Speakers and mentors
UI/UX Mentors - Day 1, 2
UI/UX Mentors - Day 1, 2
MICHAEL DORKA - User Research and Design
Currently Michael is in charge of UX at OLX. OLX Group is a global online marketplace, operating in 45 countries. Before that he was the UX evangelist at despegar.com. Google officially certifies Michael as one of the Design Sprint Masters in Argentina and as one of the 10 product design experts of the Google Developer Experts (GDE) Program in Argentina (approx. 370 GDEs world wide). Additional he mentors for emerging market start-ups in Google's Launchpad program. Michael has over 18 years of experience as a professional designer and consultant. Also 6 years of experience as a founder of several technology companies.
Business and Product Speakers & Mentors - Day 3
Chief Product Officer TheVentureCity
VP of Growth Accelerator Americas at TheVentureCity
Meet Our Business and Product Speakers & Mentors - Day 3
LAURA GONZÁLEZ ESTÉFANI - The Venture City
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 and co-founded Esplaya.com, the first international beach tourism digital platform.
FRANCISCO SOLSONA - Regional & Accelerator Lead SPLATAM at Google
Paco Solsona is a Google engineer leading developers relations and Accelerator for Spanish-speaking LATAM, or SpLATAM, with 25 years of experience in technology, tech communities, and entrepreneurship. Redefining on-the-ground engineering for Google in SpLATAM, for the past six years, Paco has fostered one of the strongest and cohesive network of leaders, influencers, and partners in the region; and together they are helping developers, and entrepreneurs thrive. Through different Google Developers programs, he works tirelessly to make SpLATAM one of the most effective startup ecosystems in the world.
PATRICIA LORO - Chief Product Officer at The Venture City Madrid
Patricia de Loro is the Chief Product Officer at TheVentureCity. Prior to joining TVC she leads the digital transformation in Vodafone Spain. Telco Engineer, business angel, an MBA, she has worked in consultancy, banking, and insurance. She lived in London and San Francisco, while she worked for eBay and Paypal.
EKATERINA SKOROBOGATOVA - VP Growth at TheVentureCity
Ekaterina Skorobogatova (Katya) is the VP of Growth at TheVentureCity, where she helps the portfolio and accelerator startups reach higher standards thanks to her unique knowledge. She was an early Facebook employee in Russia, she moved to Palo Alto, to join their International team. Then she moved to Instagram and WhatsApp to help them become top apps.
MONICA SIMÓ BLACK - Partner at TheVentureCity
Mónica Simó Black is a Partner at TheVentureCity, where she focuses on early stage software companies with a global impact, especially in Latin America. Monica’s career in investing and working with startups spans 10+ years, with roles at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Providence Equity Partners, Clever, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and J.P. Morgan. A Miami native, she studied economics and management science at MIT and received her MBA and Masters of Education from Stanford.
RICARDO SANGION - VP of Growth Accelerator Americas at TheVentureCity
Ricardo Sangion, former Director at Pinterest, Facebook, and Microsoft joins TheVentureCity as VP Growth Accelerator — Americas. Prior to joining TVC he leads Microsoft efforts with startups in LATAM. He was an early Facebook employee, where he was their Growth Director. Ricardo has a Comms and Marketing degree and an MBA.
KENZA ZOUAOUI - Country Manager for Makesense in Mexico- GDE
Kenza Zouaoui is Country Manager for makesense in Mexico where she develops projects involving citizens, social entrepreneurs, organizations and governments to reach the UN Sustainable Development Goals. She’s also a Google Developer Expert in Product Strategy, mentoring startups and entrepreneurs on Design Thinking, Community Building and Social/Environmental Innovation. She can talk to you in Arabic, French, Spanish, English and Moroccan!
MICHAEL SAMWAY - President of The Business and Human Rights Group.
Michael Samway is president of The Business and Human Rights Group and advises technology companies on free expression, privacy, and other international public policy issues. Samway spent ten years (2000-2010) at Yahoo! and was a VP and deputy general counsel. He’s now an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and was formerly a visiting scholar at NYU Stern School of Business and a senior lecturer at Duke Law School.
GABRIEL ROIZNER - Serial Entrepreneur
Gabriel holds a B.Sc. from Ben Gurion University (Israel) in Information Systems Engineering. After graduating, he worked in 3 successful Israeli startups, and decided to pursue a masters degree at the ENSIMAG (France). He graduated with his M.Sc in Computer Science, and moved to Buenos Aires where he joined Despegar.com (LatAm largest OTA) as Sr. Business Intelligence Analyst. In 2013, he moved to Chile where he founded and was CEO of KienVe, a mobile app that allowed users to check into TV shows using real-time audio recognition. He cofounded and was CEO of TiZKKA - the leading fashion community in Latin America with +1.5M downloads. TiZKKA got acquired in March 2018.
SANTIAGO CANALEJO - COO TheVentureCity
During the last 12 years, Santiago has taken general management positions leading industrial companies in sectors on constant transformation. One of his objectives consisted in making the companies ready to scale and grow internationally. Previously he was a Media & Telecom consultant for an American strategy consulting firm (Booz Allen).
EDGARD DUQUE - Business Development
Edgard is a Google Product Strategy Mentor, Business professional with extensive cross-cultural experience in business development and finance. Former Director at Socialatom Group, a venture capital firm that invests in global tech startups from across the Americas, where he led the Digital Entrepreneurship Center in Medellín, Colombia to contribute to the city’s economic development and connect its entrepreneurial talent with global companies, capital, and markets. Previously managed the technical aspect of Firstrock Capital as the Fund’s Managing Director and helped founders with aspects of international expansion, from legal to sales. Worked in consulting and banking in the Middle East and the US.
Marketing Speakers and Mentors - Day 4
Marketing and Comms Manager The Venture City
Meet Our Marketing Speakers and Mentors - Day 4
JUAN LOMBANA - Google Developer Expert Marketing - Mercatitlán
Paco Solsona is a Google engineer leading developers relations and Accelerator for Spanish-speaking LATAM, or SpLATAM, with 25 years of experience in technology, tech communities, and entrepreneurship. Redefining on-the-ground engineering for Google in SpLATAM, for the past six years, Paco has fostered one of the strongest and cohesive network of leaders, influencers, and partners in the region; and together they are helping developers, and entrepreneurs thrive. Through different Google Developers programs, he works tirelessly to make SpLATAM one of the most effective startup ecosystems in the world.
JUAN PABLO ROJAS - GDE - Head of Growth at Platzi
Google Top Expert in Marketing. Currently Head of Growth at Platzi. Experience in data analytics, programming with Python and SQL, creating reports with excel (advanced) and knowledge in mathematics and statistics. Deep knowledge of Unit Economics, budgets and growth projections for Start-ups.
ROSA JIMÉNEZ CANO - Ecosystem Relations in TheVentureCity
Rosa Jiménez Cano has been covering tech for more tan 15 years. She has been the first SIlicon Valley correspondent in the Spanish speaking world, where she lived for four years. During that time she connected with the LATAM tech ecosystem and became part of TheVentureCity, where she runs comms, content, marketing and community efforts.
SUSANA PABÓN - Corporate Communications Manager Google Latin America
With more than 18 years of experience in Communications Affairs, Susana is currently in charge of Google's Corporate Communications for Latin America. From this position she helps to carry out the company's values, emphasizing on how the Internet has become an essential element in people’s lives and companies and also on how Google has become an ally for users, businesses, governments, and industries, aiming to build a better society. Prior to this role, which began in 2018, Susana served as Google Communications Manager for Colombia, Peru, Central America, and the Caribbean since 2010.
CLARA BULLRICH - TheVentureCity Cofounder
Clara Bullrich - TheVentureCity cofounder and 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, London, Geneva, Lisbon, The Isle of Man, Neuchatel and Hong Kong.
CARLOS PEDRAJA - Head of Business Development & Partner Enablement for LATAM at Google
Head of Business Development & Partner Enablement for Latin America at Google. His focus is on developing our partners ecosystem by helping them grow profitable businesses leveraging Google's products, data and tech stack as well as empowering our partner's talent with the skills to deliver best in class solutions. He comes to Google with extensive experience in the advertising, media and entertainment business having started his career at Tribune Media, where he helped launch the first national network of Spanish newspapers in the US. Later moving onto leadership roles at tech companies where he spearheaded the rollout of new ventures like MSN Latino, MySpace Latino, and. Fox Networks in Latin America. He is a husband and father of 3 and in his spare time enjoys sports and discovering other cultures. He is also an avid reader and history buff
Tech Mentors - Speakers and Launchpad Team - Day 5
Google Developer Expert Co-founder of Botmaker
Meet Our Tech Mentors & Speakers - Day 5 Morning
VICTOR SERVIN - Chief Technology Officer
Victor Servin is the CTO at TheVentureCity, where he helps the portfolio and the accelerator startups make the right decisions to hire, manage and grow the best technical talent. Victor has a wide experience in product too. He has worked in the Telco industry for more than 10 years. Prior to joining TVC he was Global Product Development Manager in Millicom. Victor was born in Paraguay.
HERNAN LIENDO - GDE - Co-founder of Botmaker
Entrepreneur, teacher, tech guy. Previously founder of Mindset Designs and ZupCat games serving +15M users, running the largest Google Cloud stack in the region. Currently, co-founder of Botmaker helping brands to automate and improve conversations with their customers, working with top companies in several industries such as Government, Telcos, ECommerce, News Media, Financial among others) Loving leading teams to solve complex technical and product challenges. My companies were funded by top VCs in Latam and I'm a very proud member of Google Developers Experts and Google Launchpad Mentors programs.
DAVID SMITH - Data Scientist - TheVentureCity
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. David has an important role helping the startups in TheVentureCityy Accelerator make data-driven decisions. Together, they will establish the right metrics; capture the data required to track those metrics; analyze and visualize the data into insights; and interpret what those insights mean for the business.
ENRIQUE GARZA - Territory Manager in South Florida - Google Cloud's business regionally
Enrique currently serves as Territory Manager in South Florida and is responsible for Google Cloud's business regionally. He is a long time Googler and has worked in different teams at Google in four different cities in three different countries. Enrique has over 13 years of business development, sales and sales engineering experience working with leading Cloud, Software and Hardware companies in the US and throughout Latin America. He holds a bachelors of science in Telematics Engineering from Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.
MAURICIO CARO - Cloud Customer Engineer at Google
Senior Software Architect and Technical Sales Professional with over 15 years of experience in enterprise and mobility solutions in multiple sectors including Telecommunications, Banking, Consumer Goods and Education. Experience with On-Premise, Cloud and Hybrid models and how to choose and migrate among these approaches in order to maximize the value to the business. Experience with managing customer relationships at the executive level. International experience includes over 8 years covering Latin America and select projects in Southeast Asia.
RIO OTOYA - Google Launchpad Accelerator
Rio Otoya is part of the Google Launchpad Accelerator and teachers mindfulness at gPause, Google's Well-being initiative. Rio has practiced yoga and meditation for over 10 years, and certified as a yoga teacher and advanced practitioner in India. He has a background as a community builder and has experience in service design, startup programs and organizing collaborations between the tech and creative industries.