Silvana Leon

United Kingdom

SomosFin

My professional career started in finance at Mondelez and later I joined Endeavor, helping high impact entrepreneurs scaling up their businesses. But my time to build an impactful product came in 2017 when I joined MercadoPago and launched an e-wallet (from the ideation stage) to tackle financial inclusion. In only four years, we introduced a solution to more than 20 million active payers in a country that still runs 50% informally and launched qr-code payments in seven countries in the region (introducing the technology in six).

I moved to London to stay on top of the industry. Here I joined SaltPay (a fast-growing fintech company) and at the same time I am starting SomosFin, which is my own social business. SomosFin is an early stage business with the purpose to tackle financial illiteracy and poor management of personal finances in Latin America (where financial literacy barely exceeds 25%). In other words, 450 million adults in the region lack an understanding of basic financial concepts.

I am proud of the way I do things, more than my achievements. I do embrace environments that are usually male dominated (I have grown up in a small traditional province and I have played football since I was a little child) but far from being intimidated I look for the challenge and usually I bring some fresh fast pace that I so much enjoy.

Tech Entrepreneur