ContactOut

I think like a Google bot, designing experiments to validate hypotheses and continuously refine growth strategies.

Key outcomes:

- 2x increase in impression rate and 3x more traffic on the ContactOut website.
- 4x increase in signups by streamlining conversion funnels and aligning them with user needs.
- I live and breathe Google Search Console and Google Analytics to drive insights.
- Build workflows to turn traffic into deals: Traffic → Signups → Enrichment → Lead Assignment → Deals.

Focused on turning data into actionable strategies that fuel long-term growth.

Growth Lead

Growth Product Manager

Product Manager

Junior Product Manager

athena.vc

🚀 Helping Builders Become Funded Founders

At Athena VC, we fund solo technical founders before anyone else—no co-founder, no traction, no problem. We invest $50K-$100K for 8% equity and work hands-on for 6 months to help founders validate, build, and launch.

As a Venture Partner, I:
✅ Find & connect with high-potential founders—builders, indie hackers, and technical talent ready to launch.
✅ Help founders navigate the application process and refine their ideas.
✅ Support founders in early-stage validation—connecting them with users, investors, and mentors.

💡 If you’ve built something before, whether an MVP, a side project, or an open-source tool, we want to be your first believer.

📩 DM me if you’re ready to build. Or apply at Athena.vc

Venture Partner

University of Sydney

• Mentoring Postgraduate students by inculcating the mindset of Design Thinking. 
• Facilatitng interactive activities to develop empathic designs using different design thinking methodologies.

Design Thinking Academic Tutor

meyd.it

Scrum Master

AI Ventures

Program Manager

HDFC Bank

Business Analyst

Chasing startup growth? 🏃‍♂️ | Connecting hustling founders | Follow for daily exponential growth hacks | Growth @ ContactOut | Curated learnings from YPO & EO founders

Sushmita (Sushi) J 🐸

HEC Lausanne - The Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Lausanne

- Teaching Assistant:

1. Organizational Behavior- Professors Antonakis, Bastardoz, Dietz
2. Managing People - Professor Dietz
3. Evidence Based Management - Professor Dietz

- Doctoral student representative for the department of Organizational Behavior.
- CBO for Quasi and Natural Methods Class (B stands for breaks)
- Department CFO (F stands for Fridge)

Graduate Research Assistant

Revista Vistazo

-The need for reforms in paternity leave (La necesidad de reformas en el permiso de paternidad)

-The Roldós Doctrine, Guillermo Lasso's golden opportunity to become a regional leader (La Doctrina Roldós, la oportunidad de oro de Guillermo Lasso para convertirse en un líder regional)

-Free Trade Agreements are convenient for Ecuador (Le convienen a Ecuador los Acuerdos de Libre Comercio)

Independent Investigative Journalist

Universidad Hemisferios

- Interviewed the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mauricio Montalvo, the Vice President, Otto Sonnenholzner, a fomer Ukranian Senator, Pavlo Rizanenko and the Minister of Finance Pablo Arosemena.

-Mentored several students about their professional journeys. Got several students internships and job interviews. 

- 2 international academic conferences. 3 academic papers.

- 10 classes taught: Clash of Civilizations, Political History, Political History of Latin America, Theory of International Relations, International Organizations, History of International Relations, Geopolitics, Regional Studies, Communication, Diplomacy.

- Management consultancy: led project to teach informatics in the jungle with the help of the national oil company.

Professor

Journalist, 7 investigative articles, more than 1000 shares:

- Bad data and bad distribution in ministries / Malos datos y mala distribución en los ministerios

- Is it convenient for Ecuador to be part of ICSID? / ¿Le conviene a Ecuador ser parte del Ciadi?

- Problems and benefits of Chinese loans in Ecuador / Las ventajas y problemas de los préstamos chinos

- Ecuador’s health care improvements / Lo logrado en Salud

- Lenin, what are you waiting for? / ¿Qué esperas, Lenin?

- The debt die has not yet been cast / Celebrar antes de hora

- Gender Equality in the Workplace: Reality or Fantasy? / Equidad de género laboral: ¿hechos o labia?

Dentons Paz Horowitz

-Preparation of a business guide for Ecuador in support of Paz & Horowitz law firm: “Trade and Enterprise in New Zealand's international business development agency.”

Independent Consultant

Universidad de Las Américas (EC)

-Methodology and Research
-World Political History
-International negotiation

As an applied political science professor at UDLA, I realized that there is a lack of political awareness and involvement in my country. Students are eager to contribute to Ecuador’s development, but underestimate the power they have in their own hands to do so.

Assistant Professor

Municipio de Quito

- Developed a city plan to improve conditions for small companies applying design thinking methodology. 

- Developed open data policy for the city.

- Managed negotiations with the European Union delegation to implement creative or orange economy incentives.

- Corrected different consulting projects given to the Municipality.

Head of Productive Development

Ministerio de Salud - Ecuador

-Coordination between different areas to design a portfolio for a USS 23 million loan with the Inter- American Development Bank after cost benefit analysis.

-Planning and execution of the national campaign to improve quality services.

-Statistical analysis to plan how many vaccines are necessary for the Ecuadorian population.

-Planning and execution of the national campaign: "Treatment for good treatment" including ghost customers, service rankings among the different districts of the country and reformulating the model for the management of citizen complaints to line 171.

-Medicine Supply Management Analysis to achieve control of medicine inventories.

 -Support to the General Directorate of the National Secretariat to improve document management in the Ministry.

 -Monitoring of different areas.

Asesor Ministerial

Cruz Roja Ecuatoriana

-Started a structural reform of the organization and an audit process with the help of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

-Coordination of different areas.

Chief Executive Officer

Ministerio de Producción, Comercio Exterior, Inversiones y Pesca

-Part of the country's brand management team: Ecuador love life to attract tourism and investments.

-Research for the creation of the national gastronomy development plan benchmarking on Peru 10-year cluster plan.

-Creation of the gastronomy universities association, and creation and participation in an inter-ministerial committee to organize all the necessary action points for the plan.

-Content manager of the nation brand website: http://ecuadoramalavida.com.ec.

Analista de Marketing Internacional

Carlos’s most prominent weakness is his inability to talk about his strengths, so I’m writing this for him. This is Tessi, Carlos's wife.

Carlos rarely acts in his own interest, focusing instead on helping others fulfill their dreams with his innovative ideas.

He is from Quito, Ecuador. As the firstborn to young parents, he faced complex situations in a crisis-ridden country, developing a resilience that keeps him steady, even in the most stressful situations.

He excelled in school across various countries.

Following his dad’s diplomatic career, he grew up in Uruguay, Switzerland and Argentina where he faced his father’s death.

But Carlos is strong, adapts, and overcomes.

We met when he was studying a double degree at LSE and Peking University, with an excellence scholarship from his home country.

He was a nerd in the class, but the good kind of nerd, getting excellent grades and prizes while helping others along the way. That's how we met.

When he does something, he does it with more than 100% involvement, organizing people to learn from one another. This because Carlos embodies authenticity, excelling in emotional intelligence, social finesse, and street smarts.

His ability to see opportunities amid challenges and his love for people truly define his character.

Fast forward, we married and moved to Ecuador. There, he served his country by advising the Minister of Health, taking on the role of Red Cross CEO and finding his passion for education with his unique style, going the extra mile, getting internships, graduate programs and conferences for his students, doing a program at Harvard with Marshall Ganz, and supporting me advance in my career.

But, with Ecuador becoming unsafe, I wanted to return to Europe. After some thought, Carlos agreed. It meant the world to me, as I know how much Ecuador and its development mean to him.

On top, he started doing the Stanford LEAD program, which pointed more in the direction of us moving to the US.

But that showed me -once again- the power of his character, his values and his priorities.

Our faith and our family are paramount to him.

Despite the chaos of moving and a new pregnancy, Carlos excelled in the program, earning 7 Intellectual Contributions Awards, a record in Stanford Lead's history.

Currently, he pursues an OB PhD, supervised by one of top scholars in the field, while he supports & advises high officials in governments and international organizations informally.

If you connect with him, chances are you end up at our dinner table leaving it with a completely different outlook on life. 😊

Carlos E. Santos Saint Romain ✍🏼

5 moments that made my Birthday extremely Special!


1. The BestEST moment came right when I woke up.

I stepped out of the room and saw my wife and my oldest daughter waiting at the table, ready to sing to me “Happy Birthday.”


It wasn’t the song.


It was their joy, their pride, their pure excitement. 

It brought me right back to my own childhood:

To that tiny version of me who believed singing to my parents was the most important job in the world.

IT WAS!


The sort of joy that grounds you!

Maybe I’m reaching that age where the best gifts aren’t the ones we unwrap, but the ones we live.




2. I found myself in a film-analysis class on one of my teenage favorites, "The Devil’s Advocate": a masterclass in Cinema for my unethical decision-making class with Ulrich Hoffrage and Guido Palazzo.

Honestly, one of the best classes of my life: especially when you consider how complex corporate scandals feel while they’re unfolding, and how astonishingly simple their logic becomes once everything collapses into view.


Revisiting these themes now, through the lenses of Hegel, Adorno, Bandura, most recently Jennifer Freyd and so many others, gives it SUCH a different taste.

Rewatching the film felt like unlocking an old door and finding an entirely new room behind it: richer in the complexity of our mental tunnels, unmistakably darker, revealing the ethical blind spots any of us can slip into, and far more intricate than I ever remembered.





3. A round table with colleagues and later a private meeting with one of the WORLD's leading psychologists Elke Weber thanks to Isabelle Engeler and HEC Lausanne - The Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Lausanne.

Rare conversations that stretch your thinking, challenge your assumptions, and expand what you believe is possible. A total blessing!



4. Riding the bike to dinner!

Three simple elements, one perfect scene: fresh air in a freezing night, good company, and the sense that life is moving forward. Not always as I would wish. But definitely, forward.



5. The day still had one last surprise. 
The cherry on top.


Professor Weber told the waitress it was my birthday…

Suddenly the lights dimmed, the music changed, and an incredible dessert appeared at the table like a small miracle.

A gesture so simple, so unexpected, so human that it stayed with me.



Life isn’t only deadlines, duties, and decisions, but also laughter, surprise, and gratitude.



And yes, life is indeed full of uncertainties: 

Storms we weather, choices we carry, paths we question.



But what is the point of the journey if we don’t pause to savor the lights along the way?

Despite the struggles and the beautiful chaos of adulthood, I have three unshakeable reasons to be grateful:



Love, learning, and above all the people who make both possible.

And for all of these… 

GRACIAS...¡¡¡TOTALES!!!

What’s your purpose? PhD Candidate at HEC Lausanne Simplifying Complexity 2 Clarity 4 Change Leadership Development Proud Dad 🫶

C'EST TOUJOURS NON ✊

Plot twist of the day:

Walked into what I thought would be chaos protesters blocking the way to class, disruptions, the whole nine yards.

Instead? I got handed fresh Ovaltine bread and coffee.

By the protesters.

And this happily surprised me: 

These people are fighting for what they believe in, but they're not fighting us. 

They're inviting us in. 
Breaking bread. 

Starting conversations.

That takes guts. And grace.

We live in a world where "protest" has become synonymous with anger and division. But this? This was different.

This was people saying "we disagree with the system, not with you."

The most powerful movements don't push people away: they pull them closer.

Today reminded me that real change doesn't come from making enemies. 

It comes from building community, one Nutella-covered slice at a time.

taplio

The Battle

Sushmita (Sushi) J 🐸

Carlos E. Santos Saint Romain ✍🏼

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The Battle

Sushmita (Sushi) J 🐸

Carlos E. Santos Saint Romain ✍🏼

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