Cecilia Ezquerro

Portfolio Director

2024 - Current

As Portfolio Director of our LatAm Fund, Cecilia will be leading the strategic management of our early-stage investments, ensuring we continue helping founders build amazing companies. Her role includes working hand in hand with current portfolio founders, building down-stream investor relations, executing exit strategies, and identifying new investment opportunities to contribute to the fund's growth in the Latin American region. Committed to optimizing portfolio performance and fostering a culture of innovation.

Associate

2020 - 2023

Ceci is thrilled to join the Portfolio Management team in order to co-create products and services with the portfolio companies in order to thrive. 500 Startups - Investing in spanish-speaking startups since 2011.

Entrepreneur In Residence

2019 - 2020

VP of Innovation

2019 - 2020

Design and develop new company projects to create the best experiences for our customers.

COO

2018 - 2018

Lead LECO's operations, from the first contact to perfect delivery and recurring purchases.

CEO

2014 - 2017

1 in every 2 Mexicans have visual acuity problems. Yet people roam the streets with broken glasses, outdated prescriptions, or even worse without glasses and without knowing that the leaves in the trees should be seen with clarity and definition. Why? There is a disconnection between the current offer and the huge demand. In optics, prices are too high because of Luxxotica's monopoly, quality of service is poor and outdated for a digital generation, and information about visual deficiencies is scarce or sometimes non-existent. LECO is an on-demand visual health and fashion omnichannel experience, where users start by performing and eye exam wherever they need it and can buy any visual solution. We sell our own brand of frames or can change the lenses of your preferred frames to give them a second life. We sell contact lenses, which you can schedule their reshipment easily.

Strategic Grouper

2014 - 2014

Since 2006, Mandalah has been helping organizations all over the world to innovate through their products, services and strategies, focusing not only on ensuring their profitability, but also ensuring that their business activities incorporate a human element, promoting good things for society as a whole. We believe in shared value, where everyone stands to gain: businesses, people and the planet. As a Strategic Grouper, I am the middle man between the CEO and COO of Mandalah and the internal team, assisting Project Managers with their projects to help them throughout the entire innovation process, as well as being a Project Manager for a particular project myself. Since Mandalah is a boutique consultancy, we get to do all the work flow of a project from start to finish, from initial meetings with clients, to recruitment, workshop design and execution, field research, analysis, all the way to the strategic report and final presentations. "I believe in the power of objects and how they can transform behaviour. But I am mostly fascinated by the subtle ways in which humans personalise, interact, transform, and mutate objects into what they should really be and not what designers intended them to be. Passionate about product-system-service design. I am an observer of how things interact with each other, giving way every day to more horizontal systems. I am energetic, persisten, and happy."

Project Manager

2012 - 2013

Analyst

2011 - 2012

Designer

2013 - 2014

Goyo Estudio is a design collective focused in the development of furniture and product in a style that is simple, clean, and essential. The name Goyo Estudio is in honor of the “todólogo” (spanish for handyman), the person who solves everything at home - Goyo is a steelworker, a carpenter, a painter, in the end, an infinity of the everyday characters in our lives, but always with design, practicality, and style as priorities. As designers, we’re always looking to share our vision, the way in which we perceive objects and how we relate to them. We are observers of the everyday life, whichever element, for as insignificant and absurd as it may seem, can derive into a new idea. Our objective as a collective is to create punctual collections, always with a different theme and focus; take an action, a moment or a specific activity as a point of origin in the creation of furniture, product and accessories that communicate with each other. Collection 01 This collection is focused on the concept of home office. Topic which we wanted to approach since we have noticed a rise in the tendency to work from home. Collection 02 The process of growing, living independently from the family nucleus. Sacrificing the comfort of ample spaces to live in more lively and trendy neighbourhoods implies small homes, with multi-purpose spaces. It is these adaptation processes that the second collection is focused on. Collection 03 Dream. This collection is a homage to our sleep. The place where we spent probably the most time in our lives and was designed to create the most cozy, warm and delicate space we had ever created.

Event Organizer and Design Coordinator

2011 - 2014

Was involved in Startup Weekend from all possible angels: as a venue (hosting the first ever Startup Weekend in Mexico), as a participant, as a winner (with Klinco a savings and investment helper), and most importantly as an organizer: giving back to the community which has helped me be who I currently am. As an organizer, I generally helped out with all the design materials, communication and general event planning.

Co-Founder

2010 - 2011

Mexico's first Coworking space. INTEGRAL was a membership based workspace (today known as a Coworking) which included a print center, a workshop, a deli and workstations to support independent professionals. Because of its community, Integral also became a design service provider through a design team formed by its active members. We promote multidisciplinary collaboration to generate integrated design solutions. We housed one of Mexico's first Startup Weekend events. Through INTEGRAL, Cecilia learned the key steps towards a successful failure :) It was her first entrepreneurial experience where she learned the basics of building a business and was humble enough to recognize the huge mistakes made which lead to the decision to close doors in 2011.

Internship

2008 - 2008

3 month summer job as an introduction to design studio work.