Entrepreneurial Thinkers with Rob Ryan

On this episode, Ileana and Rob explore the fascinating, bridge building, personal story of Meghan Stevenson-Krausz, one of Latin America's leading Venture Capital Investors, and leading advocates for female inclusion in the Latin American entrepreneurial economy. Meghan's vulnerability is incredibly authentic and inspiring. In sharing some not often publicly discussed parts of her journey, she shows us how some people's conditions may literally predestine their later paths. Meghan's work and impact today, traces back to her childhood in a multicultural, multi-religious family growing up in West Philadelphia, a historically diverse neighborhood. Our conversation takes us from her youth to present day, while highlighting a few of Peru's hottest up & coming founders alongside Meghan challenging the systems of "white privilege". Meghan seems much more like a "one woman movement" than a typical VC and she inspired us to do more and be better as we all strive to build sustainable vibrant entrepreneurial economies in the Americas!  Enjoy this conversation with one of the young leaders in Latin American venture capital and entrepreneurial economy building! Please follow and connect with Meghan via these links: Twitter: @meghan_sk Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/meghansk Websites:  https://www.linkedin.com/company/inca-ventures/about/  https://www.inclusivx.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/weinvest-latam/ We're so grateful to you, our growing audience of entrepreneurs, investors, builders, influencers and those interested in the entrepreneurial economies of Latin America and the marginalized/under-represented entrepreneurial communities in the USA! Ideally, Season Two will bridge you between these two deeply interdependent worlds. Plug in, relax and enjoy some Spanish, English and a fun dose of spanglish as always. Please subscribe, follow and review as it helps others find the show. Share with friends and repost to your social media so we can help more entrepreneurs grow and discover new opportunities. Also don't forget, to please click on the "listener voice message" link in show notes, to submit your own personal questions or comments about anything you’re thinking about or need help with, to be featured on future episodes. We're here to help inspire, educate and empower you, so that you can build the future! Salud y Gracias!

On this episode, Ileana and Rob are talking breakthrough progress in the Latin American entrepreneurial economy, with Anna Raptis, founding General Partner at Amplifica Capital. Anna is fearlessly building the first Woman Led/operated Venture Capital firm in LatAm. But beyond that, she's building this fund with a gender focused lens, to not only fund opportunities for female founders, but by leveraging female investors for a majority of Amplifica's invested capital! She's doing something which simply hasn't yet been done in Latin America. She's purposefully committed to activating women in the economies of Latin America! 

Enjoy this conversation with one of the ground breakers in Latin American venture capital and entrepreneurial economy building! 

Please follow and connect with Anna via these links: 

Twitter: @AnnaRaptis01

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/anna-raptis-cfa-1433b2

Website:  https://www.amplifica.capital/

https://donadora.org/campanas/mujeres-invirtiendo

We're so grateful to you, our growing audience of entrepreneurs, investors, builders, influencers and those interested in the entrepreneurial economies of Latin America and the marginalized/under-represented entrepreneurial communities in the USA! Ideally, Season Two will bridge you between these two deeply interdependent worlds.

Plug in, relax and enjoy some Spanish, English and a fun dose of spanglish as always. Please subscribe, follow and review as it helps others find the show. Share with friends and repost to your social media so we can help more entrepreneurs grow and discover new opportunities. Also don't forget, to please click on the "listener voice message" link in show notes, to submit your own personal questions or comments about anything you’re thinking about or need help with, to be featured on future episodes. We're here to help inspire, educate and empower you, so that you can build the future! Salud y Gracias!

On this episode, Ileana and Rob are joined by a self described Economic Artist and Rapper Poet, Taj Ahmad Eldridge, General Partner at Include Venture Partners. Taj shares his inspiring story of growth, empathy and musical creativity, which has led him to this exact moment in time, in 2021, when he has decided to focus his immense energies into the twin pillar issues that he believes define our new era we've permanently entered during this pandemic;

 1. "Diversity of economic power via increased Venture investment into marginalized, under-represented communities" 

 2. "Climate and Clean-tech problems and opportunities." 

Enjoy this conversation with one of the young Builders who will shape the next 50 years of our entrepreneurial economies in the America's and listen all the way to the end, to hear him sneak peek his firm's future LatAm office location!

Please follow and find Taj via these links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tajahmadeldridge/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Econoahmad

https://www.vcinclude.com/

https://dot.la/taj-eldridge-2650981297.html

We're so grateful to you, our growing audience of entrepreneurs, investors, builders, influencers and those interested in the entrepreneurial economies of Latin America and the LatinX communities in the USA! Ideally, Season Two will bridge you between these two deeply interdependent worlds.

Plug in, relax and enjoy some Spanish, English and a fun dose of spanglish as always. Please subscribe, follow and review as it helps others find the show. Share with friends and repost to your social media so we can help more entrepreneurs grow and discover new opportunities. Also don't forget, to please click on the "listener voice message" link in show notes, to submit your own personal questions or comments about anything you’re thinking about or need help with, to be featured on future episodes. We're here to help inspire, educate and empower you, so that you can build the future! Salud y Gracias!

On this episode, Ileana and Rob are joined by Pablo Ximénez de Sandoval, Editorial Columnist at El Pais, the world's largest Spanish language newspaper. As we'd say in the USA, El Pais is the "paper of record" for the Spanish speaking world much the same as the New York Times is for the USA. Pablo is a gifted journalist who brings his unique insights on "California" to our show. His perspective was honed over 6+ years (2014-2021) covering California, interviewing the most powerful elected officials, titans of industry as well as Hollywood stars, while also exploring this "Nation-state's" relationship with Mexico y Latinoamerica, while living in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, with his loving wife, and two daughters! Pablo joined us from Madrid, Spain, where his family has recently returned. The show dives into politics, history, immigration, economic and cultural soft power, the unique ingredients that create the entrepreneurial spirit of California, as well as its uniquely shared history with both Mexico and Spain. As we learn, you cannot discuss the Latin American experience of the last 300 years, or the Global experience of the next 100 years, without beginning and ending in California! 

Please follow and enjoy Pablo's work via these links: 

https://elpais.com/autor/pablo-ximenez-de-sandoval/

Twitter: @pximenez

We're so grateful to you, our growing audience of entrepreneurs, investors, builders, influencers and those interested in the entrepreneurial economies of Latin America and the LatinX communities in the USA! Ideally, Season Two will bridge you between these two deeply interdependent worlds. 

Plug in, relax and enjoy some Spanish, English and a fun dose of spanglish as always. Please subscribe, follow and review as it helps others find the show. Share with friends and repost to your social media so we can help more entrepreneurs grow and discover new opportunities. Also don't forget, to please click on the "listener voice message" link in show notes, to submit your own personal questions or comments about anything you’re thinking about or need help with, to be featured on future episodes. We're here to help inspire, educate and empower you, so that you can build the future! Salud y Gracias!

On this episode, Ileana and Rob are joined by Juan Conde, the Founding Partner at Novus Concilium, one of Mexico's leading tech/startup/IP law firms. Conde is a graduate of the UC Berkeley School of Law, as well as Universidad Anáhuac. He joins the show from his home in San Francisco. He gives our audience (and both our under-informed hosts) a brief masterclass on Smart Contracts, how they fit into the larger blockchain and crypto conversation and how they'll be useful in the future. He dives deep with some great examples, as well as 3 pieces of terrific mentor advice for our audience. 

 We're so grateful to you, our growing audience of entrepreneurs, investors, builders, influencers and those interested in the entrepreneurial economies of Latin America and the LatinX communities in the USA! Ideally, Season Two will bridge you between these two deeply interdependent worlds.

Plug in, relax and enjoy in Spanish, English and a fun dose of spanglish as always. Please subscribe and review as it helps others find the show, share with friends and repost to your social media so we can help more entrepreneurs grow. Also don't forget, to please click on the "listener voice message" link in show notes, to submit your own personal questions or comments about anything you’re thinking about or need help with, to be featured on future episodes. We're here to help inspire, educate and empower you, so that you can build the future! Salud y Gracias!

We're so excited about Season Two's potential to shape the sorts of meaningful and fun conversations which will encourage and mentor our listeners to go out into their communities and build the better new world we all need. As Ileana says in this episode,  "Season One, we guessed what was going to happen as a result of the pandemic, but it was all rooted in the past ways of 2019, whereas in Season Two, now we can talk about the future with some sense of what things are really going to be like." We're so grateful to our growing audience of entrepreneurs, investors, builders, influencers and those interested in the entrepreneurial economies of Latin America and now, the LatinX communities in the USA! Ideally, Season Two will bridge you between these two deeply interdependent worlds.

Plug in, relax and enjoy in Spanish, English and a fun dose of spanglish as always. Please subscribe and review as it helps others find the show, share with friends and repost to your social media so we can help more entrepreneurs grow. Also don't forget, to please click on the "listener voice message" link in show notes, to submit your own personal questions or comments about anything you’re thinking about or need help with, to be featured on future episodes. We're here to help inspire and empower you! Salud y Gracias!

Sponsorships: off for this episode

Ileana and Rob are so excited to be back for a bigger, longer and more global Season 2 of the pod! We're so grateful to our growing audience of entrepreneurs, investors, builders, influencers and those interested in the entrepreneurial economies of Latin America and now, the LatinX communities in the USA! Ideally, our show serves as a bridge for you to navigate this world so you can help us build a better future, while we and our mentor guests help you build your own futures. 

Episode 1 is a Welcome Back, look back over the intensity of a pandemic dominated 2020, and a peek forward into pandemic realities of 2021 and beyond. Ileana perfectly encapsulates the pressing challenges and opportunities of our time, while Rob encourages entrepreneurs to rise to this unique moment in history. 

Plug in, relax and enjoy in Spanish, English and a fun dose of spanglish as always. Please subscribe and review as it helps others find the show, share with friends and repost to your social media so we can help more entrepreneurs grow. Also don't forget, to please click on the "listener voice message" link in show notes, to submit your own personal questions or comments about anything you’re thinking about or need help with, to be featured on future episodes. We're here to help inspire and empower you! Salud y Gracias!

Ileana and Rob are joined for this incredibly important conversation, by a leading voice in the future of the Education industry in Latin America, Señor Rafael Lorenzo Piñon, Director Innovative Entrepreneurship Ecosystems, at Tecnológico De Monterrey, Mexico.  Rafa is a great friend of the show, and very naturally engages with Ileana and Rob in a continuing conversation that is on everyone's mind during this pandemic, "How will we all educate our young people, and how/where will we work when the pandemic is controlled?"  They discuss questions such as " Is this change permanent or just an exception in history?" "has the pandemic been an accelerant to advancing trends?"  This episode will be important for young founders building in the EdTech space, as much as it will be important for University administrators and corporate chiefs to consider as we go forward. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rlorenzop/

Plug in, relax and enjoy in Spanish, English and a fun dose of spanglish as always. Please subscribe, share with friends and repost to your social media so we can help more entrepreneurs grow. Also don't forget, to please click on the "listener voice message" link in show notes, to submit your own personal questions about anything you’re thinking about or need help with, to be featured on future episodes. We're here to help inspire and empower you! Salud y Gracias!