Sebastián Ruales is an expert in innovation, entrepreneurship and digital economy who has quickly become an industry benchmark in digital business, empowering omnichannel strategies and commercial ecosystems for entrepreneurship and transformation in Latin America.
Prior to tech and VC, he had marketing and commercial strategy roles in the CPG industry, where he worked for L´Oreal, Quala and Johnson & Johnson, having received several awards including the Merit Award for the Best Employee. He worked in marketing areas (trade and shopper), as well as sales. In the middle of his career, he decided to "plunge into the void" - as he mentioned in his TEDTalk - to become part of Rappi, an emerging company in the region’s digital ecosystem, to which he significantly contributed to the point he helped it become the first Colombian Unicorn, valued at over U$ 1 billion, and one of YCombinator's most successful companies, which obtained financing from Sequoia Capital, DST Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, among others.
He is a speaker and consultant for Start-Ups in the initial capital-raising phase, with direct impact on the development of their business strategies and monetization models.
Sebastián Ruales studied an MBA at the A.B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University (USA), a Master’s in Business at Icesi University in Cali, an EP in VC from the Wharton School and an EP from Singularity University.