I am a big believer in the capacity of the founders currently leading Peru’s startup community. I also am optimistic about the future due to the emergence of Peruvians who have earned leadership positions in top tech companies.
Over the past few years, Peruvians working in Silicon Valley have been a steady presence in Peru’s startup community. PeruSV is a group of Peruvians in Silicon Valley that organizes the annual Techosuyo conference. The Peru chapter of Swiss EP has done significant work to help connect Peruvians abroad with the local ecosystem.
Now, the number of tech professionals is getting larger and they are taking on leadership roles.
Here is a sampling of proven Peruvian tech professionals in the U.S. and Latin America:
- Cesar Hoshi, Product Manager at Rappi
- Carla Benavides, Senior Program Manager at Amazon
- Karina Canales, Product Marketing Manager at YouTube
- Maria Pia Lindley, Operations Lead at Didi Food
- Sebastian Burgos, CTO of Latin America at Fandango
- Alexandra Campbell, Area Director at WeWork
- Gonzalo Eyzaguirre, Strategy and Business Operations Manager at Nuro
- Victor Laguna, Engineering Manager at Facebook
These profesionals are equipped with practical skills relevant for founding startups, such as hiring, product management and aquiring customers. Those that work in Latin America are seeing first hand how to apply techology to solve problems in the region.
These leaders could follow the path taken by Courtney McColgan, Carlos Lau and Gonzalo Begazo, who all left tech companies and have subsequently built regional startups. Prior to founding Runa, Courtney was Chief Marketing Officer at Cabify. Carlos had stints at both Uber and Amazon before launching Kurios. Gonzalo worked at Google before returning to Peru and launching Chazki.
Tech professionals like them are the mentors, investors and founders that will shape Peru’s startup community in the coming years.