Colombia continues to play an active role in innovation in the region, with its government recently announcing that it will contribute 50 billion pesos, or approximately $12.6 million USD, to the construction of an AI center in its capital of Bogotá. The new center will be operated and managed by SENA, the country’s national training service.
In addition, with the country earlier declaring that it will place $30 billion pesos of capital into the science, technology, and innovation sectors—it seems that it’s only a matter of time before it’s cemented as an important international hub for entrepreneurship and innovation.
Beyond Colombia, Latin America has become an important benchmark for innovation and entrepreneurship, with this being particularly evident in Brazil, Chile and Mexico, where the number of technology startups has almost tripled in the last five years.
According to a recent StartupBlink report, the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Latin America has experienced exponential growth, with the region today boasting more than 15,000 technology companies, an increase of 35% from the prior year.
These companies, and the individuals leading them, are also increasingly making waves and playing an important role in international markets. From Pereira to Patagonia, here are 15 international innovation leaders to watch in 2025.
Mike Hoey
Mike Hoey is the Founder and Owner of Source Meridian, a software development company that specializes in life science, big data, business intelligence and machine learning solutions running on commercial clouds.
One of the large tech employers in Colombia, the company’s mission is to provide its customers with early access to cutting-edge technologies, helping their clients to maintain their competitive advantages in the marketplace.
Source Meridian includes a staff of international software engineers and data scientists and has offices in the US and Colombia. Its Founder Mike Hoey has long been praised for his mentorship to colleagues.
Francisco (Paco) Solsona
Francisco (Paco) Solsona is Head of Accelerator & Startup Ecosystem, SpLATAM at Google, and he has long been recognized for playing a key role in the region’s tech ecosystem.
According to Contxto, Google has 24 acceleration programs distributed worldwide, with Latin America playing an important role in these programs. A total of 283 startups and developers from their programs are from the region, or 25% of the global total.
Solsona, who was earlier the regional leader of Google for Developers in Latin America, earlier expressed pride in the role that LatAm startups have played since the program’s inception in 2016, saying in an interview, “Latin American startups have been part of Google’s acceleration programs since the first Google office in Mountain View, California, in 2016. We started with national and regional programs in 2018, first in Brazil, followed by Mexico, and the rest of the region. We are proud of all the companies that trusted us over the years and started our programs to connect with the best of Google: our people, technology, and global network of mentors and allies.”
Maria Yepes
Maria Yepes is a leader on the marketing team at Sim Local, which is a global pioneer in travel SIM card and eSIM retail that quickly expanded throughout Colombia and Latin America this past year. The company provides local SIM cards and eSIM Profiles direct to customers through its retail stores, kiosks, vending machines, mobile app, and eShop.
Throughout her career Yepes has demonstrated the ability to grow and increase sales through innovative strategies, leading to important projects for Fortune 500 companies, and design demand generation processes. The culmination of her and the team’s work resulted in Sim Local, which is headquartered in Dublin and London, being named to Deloitte’s 50 Fast Growing Companies list.
Loreanne Garcia
Loreanne Garcia, an Endeavor entrepreneur, is the co-founder and Chief People Officer of Kavak.com, a disruptive solution looking to change how pre-owned cars are bought and sold in the auto industry.
With a valuation of $8.7 billion, Kavak is one of the largest tech startups in Mexico and across Latin America.
Garcia has her MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Antoine Valentone
Antoine Valentone is the VP of Customer Success at Prezent, which is an AI storytelling platform for enterprises that is making waves in the communication industry across Latin America. Valentone helps to lead customer success at the organization, which boasts over 100 Fortune 2000 clients.
He is also an active advisor and mentor across organizations in Latin America, including at the Universidad de Los Andes, one of Colombia’s leading universities, and FGV in Brazil.
He is Co-Host of the podcast Think Deeply, Speak Simply, and is a Contributor at Entrepreneur Magazine.
Mariana Costa Checa
Mariana Costa Checa is the Co-Founder of Laboratoria+, a technology company from Peru that provides free online boot camps to women interested in learning Web Development and UX Design.
The organization is focused on shaping a more diverse and inclusive digital economy, which opens opportunities for each woman to develop her potential and, in this way, transform the future of Latin America.
The startup has seen great success with leaders, including Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg praising Mariana Costa’s work.
Ximena Aleman
Ximena Aleman, is the Co-CEO and co-founder of Prometeo, the largest open banking platform in Latin America.
Founded in 2018 when Aleman noticed that data was still the sole property of financial institutions, she and her team set out a mission to democratize data so it could be securely shared. Today the platform is capable of A2A payments, creating and access to 100% digital products, and inter-accounts transactions.
Aleman’s work is helping to ensure that Prometeo becomes the next Uruguayan tech unicorn in the years ahead.
Matan Libis
Matan Libis is the VP of Product at SQream, a data acceleration platform increasingly expanding into Spanish-speaking markets that helps enterprises address the soaring costs of AI. According to a company press release from the company, its technology handles data 2X faster and at 1/2 of the cost of platforms such as Snowflake.
Libis is a senior executive with extensive leadership experience in SaaS for enterprises, specializing in deep tech, cloud solutions, GPU-accelerated technology, AI/ML, CV, and 3D.
According to a recent interview of his in The Latin Times, “The VP also added that globally, the skills gap is closing between data engineers and scientists. ‘Now we have the data engineers creating the data, and the scientists are creating the models,’ said Libis. ‘You’re going to be able to use Python to do that engineering, and you’re going to be able to use FQL to train your models.’ Last year, data science-related roles were some of the most sought-after for companies to fill, with markets like Brazil and Mexico leading the region, according to Forbes.”
Philipp Petrescu
Philipp Petrescu, recently named a Judge at Puerto Rico’s prestigious Parallel18 accelerator, is the Global Head of Innovation and Design at Ness Digital Engineering. Ness is a global full-lifecycle digital transformation company that is pioneering Intelligent Engineering, which looks to increase the velocity at which products move through release cycles by eliminating waste, and that leverages the power of data, AI and intelligence to improve engineering productivity.
According to the United Nations, AI is forecasted to contribute up to 5.4 percent of Latin America’s GDP by 2030.
Based in Berlin, Germany, Petrescu is also the Co-Founder of MVP Factory, which enables companies of all sizes to build and scale top technology products. He earlier was the Co-Founder of Lendico, a Rocket Internet company.
Felipe Chávez Cortés
Felipe Chávez Cortés is the CEO and co-founder of Kiwibot, which is the largest last-mile robotic network in America.
Kiwibot has had remarkable growth in recent years, with offices in Medellín, Colombia; California, USA, and Taipei, Taiwan.
Per TechCrunch, this past quarter the company also acquired Nickelytics for $25 million. Founded in 2019, the Tampa-based firm specializes in car-wrap advertising.
Cortés was earlier named to MIT’s Technology Innovators under 35 list.
Camilo Martinez
Camilo Martinez is the CEO and Co-Founder of Leal, which has quickly become a major force in Latin America’s retail technology landscape with its more than 7 million users and 1000 partnerships across 8 countries.
The company’s product leverages AI to enhance data management and marketing automation, enabling it to boost partner sales and customer lifetime value.
Martinez has his MBA from Kellogg School of Management and earlier worked in investment banking at Bancolombia.
Alan Gongora
Alan Gongora is the Managing Partner at Langon Law Group, a law firm with offices in the United States and Colombia. His firm works with enterprises across North and South America.
He is also the General Counsel at ‘WISH’ by Wuauu Inc. WISH is a unique service designed to provide consumers with a price bargaining system via a mobile device, also helping retailers to sell their backstock inventory quickly.
Alan is an alumni of Harvard Law School.
Daniela Restrepo
Daniela Restrepo is a Principal at Publicize, a PR company for technology startups and Fortune 1000 enterprises with offices in Medellin, Colombia and Barcelona.
She is a Mentor at Founder Institute, a Contributor at Entrepreneur Magazine, SocialGeek and Pulzo, and is a frequent speaker at conferences such as TechBeach. Last year she was recognized by Kienyke as a Judge at Colombia’s National Digital Journalism Award.
Restrepo is a graduate of Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, with a degree in social communications and PR.
Sergio Chavez
Sergio Chavez is the Global Head of Partnerships at Sastrify, which is an all-in-one platform for buying, managing, and renewing SaaS subscriptions at scale. This past year the company raised $32 Million in its Series B funding round in order to scale its next generation software procurement platform.
Additionally, Chavez is the Founder of MEXpreneurs, which is an impressive community that was started to help Mexican tech startup founders globally to succeed.
He is also the Co-Host of the MEXpreneurs Podcast.
Carl Newton
Carl Newton is the Allshore Lead at Slalom Consulting, which announced its expansion into Colombia this past month.
According to Contxto, the enterprise’s expansion represents a positive impact for the local technology landscape, as the company plans to hire more than 500 professionals in Latin America by 2025. It also highlights Colombia as an emerging market in the region.