About me

About

Colombian. More than ten years in Mexico. Employee #10 and first Growth hire at Clara. Today General Manager for Mexico and Colombia. Father.

Leonardo Ramos Agudelo at Clara Year-End Recap

Engineer, operator and growth builder

I'm Colombian, I grew up in an entrepreneurial family and ran small businesses from age 18. I studied telecom engineering, but what really shaped me was operations: solving customer problems at scale in markets that move fast.

I've lived in Mexico for more than ten years. I joined Clara as employee #10 (the first Growth hire) when the company was still a PowerPoint deck. Today I'm Clara's General Manager for Mexico and Colombia.

Results

By the numbers

#10Clara employee, first Growth hire
1,000First marquee customers in the region
2,000+Companies in Colombia in two years
10,000+Companies in Clara's portfolio
Top 3Commercial cards in Mexico and Colombia
FTFastest-growing company in LatAm

Career

My path

  1. c. 2005

    Telecom engineering

    Universidad Santo Tomás, Colombia. Entrepreneurial family; small businesses from age 18.

  2. First role

    BDO Consulting

    MinTIC's “Internet para todos” project: complaints, contractor audits and monthly compliance reports.

  3. 2014–2019

    Linio · Colombia and Mexico

    From Technology Analyst to Product Manager in Colombia (Salesforce, service dashboards, warranty and refund automation with ITIL v3). In 2016 I moved to the Mexico HQ as Customer & Seller Experience Manager: 50 direct reports and ~300 offshore, CSAT +20%, positive seller NPS in under a year and 90% of requests solved in under 24h. Competing with Amazon and Mercado Libre taught me to see LatAm as one region.

  4. 2017

    IEP · Instituto Europeo de Posgrado

    Specialist in Business Management.

  5. 2019–2020

    Grin Scooters · Head of Customer Experience

    7+ countries, 30 cities and ~100 multilingual people. We unified values across Grow's brands (Yellow, Vbike, Grin), built partnerships with Rappi, Aval and LATAM Airlines, and launched Grin Prime and Grin4U.

  6. 2020–2021

    The pandemic pause

    Volunteer digital advisor to small businesses (websites, payment gateways). Advised Waruwa on CX, scalable models and KPI dashboards, and invested in Fit Home Pro.

  7. 2020–2022

    Clara · Global Head of Growth

    Gerry Giacomán and Diego García, whom I knew from Grin, invited me in. I wrote a 90-day plan before saying yes. I built growth from zero in Mexico, we reached the first 1,000 marquee customers and launched Brazil and Colombia. Clara became a unicorn in 2021.

  8. 2022

    Harvard Business School Online

    Disruptive Strategy.

  9. 2022–2024

    Clara · General Manager Colombia

    In two years, one of the country's 4 largest commercial card issuers by payment volume, with 2,000+ companies such as Grupo Argos, Aviatur, Kenworth, Toyota, RCN TV and Studio F. Alongside it, the UAI Executive MBA LatAm.

  10. 2024–today

    Clara · General Manager Mexico and Colombia

    Cross-border payments, flexible daily financing, fuel cards, Clara Checkout, Reimbursements and invoice recovery from a single photo. 10,000+ companies and top 3 in commercial cards in both countries.

  11. 2025

    Mastercard LatAm Fintech Council

    Since January 2025: next-gen payments and AI. In May I marked 5 years at Clara and 10 in Mexico.

  12. 2026

    Endeavor · Mentor

    Mentor, alongside my role at Clara.

How I think

Three ideas

01

Efficiency over headcount

I watched Linio and Grin go from 200 to 2,000 people and then shrink. At Clara we're ~400 people across the region while revenue grew more than 10x. Before opening a role, I ask whether technology or a process could solve it.

Read the essay →
02

Discipline and category leadership

Since 2022 every dollar is tied to a return and we track CAC payback. Core products are profitable and Brazil is profitable on its own. We want to be the “category king” that sets the rules.

03

0→1 vs 1→millions

I've proven I can build from zero. Scaling is a different skill, so I pair academic training with coaching from leaders of the 50 largest companies in Colombia and Mexico.

My mission

To be the No. 1 ally of companies in Latin America.

Media

Interviews and press

Let's talk

For press, speaking, interviews or collaborations, write to me directly.

Email me
Leonardo Ramos Agudelo at an Amazon Business event