About me

• 4 min read
About me

Hi there! It's Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez (@msoriaro) here. I am an eclectic mix of artistic expression, a business career in areas mostly related to innovation and strategy and an interest in education in general. More things maybe, but those three are the fields where I have actually done something so far.

Artistic expression

Art, to me, has to do with the relationship one establishes with a work & the way it helps one expand their reach. Art excels at a number of various things: expressing the artist's feelings, emotions, views, commentary, etc. Allowing the experimenter to process and develop their own feelings, emotions, views, thoughts, etc. It probes the frontiers of what is humanly expressable, the frontiers of what can be experimented. It can be commentary. It can be critical exploration. Lots of things.

I explore certain ideas about the role of emotions in our human nature, our relationships to ourselves, the advent of machines with behaviours, probably emotions and our relationships to them, the role of the individual vs. the collective and other things through my work. I am interested in participative / interactive works, but not only. My career has been about exploring at the frontiers and trying to expand total cognitive spaces. I do the same with art. You can see more about my art practice in the dedicated space for that on this site.

I have also dabbled in creating music (composition, recording), photography, painting and other small creative activities. Every thing tried contains new things learned, and an opportunity to cross-pollinate everything else I do.

Selected exhibitions / releases:

A business career

I have a broad range of interests and activities. I have built software, managed teams, designed interfaces, written marketing copy, founded companies, advised others, devised strategies and imagined products that I led to their launch to market.

I co-founded the data project that led to the creation of BBVA Data & Analytics in 2014, where I was VP in its early years, and later to the creation of the BBVA AI Factory in 2019. These groups are at the core of the digital transformation of one of the world’s most successful stories of digital banking. I was in charge of data strategy at BBVA Data & Analytics and built the foundation of the Data Strategy Discipline at BBVA. During my 11 years at BBVA I worked always at the fringes of disciplines, constantly exploring what’s beyond the established boundaries, being always part of or leading the teams that sought to redefine the role of banking in society.

I co-founded Trecone Solutions in 2017, a crowdsourced mobile audiences company that produces market intelligence reports and tools for companies interested in the mobile ecosystem. I am a partner at Instituto Tramontana, a design and consultancy agency turned into an institution to educate designers and managers around digital products and strategies. With Tramontana, I prepared a digital strategy for the Spanish National Library in 2017. I also co-founded companies in the travel sector and in the recruiting sector, always with a keen focus on leveraging what data and digital mean from a transformational standpoint, but always keeping an eye on what real people need in real scenarios. I am an investor in startups and have acted as a mentor to both startups and aspiring entrepreneurs.

My technical background is in Telecommunications Engineering and Signal Processing, disciplines which I acquired in Spain, USA and Finland. My artistic background is mostly self-taught.

Literacy

Literacy is the foundation of any prosperous society. Making knowledge available to everyone should be a priority for all nations, institutions and companies. Every product and service is an opportunity to learn. This is a spirit I bring to every initiative I undertake.

I co-founded Databeers, a global movement born in 2014 aimed at increasing data literacy in society, present in more than 30 cities and 10 countries and growing. Databeers brings together people from different backgrounds to share their views and experiences around data in a practical, informal manner through short, fast-paced talks and beer as a social lubricant.

I believe in promoting critical thinking, pausing to reflect on what we hear, read & see. To this end, art has an enormous potential. I explore the uses of art in strategy and literacy with this mindset.

I have participated in conferences to disseminate knowledge about how data & digital impact the way we do business, the way we relate to products, the way we live.

Selected references & articles:

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