Iñaki Alkorta, president of Gureak, dies at 73

2023-09-30 12:00:09

Iñaki Alkorta Andonegi, president of Gureak since 2006 and general director of the same group from 1977 to 2011, died this Saturday at the age of 73 in San Sebastián, as confirmed by the group in an information note. Alma mater of Gureak’s project, he has managed to lead a company that emerged in 1975 to be able to employ around 6,000 people, of which 84% have some disability.

Alkorta has been a key player in the beginning, evolution and expansion of the group that integrates people with intellectual disabilities into the world of work. As a result of this work, he received the Chamber of Gipuzkoa awards for best businessman in 2003 and the Joxe Mari Korta in 2015. In addition, he also received other awards such as the Golden Cascabel (2003) from ONCE, for his contribution to a more inclusive society, the EY Social Entrepreneur Award in 2016. «Gureak was created to provide employment and work for people with intellectual disabilities. But the important thing is that you are born with an idea of ​​company culture, and that has been maintained. The founders were clear that job creation, for anyone, is done through the manufacture of a good or the creation of a service for someone. Disability is only the condition that is required to enter, but once inside it is not talked about, but instead each person is valued for the abilities they have to work,” he explained in an interview with DV at the time a few years ago. years.

Throughout the years he spent at the head of the Basque business group, Alkorta’s vision and philosophy were decisive in its evolution. Gureak was born to respond to a concern from fathers and mothers who were part of Atzegi and who did not know what they would do with their sons and daughters once they finished school. Over the following decades and with the help of Alkorta, that initiative has become a business group of nearly 6,000 people, of which 84% have some disability.

Throughout his career, Alkorta has been part of the Board of Trustees of the Goyeneche Foundation of San Sebastián and has been a founding member and president of EHLABE, a Basque association of non-profit entities that promote the socio-labor inclusion of people with disabilities.