversation, which led to the best advice that can be given to someone who wants to launch their project. The famous “don’t fall in love with the solution, but rather the problem” was the response from our guest, but she added a twist you should keep in mind: you also shouldn’t fall in love with the technology you’ve created to solve that pain. “AI isn’t the solution for everything”, you’ve got it right.
Before moving on to the private session with selected Explorers, the director of Ashoka answered several questions from the attendees at TalkX, as dynamic as the start of this new edition of the program deserved. You can watch it in full here:
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