My Life Thus Far…

A woman with black hair, wearing a sleeveless burgundy top and black pants, stands in front of a large conference banner with the title 'Horasis' at a global conference in São Paulo, Brazil, October 7-9.

I am the Chief Growth Officer at FORUS, a global fintech exchange modernizing the world’s payment infrastructure. We build tokenized payment systems for governments, industry networks, and communities to increase transaction efficiency, expand financial access, and enable new forms of GDP creation.

I am also an Investment Banker and Managing Director at Castle Placement, a New York–based investment bank that connects companies with institutional capital. I am an accredited investor and hold FINRA licenses SIE, 7, and 63, working with global funds, corporates, family offices, and institutional investors to structure equity, debt, and hybrid capital solutions.

With more than 15 years of international strategic experience, I have led billion-dollar M&A and enterprise-transformation programs for FT100 and FT500 companies, helped launch technology and service-based unicorns, and advised founders building innovation and systems-level change across North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East. I have also founded and advised ventures across sustainability, climate, impact, deep tech, AI, fintech, biotech, health, longevity, psychedelics, CPG, and digital transformation.

I won investment on Dragons’ Den, received the AI for Good Prize, and built partnerships with institutions including the NHS, University of Waterloo, University of Portsmouth, and University of Surrey. My work has been featured in hundreds of publications, including BBC, ABC, Vogue, The LA Times, Gizmodo, and Showtime, and I was the subject of a documentary produced by Tokyo TV.

Earlier in my career, I contributed to major strategic programs at Pfizer, the New York Stock Exchange, AIG, BNP Paribas, Bank of America, and BP. I have held roles as a strategist at JPMorgan Private Bank, Accenture, Kurt Salmon, Founders Intelligence, and Crimson Education, and founded ventures including Meta Strategy, Y42, Satori, and Nosy.

I was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but at age 13, I received a scholarship to a science and technology school in San Francisco, skipped two grades, and graduated high school at 17. I completed a double major at Columbia University in five semesters at age 20 while becoming fluent in Mandarin, Italian, and Spanish (I enjoyed the challenge at the time, but now I can only understand the languages and no longer have the bandwidth to store vocabulary). At 24, I earned a Pg.D. in Differential Psychology from the University of Edinburgh — the psychology of what makes people unique.

Beyond business, I have worked internationally as a fashion model represented by Elite, and I am a mixed-media visual artist with exhibitions in global capitals and work featured across notable hotels and venues in New York City.

In my personal life, I’m obsessed with the 4Ps: Psychics, Philosophy, Psychology, and Psychedelics, while Stoicism best describes the principles I live by. I am passionate about art, fashion, design, and aesthetics… and an adrenaline junkie (so YES to any extreme sport besides base jumping). In my spare time, I weightlift, box, biohack, and practice calisthenics — and whenever possible, I create. I live to learn, and I have architected my life so I can explore the world and cultures off the beaten track in an attempt to live this existence to its fullest.