Entrepreneurial Thinkers with Rob Ryan

In this episode, Rob and Ile, welcome Ileana Gonzalez, from San Antonio, Texas. Ileana is an up-and-coming millennial venture capital leader in the San Antonio and Texas entrepreneurial economy who shares her story of immigrating to the United States from Mexico. She discusses her experiences in the Texas entrepreneurial economies while discussing the Techstars Anywhere program and the challenges...

In this episode, Rob and Ileana welcome a uniquely qualified and talented 1st time political candidate here in the City of Los Angeles, California, USA. Dulce Vasquez. What is remarkable about Dulce is the story behind the journey she and her family made to the United States, as a one-time undocumented immigrant (Tampiqueña, from Tampico, Mexico) and how she has maximized her opportunities over th...

In this episode, Rob and Ileana welcome a great, long time friend of Rob's, Yogi Roth, from right here in Los Angeles. Yogi is an accomplished professional storyteller, across multiple mediums including his primary work as the Analyst, for American college football, at the Pac 12 networks.  Ileana, Rob and Yogi talk about how critically important effective storytelling is to every entrepreneu...

In this episode, Ileana and Rob are joined by Ian Paul Otero, one of the Founding Partners at Redwood Ventures, one of Mexico's earliest seed funds. Ian shares some extraordinarily detailed insights into the history and performance of Redwood's Fund 1, as well as his teams motivations and aspirations for their Fund 2, their expansion into USA via their new Austin Texas office and their profile for...

On this episode, Ileana and Rob are grateful to be joined by our first guest from Nicaragua/Central America. This unique multi-cultural, multi-generational team that’s come together across borders to empower and enable female health care, specifically sexual health and wellness of young women in Central and Latin America. The Lily Project team has successfully helped tens of thousands of young wom...

On this episode, Fran Oliva, Founding Partner at Plaintext Capital, shares his belief in the emerging crytpo-economy! He educates us on the central role that decentralized finance and crypto technologies will play in not just our "fintech" structures of the future, but our social, cultural and even governmental institutions. He shares the story behind he and his partners launching of Plaintext Cap...

On this season ending episode, Ileana and Rob reflect on the incredible guests, stories and personal experiences we've endured during this Season 2 and our ongoing global pandemic during the first half of 2021. As always, there's laughter, honesty, thoughts on how we got here and excitement for where we're going together. The team shares some cool announcements about our new teammates joining us,...

On this episode, Jessica Bedoya, states her powerful case for the future of female led entrepreneurial economies of Latin America! This dynamic and determined, first woman Chief of Staff and Executive Advisor to the President of the Inter-American Development Bank, joins Ileana and Rob to share her story and help our audience understand the role and relevance of IDB ( https://www.iadb.org/en/fin )...

On this episode, Ileana and Rob are joined by one of the most dynamic young advocates for LGBTQ+ rights and opportunity in Latin America. Santiago San Martin, the Country Manager, Mexico, for the global technology services giant, Globant! Santi joins the show from Mexico City, where at a mere age of 33 years old, he oversees Globant's sprawling businesses in Mexico, and it's more than 2,500 employ...

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 sh...

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 lever...

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 ne...

On this episode, Ileana and Rob decided to "hit record" and turned an unexpectedly open date on their recording schedule into a fun/funny conversation between two friends about the social audio phenomenon of @joinclubhouse (Clubhouse audio app), some cool recent events at GrowthHax, Rob's lack of drinking alcohol during the pandemic and the importance of Women's History Month! It's a fun opportuni...

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 wa...

On this episode, Ileana and Rob are joined by Jolynn Vallejo, (recently) former Director of LatinSF, an innovative collaboration between GlobalSF & the City of San Francisco. She is an accomplished Economic Development leader, with an expertise in building bridges between Silicon Valley/Bay Area and Latin America. Jolynn is a powerhouse. A musician, relationship builder and single Girl Mom with an...

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 int...

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 S...

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...

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...

Ileana and Rob get together from Guadalajara and Los Angeles, for an important, very personal conversation around the timely topic of “Imposter Syndrome” in entrepreneurship today. They share some private stories from their lives, as both a millennial Latina, and as a Gen X American Dad, and they provide a list of useful tips for you on how to identify and deal with your own struggles. There’s als...

This week, Ileana and Rob continue to experiment with the format exploring the most impactful way to help entrepreneurs learn and grow. They invite (2) amazing Latin American/global entrepreneurs into the studio to record a roundtable of founder questions. Andreana Castellanos, Founder/CEO of Afinidata, an AI- data driven educational platform company, from Guatemala & Fort Collins, Colorado US...

 This week, Ileana and Rob welcome their first VIP Guest mentor, Sergio Borromei, joins in from Santiago, Chile,  for a fun conversation around the "the Intersection of Creativity and Entrepreneurship." Sergio, otherwise known as the "Cowboy Coder" or "Maxolydian" to his music fans on Spotify, takes us on his journey from 11 year old classically trained musician, to university graduate/j...

During this pandemic era life when our daily news cycle is so sour and serious, Ileana and Rob bring some fresh fun energy to this week's conversation, by revealing their Top 10 List of the  opportunities and challenges for LatinX entrepreneurs these next few years.  And as with each episode, our entrepreneurs from around the Americas drop-in with timely questions on the challenges they...

In this borderless world we live in now, Ileana and Rob get really "real" this week, and don't hold back, on the truths of their own stories. They recount what took them from Los Angeles and Guadalajara to Santiago Chile in 2017, but also talk about "Entrepreneurial tourists", Startup programs and the decision process that every founder should consider when "going global, or not". And as with each...

In the midst of a global pandemic, and economic lockdown, Ileana and Rob dive right into the deep end, with questions that keep entrepreneurs and executives awake in 2020; What are we going to do with our offices? Are we going to work remotely or "Work From Home/Anywhere" in the future, and the classic question for all founders; "When is the right time to raise capital? As they do every week, Rob...