Getting to Know
Rosario B. Casas
Co-Founder & CEO, XR Americas
I must admit, I have a thing for Colombia. From their music to their food and people, “Colombia le pone corazón a todo lo que crea”. I think that’s the reason why their people sing when they talk, because they are happy and are focused on sharing love and optimism with everyone around them. And so we have Rosario B. Casas. I remember meeting Rosario over a virtual chat a year ago or so.
Icebreaker Questions
I was born and raised in Colombia by a mother who was an intellectual. This meant learning as part of my day-to-day activities was a “requirement” to stay engaged in conversations. When I was a child, my dream was to be the president of Colombia.
And I kept that dream for many years. When I finished school, I picked Political Science and majored in Economics. I started my professional career working on topics related to civic engagement and anti-corruption. In 2000, I managed the citizens’ participation strategy from the Colombian Presidential Program to fight corruption. We created a citizens network using technology to facilitate anti-corruption actions while protecting the citizens’ identity. My last appointment in the government was as Chief of Staff for the Colombian First Lady, Lina Moreno de Uribe. Back then – from 2002 to 2006 – Colombia was improving its economy and security, and I discovered the vital role the private sector has, that is why I decided to pursue an MBA and jumped into the private sector. Between 2006 and 2013, I started BCPartners and landed foreign direct investment in Colombia as an investment banker. In 2013 an Artificial Intelligence Silicon Valley company, acquiring a Colombian company, contracted my company to manage the merger. Six months later, they offered me to be their Global CEO role, I accepted, which is how I formally started my career in technology.
Brooklyn2Bogota is a platform where we want to build a community to ensure that every business owned by a Hispanic person is not left behind in terms of technology. When the pandemic hit, we understood how the pandemic affected Hispanic non-tech-businesses in an unprecedented way.
Today our focus is on non-tech small businesses because they were hit the hardest by the digital gap. But we are preparing to have other specific solutions for tech-business and advisors soon, to be the place to be if you are Latin (anywhere in the world), have a business, and want to scale it. Brooklyn2Bogota is where they can learn, grow, create partnerships, access technology and receive support from other community members. In the future, we dream of building a solution for access to capital, as this is one of the significant needs Hispanic businesses have and where little support is provided. As we work hand-in-hand with the business owners, we understand their needs and potential as few can do.
We met while working together for the First Lady. I think our relationship was professional and there was plenty of mutual admiration before we even started dating. I learned many things from Felipe and always dreamt of working together again, but because of his previous roles, it
was challenging to compete with the Navy and First Ladies (he worked with 3 of them!) When in 2019 he finalized his Diplomatic role, he assumed the management position at our consulting company. Then the pandemic hit, and we not only worked on our companies but had to share the working space. That was the perfect moment to create Brooklyn2Bogota. We are very different, but we work very well together. We enjoy and have fun while doing it! For me working and building together is a covid-19 gift that life offered to us.
There are many reasons!
One is the impact on job creation and life quality. If we are not giving Latin business owners the tools to keep growing and advancing, they end up closing their businesses.
There is also a relationship with remittances. Migrants creating businesses are contributing to the US economy and their families and vendors in their native countries. That has a double positive impact which is imperative to maintain so the global economy keeps afloat. Last but not least, regular businesses will evolve as technology advances, and Brooklyn2Bogota is a solution to help them keep up with the pace of technology while concentrating on their product or service. That makes it easier for founders to do what they know best, which is running their businesses, while trying to have a balance between work and life in general.
Colombia has beautiful places, and maybe the most magical I visited twice is Caño Cristales.
Favorite food, I have a problem. I love Colombian Food! From an arepa for breakfast to an Ajiaco (potato soup) or a Mote (a cheese and yam soup), to an arroz con coco! And of course, the dessert can be an Arequipe (Alpina my favorite) or a Chocolatina Jet!
My favorite Colombian? It is very difficult to answer because I admire a lot of people…
Going beyond the incumbents, García Marquez for his literature, Adriana Ocampo at NASA, Álvaro Uribe for recovering the country’s feasibility, many artists and musicians for being great ambassadors of our culture.
I will also mention Alex Torrenegra and Tania Zapata.
Alex and Tania are a couple generating jobs and opportunities from the technology environment. They were maybe the first Colombians building a scalable tech company from the US. It was still challenging to be Colombian when no other Colombian startups were paving the road before them. Now it is trending to invest in Latinamerican startups, but this wasn’t the reality when Alex and Tania started. Nevertheless, they never stopped generating opportunities for more Latinamerican founders and developers to create, grow and scale. Truly visionaries.
