Tag: mexico city

Juliana Sarmiento, Envíoclick: Redefining logistics in Latin America, Ep 131

You can now find the full show notes of the Crossing Borders podcast on LatamList.com’s new podcast section. I’ll still post the audio of the podcast on my blog and I’m planning to start writing more again on my blog, like I used to.

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Thanks for listening to Crossing Borders all these years! If you have any feedback or questions, please feel free to reach out here, or contact me on social media.

Outline of this episode:

  • [1:38] – About Envíoclick
  • [3:05] – Reality of logistics in LatAm
  • [5:56] – Choosing to become an entrepreneur
  • [7:12] – Jumping into tech
  • [10:33] – E-commerce in LatAm in 2014
  • [13:09] – Changes in logistics 
  • [15:47] – Choosing a business partner
  • [18:25] – The ups and downs of the business
  • [21:42] – Advice to other female entrepreneurs
  • [23:49] – Decision to expand to Colombia
  • [26:42] – Envíoclick’s response to COVID-19
  • [29:05] – Books, blogs, & podcast recommendations
  • [31:03] – Advice to Juliana’s younger self

Show notes on Latamlist.com.

Gabriela Estrada, Vexi: Bringing Credit to the Underbanked in Mexico, Ep 104

Only one in ten adults in Mexico have access to a formal credit card, according to Gabriela Estrada. That’s more than 70 million people that are not able to build a credit history. As cofounder and CFO of Vexi, Gabriela is on a mission to make credit accessible to Mexico’s underbanked population. 

Originally from Chihuahua, Mexico, Gabriela was at the peak of her career at Citibanamex in Mexico City when she decided the corporate world wasn’t for her. She was the only female director as well as the youngest among her peers by 10 to 15 years. After leaving the bank, her friend convinced her to cofound Vexi with him, where she quickly fell in love with the power of impacting her community through fintech.

I sit down with Gabriela to talk about her experience as a woman in finance in Mexico and some of the challenges she now faces as a female founder when seeking investment. We also discuss why she decided to tackle financial inclusion and how Vexi is helping increase financial literacy in Mexico.

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Mexico’s Startup Ecosystem: Mexico City, Monterrey, and Guadalajara

With startup hubs across Latin America vying to become the next Silicon Valley, Mexico may be ahead of the game, and carving out its own niche south of the border. In 2015, TechCrunch published an article that argued that Mexico’s transition over to the innovation economy might just turn it into one of the world’s biggest economies in the next decade. Bismarck Lepe, a Mexican-American entrepreneur who pioneered Mexico-Silicon Valley cross border companies with Ooyala and now Wizeline, contends that Mexico is one of, if not the most interesting country in the world over the next decade.

Mexico’s unique geographic and cultural positioning allows it to capture both the US and the Latin American markets, while its size and natural resources allow it to compete with South American giants like Brazil.

Three major cities in Mexico – Mexico City, Monterrey, and Guadalajara – are at the forefront of the innovative movement and each city is contributing intensely to the growth of the startup ecosystem in Mexico.

While Mexico City is the most powerful due to its size and the availability of private and federal capital, Guadalajara and Monterrey are important second cities that are vying for technology and startup leadership. Here’s a deeper look at the startup ecosystems in each of these Mexican cities. (more…)