Today I am pleased to share with you something slightly different; though still very much within the theme of 'Adopting Emerging Technology'. This is the story of Rodrigo Mazorra Blanco, PhD, CQF, MBA who I had the pleasure of interviewing as we discussed his career path that started with product management and operations for coffee plantations to deep dives into Finance and then transitioning into technology enabled entrepreneurial journey. I met Rodrigo through a group of diverse, dynamic professionals with a drive to continuously challenge and reinvent themselves - leveraging transferable skills in the rapidly evolving world marked by technological shifts.

Rodrigo started his career inside Colombia’s Ministry of Finance, helping structure $3.8B in sovereign debt transactions. He then went to London Business School for an MBA degree and moved to the structured credit desk and during the 2008-2011 financial crisis he traded distressed debt. When the edge moved to more of mathematics and code, he followed the signal earning a PhD in Computer Science, becoming a data-native operator, and building full-stack ventures from zero.

He co-designed Platam, a credit engine that originated $12M for the underserved midmarket. At Hexis, he co-led development of an AI-powered predictive nutrition engine that raised £2M. At Safiri, he rewired financial operations and the team raised $850K in a transport-tech platform for Africa. At Conception X, he helped turn academic IP into investable deep-tech companies.

Rodrigo has written and published a book "Breaking into Tech Companies: A Finance Pprofessional's Playbook" : A No-Nonsense Guide to Landing High-Value Roles in Technology Businesses Without Starting Over.

I had the privilege to review and feed my thought into as well. I take this opportunity to share it with you as well as our discussions on the topics within the book. At the essence of the book is 'The Reforge Cycle', a loop approach that embeds systems thinking and an agile mindset to refine and channel our capabilities to the evolving professional contexts. The content of the book has been validated with real life experiences. Whereas the book is aimed at Finance Professionals looking to transition effectively to technology companies; the principles the book discusses are equally valid for others too.

I hope you enjoy listening and reading to the experiences. The cover article and the video discussion are available to everyone. If you do like, I encourage you to consider buying a copy of the book - 70% profits from the sales of this book go to train children in reasoning, writing, and structured thinking. It is our little effort for a systems reconfiguration! Your thoughts and comments are as always welcome.