Her Story
About Mariana
Mariana Bernado has spent 9 to 10 years in the tech industry. Her professional journey started in Brazil, where she led innovations at AB InBev in the startup ecosystem. She then moved into fintech, contributing to one of the largest cross-border payments companies by launching and managing a top product, specifically their acquiring bank operations. Upon relocating to the US with family support and job offers, she entered the digital asset space five years ago. At Espresso, she has led the go-to-market strategy for the launch of the Espresso Network, which has a fully diluted value around 500 million, and is involved in launching a new stablecoin. She holds a process engineering degree from a top university in Brazil, where she also conducted R&D research and worked with big corporates.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Mariana
01What do you attribute your success to?
Probably giving the 1% more than few people are willing to do. Like, a lot of them, they don't go the 1% plus, they do the basics. So, if you wanna go an extra mile, you're always gonna out-compete a lot of people.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
I had a mentor, amazing woman, was CEO of a big institutional endowment. What she told me was, never change much variables of her life. This was very important for me when I was moving from Brazil. So now, from now on, I always like pick one thing that I'm focused on and always trying to keep life very balanced. So, never change, like, a location, relation, job at once.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Being a woman in an industry that is full of males require you to be extra competent. You need to not only prove yourself, but you need to set very high boundaries. There's a lot of situations. Keep it very professional. Stay up in the game, keep boundaries and your principles very, very strong in a line, and probably the best outcomes will come to not losing up on it.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
On the digital asset space, the main challenge we're seeing right now is the consolidation of the industry. Some partners are not having runway. So that's why you need to adapt your go-to-market for this consolidation. There's also the convergence with AI where a lot of money is going to AI, which boosted and accelerated the consolidation.
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