In a new entry in the Life Stories series, created and produced by Isabel López Giraldo for the Spectator, Rosario B. Casas talks about her time in the public sector, working on anti-corruption issues, as well as her performance in the world of technologies.
origins
I’m essentially nerdy. I come from a line of incredible women. My grandmother was a teacher until she was eighty-six years old. She was awarded the National Teacher Award and the Simón BolÃvar Medal for Educator, an absolutely passionate woman. My mother is a coach and strategic advisor to managers and family groups on all issues of business transit and crisis management: she was my first boss. I have two wonderful sisters. My husband is an extraordinary man, sponsor of all my activities and is the protector of the matriarchy.
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On my mother’s side there is a mix between a Chiquinquireño from Boyaca (the Casas family has always been educators) and a Valle del Caucano (between Popayán and Cali), with a strong love for the Pacific. I feel very identified with those roots, because I have very strong characteristics of all: I am front and direct like the vallunos, I honor my ancestors as a good duck, and of the Boyacenses I have the negotiating power with a different warmth. And since I’m good at learning, I take a little of everything, without difficulty.
I started studying at a school that was very committed to education. To Nena Cano I owe a lot to arousing curiosity, wanting to know more, the fact that I am not satisfied with what I already know because I can learn more, having the awareness that my brain is an incredible tool to achieve it, in addition, the pleasure to be adding new things. Another special feature of my school was that not only was I a nerd, but my classmates were too (that was the common denominator). It was in college that it became even more evident, as many things were easier, since some of them were learned from school.
I studied Political Science. I dreamed of being president, but I discovered another way to achieve the same: start a company with the purpose of improving my environment and contributing to a better planet so that it makes sense, also with a multiplier effect on society and a very high impact on progress. , and therefore in the education of families. The decision about what to study was made by reviewing the answers to my question: “What is it that I have no idea and what do I need to fulfill my dream?” The answer was Political Science (without having a precise idea what it was about). I did the area of concentration in economics, the electives all in calculations (to go up average, since I loved them).
Follow the news of El Espectador on Google NewsWhen I finished my degree, I began to work with my mother as a research assistant in projects with communities in the Pacific, attending to the interaction between the institution and the communities. As the 1991 Constitution was very recent, there were many changes in relation to minorities, their own territories and others, so it was very important to support the institutions in this transit, so that there was no misgovernment. This experience opened my mind and taught me that the country is more than what I had seen. My mother mixed her role as boss and mother, it was impossible not to, because if an idea occurred to her at four in the morning, we would get up to work. We really enjoyed this stage and I understood that when you are in something, you have to make it happen.
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Then I worked in a foundation created by Don Hernán EchavarrÃa, together with another group of businessmen, ParticipAcción Ciudadana. At nine months I am appointed executive director. Here I found many of my professional life mentors, such as Martha Cecilia Bernal, Jorge Zapp Glauser, Rodrigo Escobar Navia, Olga LucÃa Cobo de Morales, Inés de Brill, Jorge Londoño Saldarriaga, Bernardo Toro, among others. The gatherings in Don Hernán’s library (in which people from very different backgrounds and generations participated) taught me a lot, they helped me understand what was happening in the country, they trained me and gave me a long-term vision. At this time I met VÃctor Hugo Malagón, another big man like me.
Later, I worked on anti-corruption in the government of Andrés Pastrana, with Gustavo Bell, who was in charge of the fight against corruption, and I was responsible for the issue of citizen participation. The solutions sought were to ensure that citizens accompany the protection of public resources, that those who were going to participate in tenders understood the value that fair play has and that those who saw irregular things were able to report. It was to see an impressive country. As it clearly meant risks, we set up a network of citizens supported by technology that reached 45,000 Colombians, one by one registered and determined to fight corruption and protect public resources. They received information on how a tender works, participated in specific groups, in control of resources for local projects.
I remember a very important tender: the one for the Line Tunnel. This was affected by the situation of the Twin Towers, since there was no one who did the reinsurance, but the minister of the time, Gustavo Canal, at the age of twenty-seven, gave me the space to apply the rules of the network that we call ‹Colombian Network ›, Which was to make Colombia an action. This initiative implied holding hearings with communities in the area and inviting all possible proponents to help build the specifications so that they were transparent, as well as ensuring that there were as many proponents as possible, among other actions that made the process visible. . We set up models to control the resources of productive projects of Plan Colombia in the regions by the peasants, which implied checklists. And like this, any number of controls that are easy to carry out by the public, known as prior control and early alerts generated from the community.
I withdrew to make my first attempt at entrepreneurship, I even trained as many people as possible on anti-corruption when they opened the first referendum: that was my topic. It was a magnificent experience, but I learned that you cannot be an entrepreneur like you are a freelancer . I got two very good contracts, one with the World Bank, as an anticorruption and governance advisor, and another with SAS, the data mining company, to advise on an issue of understanding patterns that lead to predicting corruption. There I returned to the technological issue. Attending these two projects I forgot to set up my company.
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One day I was offered a job offer from SAS and the same week I had had some interviews without knowing what they were for (since I was not looking for a job). Curiously, they were to work as a private secretary for Lina de Uribe. I did not know her, nor her closest ones, but I held the position for four years. It was wonderful to work for an absolutely wonderful woman, in a country in a magnificent process of change, that I could see on the front line. Helping from that position was a challenge. The offices of the First Lady end up being the place where the will of the businessmen to help in the social causes of the country and the capacity of the public management to articulate this with the communities. It was wonderful to see the type of leadership of Lina and the president, not from the media but from day to day, in a tremendous dynamic.
While there I met my husband, with whom I worked for six months. When he left, we started dating. He left for two and a half years, in his capacity as an officer in the Navy. The courtship was long-distance, but very beautiful. When he proposed to me, I was ready to go to BahÃa Málaga, but he was transferred to Bogotá, so we stayed here. I continued working with Lina after re-election, which was not in my life plans. After a year, I told Felipe, my husband, that it was too much of a national reality, since we both worked in the government, although in different spaces (but our environment was the same), so again the idea of doing business.
When I retired in the Uribe government, I had already fulfilled and wanted to do my second trial as a businesswoman, because my dream of reaching the presidency had been diluted. I understood that in the corporate world there were many needs and that I could contribute to the solution. I withdrew because the country’s context was very favorable for attracting direct investment, but the small and medium investor who bets on the country cannot be wrong. If he does, it is very expensive and he does not bet on Colombia again.
The State can do a lot, but only with what the norm allows, but in the end the citizen can do everything that is not prohibited. In many scenarios, the public sector needs allies who are able to help further, so that certain undertakings can be carried out. There I found a space for myself. I have always liked the public, I have never been disenchanted, but I wanted to do business. With the proposed change of country around 2006, it seemed attractive to be on the other side.
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My purpose was to set up a consulting company to help land direct investment, help in the area of strategy, planning and control, and a private Swiss bank appeared and called to offer me a first project. I experimented with a good client by becoming an employee for about two years, it was very interesting, with a fabulous brand that today is a sponsor of one of my favorite sports, the electric formula, betting on the sustainable future, and that I don’t know how to drive because my coordination is nerdy. When the entire operation of the bank was assembled, there I did start the operation of my consulting company: Business Creative Partners.
In my business, I advised the landing and assembly of hotel, food, software, ports, and coal projects. I was on many different topics advising direct investors. I understood things that hurt and cost someone who does this, including the issue of workforce training.
All the dots end up joining. One day a Silicon Valley company came to my office that had just acquired a Colombian company, dedicated to big data and artificial intelligence issues. I was fascinated and understood the subject as the future generation of what I had started at SAS, ten years earlier. He studied patterns to solve specific issues. One day its founders offered me to be their global CEO. I accepted with only one condition: that the headquarters of the operation be in Colombia. They accepted it.
It was interesting for me to do it, and more and more every day, because it was to get attention to Colombia and to show its talent in these technological frontier issues. Furthermore, the Colombian partners were very capable, world class. I worked with them for almost two years until I returned to my consulting firm. He agreed that Felipe, who had already retired from the Navy, was sent to work in New York two months later, as part of the Consulate team. I literally “sacrificed” myself and traveled with him (laughs).
At that time I was faced with the decision to return to the head of my consulting company from which I was absent for two years (which implied me getting certified in certain financial matters, because I was based in New York) or to start another company. So I did it. I started advising a former client who had a programmatic digital video advertising company (the internet at the end, is an individual experience), whom I knew very well and and one day over coffee I had a conversation in which I said:
– In flat video, the world is very standardized, that’s why it monetizes very clearly. Whoever is guiding understands the dynamics very easy. But how is this going to be in the world of 360-degree content?
– Interesting, right? Have you already started investigating that?
– I already read a little.
– If one day you decide to do something in that field, count on me, although very on the sidelines, because I am in this other company, but I advise you.
I called Lucas Kappaz, another lifelong friend who has been a manager on media issues, digital, and said:
– Lucas, I have a story and an invitation for you, let’s see if it sounds familiar.
He said he thought it was great and that’s how we started. At that moment we signed an agreement of understanding, we decided that we were going to explore, we piloted things. This was in November, and on February 23, 2016 we incorporated VR Americas LLC . This started with the curiosity of how to understand the interaction of content and data analytics in a video. We currently have product and sales, traveling the path of entrepreneurship. There we are growing, while helping to build an industry that is still nascent.
Career path
Colombian entrepreneur based in New York with a successful history in origination, structuring and execution of transactions on data and technology platforms. Co-founder of VR Americas, a company that works in immersive technologies – virtual and augmented reality-, which has been selected by the WXR Fund, 4.0 Schools and NYU Steinhardt StartEd Incubator.
Member of the Big Data Advisory Board at Rutgers University. It was named one of the Top 100 World Disruptors in New York City, by the WSIE. He has appeared in media such as NatGeo, Forbes, Huffington Post, among others. He has been a speaker at NAB Show, AWE, Steamnista, The World Summit on Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Mobile World Congress. She is co-founder and president of Business Creative Partners, a consulting firm specialized in direct investment in Latin America, with a special interest in technology, innovation and digital business.
Business mentor at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering. Former CEO of Grupo Senseta, Inc, one of the most modern technologies in Silicon Valley in big data , artificial intelligence and machine learning . Previously, he had a leadership role in the opening of Julius Bar Private Bank in Colombia. She was an external advisor to the SAS Institute and a Senior Consultant at the World Bank, where she dealt with economic and anti-corruption matters in Latin America. She was the private secretary of Lina Moreno de Uribe, former first lady of Colombia.
Member of TWIN, The World Innovation Network, as well as the Forum of Presidents of Colombia and member of Dreamers // Doers.
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Reflections
Share with me a professional experience not to forget.
It has to do with breaking people’s biased perception. We were in conversations with a potential client. I presented the project, the man, a lifelong CEO gringo, was convinced, but asked me to speak to the technician in charge. I told him that I would solve the matter for him, but he insisted. I wrote to my associates to come talk to him because my red nail had made him very nervous and it was obvious that he wanted to talk to a man. My partners called him and talked to him.
Then one of my partners said that we were not going to sign that business because the man never asked him technical questions and that he seemed discriminatory with me. He didn’t want him as a customer. I told him that, on the contrary, it suited us very well, additionally I would be the one who would execute the project in front of him to break his imagination. The project turned out spectacular and we all learned from the experience.
What have you learned from all this?
That it is worth being a nerd, because possibly in adolescence one is not so aware of how short that stage of life is and how insignificant it is to be bullied. Understand the value of persisting in continuing to learn and not stopping.
Many times if you like math or anything else, it forces you to make the decision of whether you socialize to make friends or whether you learn what arouses your interest. And many people, especially women, give up at that point in life.
I would have liked to have model women in each area of knowledge so that much earlier I could have identified my taste and talent for technology. Today I program, but I will not be the top because I started late, as I speak English, but with an accent.
I have also learned that you know that you are very privileged, but before I did not understand the magnitude and what it allowed me to do. In the United States I realized that I was Hispanic, Latino woman, woman in technological matters. I was looking, almost desperately, to generate collaboration between people. I want to take the opportunity to open doors for many others who come after and who have had less privilege. It is not a gender problem, because there is nothing that can bother me more than to think that because I am a woman and a Latina they give me a position, I would rather not have it, but what does happen is that even to train artificial intelligence systems it is required that I do not there are biases.
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What is your feminine strength?
That my lineage is of women, all of them of extraordinary strength.
It is necessary to quiet the mind, how do you do it?
I have been meditating since I was eight years old, my mother’s fault (laughs). So I have done it all my life, that it is very natural to me. I never count it as something different.
How many hours does your day have? What is the time in your life?
It is a super valuable asset that I use to enjoy myself, and I program it minute by minute. And I give myself licenses, although my parameter for many will not seem to be wasting time. For example, I use it to read and to build legos with my husband, which he loves. I take the time to be with my family: to enjoy my mother, my sisters and my nephews.
Have you ever stopped doing something?
I don’t feel like I stopped doing anything. On the contrary, I feel that I have done things that perhaps I could not have done because of how risky they were, for example, reporting situations in my environment, resigning from a client because I consider him permissive with his team, without being me. And I have little gray area, so I do not feel remorse, on the contrary, I would do the same again.
If you are one of definitions, what makes you doubt?
I am better in crisis. In fact, I doubt less when there is a crisis. I am not of much doubt, I make decisions very quickly.
Do limbos make you sick?
I can’t stand them, as well as people who don’t make decisions or who have wide gray, because they are not compatible with me and that has involved personal issues of distancing myself from those who should be close by planetary rules.
What’s the most reckless thing you’ve ever done?
I knocked out a child in my childhood in Cali. We drown some fish with a “pedigree” from a friend. To set a precedent, I consciously bit a girl who would not stop bullying me (at the age of fifteen).
I consider that I have not been a rebel. Of course, if you ask my mother, she will tell you that I am the most rebellious of all, because I have done it within the rules.
I was going to ask him where he belongs, but it is better to ask him: What planet does he come from?
(laughs) The funny thing is that I became 23andMe and I have DNA from all continents: I am Latin, European, from Senegal, from Gambia, Asia, Korea.
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What marks you the most?
I am Colombia, but not necessarily in numerical DNA. As a continent, the European is stronger than I believed in emotional terms, but that mix is what allows me to understand affinities, since I have no adaptation problems.
I always annoy my mother saying that I am identical to her, but she answers:
– No no no no no! We are not identical.
And the day I saw the result of 23andMe, I was able to show him that we are as identical as possible between mother and daughter. She does know it, because she is not only my mother but she has been my boss and for many years my coach as a manager. We have fun, because we have our power games between being a mother / daughter or co-workers.
What is power to you?
Make things happen. The most wonderful exercise of power is making things happen.
And when you don’t achieve what you set out to do, do you get frustrated?
I retry as many times as necessary. I am quite systemic. I don’t get frustrated, I persist because I’m a bit intense.
Do you have a hard time admitting that it didn’t work?
If something is not as I want, I do not abandon it, but I adapt to take advantage of what I can achieve with it. An example is my consulting company, which since I could not be in charge again on a daily basis, I rely on it for VR Americas, making it their incubator for the operation in Colombia. Thus, the consulting strengths we have also been taking advantage of in VR Americas, which has helped everyone a lot.
You are one of the top 100 disruptive people in the world …
That was put in an event in which they select the list that they consider is at that height. What made me most proud was having the same label with people I admire, such as Marcus Weldon, president of Bell Labs / CTO Nokia, and that gave me the opportunity to talk with them and seek to open doors for Colombia.
What is the most disruptive thing you have done in your personal life?
Train myself daily in new things. This year I set myself the goal of learning to code, so I have dedicated at least one hour to starting the day since January. I just graduated from Java Nanodegree, XQL, Basics, I already started Python and a week ago I shot my first image recognition model using Watson.
What wouldn’t I do for the world?
Nothing that has to do with violating collective rights or harming others. And definitely not corruption, it is something that makes me sick.
You have many talents, but which one is she suffering from and would you like to be with her?
I am very brutish for a lot of things. I would like to be more of an artist than I am, perhaps I was as a child, but I abandoned it. I am very uncoordinated. For discipline I climbed rocks to see if I could play sports, but it didn’t work.
I am not a very good conciliator, but I am a very good negotiator, because I am going for a result, but I do not give in easily. I’m going hunting for what I want.
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What has been the personal growth tool that you use the most?
To learn, to study, to search. I have always relied on my mentors, who have been my teachers.
What is your wish under a premise of unlimited resources?
Assemble a team in all the municipalities of the country of x number of people, who want to start training with excellence for the industries of the future. This would be the dream of my life.
Where is your happiness?
In having a cheesy, re-cheesy relationship that nurtures my soul every day, like the one I have with my husband. That is my greatest treasure.
What are those questions that you have asked yourself and that you have not found answers to?
Where is the frontier of what the planet needs. What needs to be found to solve it now and how to have tools to prepare it. That is why I ended up in frontier technology, discovering that there are many things that cannot be solved with the tools that exist today, so that I can be early in those that will allow it. Examples: how to overcome hunger on the planet? How to adapt to climate change?
What are its borders, what are its limits?
That someone mistreat my sisters, my mother and my husband in any way. That is my border.
What brings tears to your eyes, what moves you?
Everything. I cry with movies (laughs). Working with Lina de Uribe, I realized that she was very crying because every child, every orchestra, every letter that arrived, made me cry. Everything human moves me and I cry.
What color are you?
As a symbol, I am pink. Pink has a very strong character, which breaks a gap in the imagination. I am very sweet, but firm.
What material are you?
Something soft. But also silver, because it is malleable, adaptable, but firm and lasts for generations.
If you were not a human but an animal, what would you be?
A cheetah. I am fascinated by how they see the world, how they move, how they plan, they do not spend their energy on what they do not touch, but they go directly to what is.
Do you apply the chess player’s strategy?
I played as a child. Yes, I could say that I am one of strategies, but not of premeditation, but of thinking about what generates what, where do I get and how.
If you ask me if I am clear about the steps to take, I am able to give you a long-term plan. This is how I have lived my entire life, knowing what I want and taking the steps to achieve it.
What would be the universal advice that you think is wise (as useful)?
That you can always give more than you think. But also another, remembering what my mother answered me when I was a child and asked her for advice: “If tomorrow what you did can appear on the front page of the newspaper, do it.” It was his way of creating self-judgment. It was another way of saying to me: analyze it.
Also, I remember my coach saying: “We are not perfect, but we are perfectible.” In other words, every day we can improve. And that happens better than one can imagine.
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Just as it is self-critical, is it self-punishing?
Everything I do I enjoy it, but I do demand a lot of myself. I believe that nobody has ever demanded more of me than I demand of myself.
It transmits a lot of security, but do you have fears?
Obviously they scare me. Like failing my team, or not being able to make things happen, or something to happen to the people around me.
When I was very young, there was an accident in my family and an aunt, absolutely loved, (I carry her name like my grandmother’s), a cousin and other uncles who looked very bad at that time, were killed in the car. Fifteen days later my grandfather died of a stroke due to sadness.
I have understood that issue of the fragility of life from a very young age, so I am afraid of not being able to do everything I want. I think that’s why I’m so intense.
What keeps you awake?
I don’t sleep much, but they don’t take it away (laughs).
What do you like to leave in the people who approach you?
Want to make things happen. Commitment. I believe that all those who worked with me, and who have been practitioners, come out as doers and they are all better than me today.
What should be said of you tomorrow?
It was as it was. It was as we saw.
I have a hard time not being who I am and what I am. That has its flats. I am not very politically correct.
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