Founders+ Operators, Turned Investors

Laura spent nearly nine years with Facebook in various roles supporting overall growth strategies. Laura led the Growth, Mobile & Partnerships team for Latin America, spearheading the Internet.org and connectivity initiatives from Silicon Valley and later Miami. Before Facebook, Laura held management roles at eBay, Siemens and Ogilvy Group.

Managing partner for Guggenheim Partners Latin America/LJ Partnerships, a leading independent, privately-held multi-family office with assets under management of $5 billion dollars. Guggenheim has branches in Miami.

Santiago has a broad experience leading international teams in different areas as strategic planning, marketing and sales, Production, HR, logistics, IT, R&D, Finance & administration. Before joining TheVentureCity, Santiago held top management and business development roles in leading companies in the food industry both in Europe and America.

Marie is a 2x founder and angel investor, having built Kara and Beats by Dre, which was acquired by a leading out-of-home adtech company in early 2021. This marks her second martech exit. She is also an active angel investor and startup mentor, founding member of Dreamers & Doers - a community for entrepreneurial women, and a member of several networks.

David combines data science experience at Teva Pharmaceuticals with a prior career in consulting, software, and entrepreneurship. He has an MBA from Wharton and a BS in engineering from Rice, and organizes the Miami Data Science Meetup.

Passionate about helping to build ambitious companies capable of changing industries. MBA holder from IE Business School. As a serial entrepreneur (iAhorro in 2008 and SofiaSquare 2016), Andrés is a real founder, over +10 years leading teams from 1 to more than 120 people.

Launched operations for Facebook and Pinterest in Latin America and helped to establish the mobile ecosystem in Brazil as an executive at Claro and Vivo. Also an entrepreneur on the hospitality and food&drink industries.

Eli is a skilled operator, building at the consumer unicorn, IPSY, from seed days. She operationalized a 300+ person frontline team, and led 0 to 1 initiatives impacting 4m+ customers. She is an expert in customer success, operations, and has experience building product and platform initiatives for rapid scale.

Maria is a venture capitalist with seven years of experience in the field. She previously worked at two funds, Nazca and Variv Capital based out of CDMX, where she focused on early-stage investments in Latin America. She also worked as head of business development for Bankaya, a Mexican fintech. Maria began her career in finance working for Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank in New York. She founded Capitelle in 2022 a financial education program for women.

Carlos is a seasoned professional with over 15 years of experience in the tech and industrial sectors. He has previously worked with well-known companies such as Siemens and IBM. Carlos is driven by his passion for assisting founders in building and nurturing their teams. He firmly believes in the power of talent and strives to guide businesses towards success by helping them take care of their most valuable asset - their people.

Rafael is a branding and marketing leader with experience in both large enterprises as well as hyper-growth startups in the technology space. He advises an international accelerator and has experience speaking at conferences on topics such as employer branding and story-telling.

Ana has a +12 years experience in international automotive companies working in different areas as marketing & sales, operations and pricing. MBA holder from IE Business School. Speaks Spanish, English and German.

Álvaro has spent over 8 years as an investor and operator. He started as a venture capitalist and then founded his own startup, Cropti. He worked at Cabify during the last 3 years, where he led the Rider Growth team. He holds a double degree in Law and Business Administration from ICADE.

Joaquín combines a solid financial and analytical background with experience in entrepreneurship and as an investor in a family office; giving him a unique understanding of our investors and investees. He holds a BS in Industrial Engineering and an MBA at IESE Business School.

Elena has over 6 years experience in investment banking, investing and as a start-up operator across Europe. She holds a degree in Business Administration from ESADE.

Very eager to learn, Alesia studied sociology and marketing in Washington, DC. Passionate about working with startups, with experience in marketing, community outreach, operations, and event coordination. Previously, she worked at LAB Miami Ventures, marketing for Tech Summits in Miami, and Operations at LLYC USA before returning to TheVentureCity.

From traffic arbitrage to business development, she has worked leading growth and marketing in several startups. She came to the other side of the table to help startups become iguanacorns!

Garoe is a Product Data Analyst that has been crunching data for the past 10 years. Expert in deriving insights from data to support startups with their business decisions. He has a PhD in Particle Physics and has supported the development of new products and services in the aviation industry.

Mercedes is a mathematician with wide experience in different technological companies, where she has looked at data from different areas, roles, and positions. She has been working for 10 years as freelance external consultant in EUIPO, one of the European Institutions located in Spain. In the last 6 years, she has focused her professional career on what she most likes: squeezing out all the information that data contains.

Juan Pablo previously worked at Arca Continental analyzing Machine Learning models and deploying Business Intelligence solutions. He also has entrepreneurship experience, being a part of the founding team of an e-commerce company.

Born and brought up in India. I moved to Madrid to pursue my Masters in Management at IE Business School. Prior to this, I have had the opportunity to explore a variety of industries. I’ve had quite a journey from studying communication and design in my undergrad to finding my passion for Venture Capital after my masters.

Stephane is a driven professional with a multicultural mindset, fast adaptability, and fluency in 4 languages by having lived in Curaçao, Geneva, San Francisco, Miami, London, and Madrid. Having worked with startups and, more recently, in the equity capital markets, Stephane understands what it takes for a company to materialize its growth story. He has previously worked for Berenberg, S&P Global, GRECA GmbH and Salesforce. He earned his BBA at IE University.

Computer Science Engineer with 18+ years experience developing Internet and Mobile products in emerging markets across LATAM, including Mobile Apps currently in use by millions of monthly active users and also pioneered Mobile Operator partnership Initiatives with Facebook (internet.org), Google, Deezer, and many others.

Passionate about unlocking business growth by using data. 7 years of experience around marketing and growth working in different fields like user acquisition, product marketing, user re-engagement, mobile marketing, and organic growth. Strong background in marketplaces & mobile apps.

Ekaterina was singlehandedly responsible for growing Facebook penetration in Russia. She then joined the Instagram team on their internationalization and then later on WhatsApp’s integration and growth.

Passionate about Entrepreneurship and building the Future. With an MBA from INSEAD, where he focused on Venture Capital and Data Science, he is a 2x founder and has worked in management consulting/finance in Europe and Asia.

Francesca is an early stage tech investor and seasoned business development leader. She leads the pre-seed and seed vehicle. She also serves as Tech and Innovation Advisor to the Mayor of Miami-Dade County. Francesca worked at Meta building BD teams supporting 0 to 1 products including Meta's crypto project Novi/Diem, SMB payments, and connectivity efforts for Internet.org. Her last role was working out of Meta's CEO/COO office driving cross-company strategy. Before joining Facebook, Francesca served in the Obama White House.

Multilingual Senior Executive with significant experience in strategy development, strategic investments, structured deals, sales and marketing, debt and equity capital markets, securities trading, hedging, risk management, and finance.

As the mascot of TheVentureCity, Iguanacorn reminds us all to work hard and chase our dreams. Resilient and relentless, Iguanacorns are always ready to surprise us with something new. Next time you’re in Miami, Madrid, SF or Sao Paulo, stop in and say hello to one!