It’s no secret that Colombia’s startup ecosystem is booming. Over the past few years, the country has emerged as one of the leading business hubs in Latin America. 

But where do women fit into the picture? According to KPMG’s latest annual tech report, one in five Colombian founders is a woman. The good news is that there’s a nationwide drive to close the gender gap in leadership, and the numbers are reflecting that: the number of women occupying C-suite roles jumped to 40% in 2025. 

As momentum continues to move forward in Colombian entrepreneurship and innovation, here are the 2026 female tech leaders to watch.

Isabella Fernandez Abraham, Chief Revenue Officer at MiDi

Isabella is leading the charge to empower remote workers to gain access to U.S. financial infrastructure. In fact, Midi is the only fintech in Colombia to do so, removing payroll barriers for Colombian-based freelancers. With Colombia ranking among the world’s most prominent leaders for outsourcing talent, Midi’s offering is crucial. Moreover, the startup recently raised $10 million in a funding round, paving the way for accelerated growth.

And Isabella has helped people take leaps and bounds in other ways, too. In 2013, she founded Kangoo Jumps Colombia, where she opened and managed three boutiques in Bogota. 

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Florence French, Co-founder and COO, Leal 360

Florence is at the helm of transforming customer engagement across Latin America’s retail landscape. Founded in 2015, Leal 360 now boasts over seven million users and has established partnerships with one thousand brands across eight countries. Leal’s AI software helps businesses access and action powerful customer insights for optimal lifetime value. 

In 2025, Leal 360 was recognized by Gartner’s Capterra for being the ‘best ease of use’ CRM platform. This is a testament to Florence and her team’s dedication to making customer engagement easier and smarter. 

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Valentina Valencia, CEO of Vaas

Having seen multiple sides of private debt, and how convoluted the process can be, Valentina set out to rectify the situation, which led to the founding of Vaas. At just 25 years old, she raised $5 million in seed funding and last year made the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. 

At Vaas, Valentina is helping lead the charge to revolutionize financial infrastructure so it can keep pace with private credit growth. She comes with more than eight years of fintech experience in Latin America, which includes overseeing the financing of 250,000 devices and managing $150 million across top-tier fintechs. 

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Zaira Hurtado, Founder of Daxus LATAM

Zaira’s passion for data inspired her to make analytics accessible to everyone—hence, she brought Daxus LATAM to life. Data knowledge has fast become a core skill that’s redefining the future of the workplace. In the span of just three years, Zaira now has 30,000 alumni who have built their knowledge on data and analysis principles via the Daxus learning platform. 

She’s also a founding member and principal CEO of Zakidata, helping individuals translate data into powerfully actionable insights. Throughout her career, Zaira has impacted over a million minds to build their data and analytics capabilities. 

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Gabriela Tafur, CEO of Idilio TV

From law to pageantry to authoring a book to becoming a well-known national TV host, Gabriela’s journey to becoming a tech founder is uniquely impressive. She’s now shifted her focus to behind the camera as the founder and CEO of Idilio TV, Colombia’s first vertical screening platform. 

Upon her return to Colombia after completing her MBA at Stanford University, Gabriela quickly realized a massive yet untapped opportunity in Latin America: streaming short-form novelas. All around her, people were streaming Spanish-dubbed Asian micro-dramas. The demand was there, but the natively Spanish supply wasn’t. At Idilio TV, Garbiela and her team are on a mission to create original and entertaining micro-dramas—all in Spanish, and all available from the comfort of your smartphone. 

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Valentina Agudelo, Founder and CEO at Salva Health

Valentina’s mission is clear: democratize the early detection of breast cancer. One of the world’s deadliest diseases, breast cancer accounts for 27% of cancer cases in Latin America. However, early-stage detection remains elusive for the majority of individuals. 

Valentina and the team at Salva Health are changing that with their cutting-edge technology, Julieta, which uses electrical bioimpedance technology to assess how breast tissue responds to small, safe, and painless currents.

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Manuela Gutierrez, Project Director at 360 Health Data

Manuela has forged a strong career, helping international entrepreneurs create and refine their offerings through her expertise in visual design and UI/UX. Now, she’s running projects at Source Meridian, a Medellin-based healthcare software innovator, and 360 Health Data, a startup transforming medical knowledge in Latin America. Manuela’s leadership at the two companies not only enables her to propel tech innovation in Colombia but also directly impacts local communities to access better health opportunities. 

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Estefania Molina Ulgar, General Council, Addi

Legal frameworks matter just as much as technical ones in startups, and Estefania has built and scaled Addi’s legal and compliance function from the ground up. With 15 years of experience, she’s no stranger to the legal intricacies of fintech and the financial world. Her background includes working in the Colombian Securities Exchange and the Colombian Financial Regulator.

Estefania has guided Addi, one of Colombia’s biggest payment apps, through complex equity raises, debt transactions, and the process of becoming a regulated financial institution. 

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Daniela Lopera Hernández, Legal Director at VaxThera

Daniela spent almost a decade managing the legal side of SURA before she moved to VaxThera, a leading biotechnology provider in Colombia. Since joining the company, Daniela has established an important role in ensuring VaxThera’s innovations can reach the public.

Just last year, VaxThera announced a partnership with the Colombian Ministry of Health and the National Institute of Health to strengthen health sovereignty across the nation. VaxThera also announced its partnership with Seguros SURA to launch the region’s largest HPV program in the bid to prevent cervical cancer. 

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Daniela Restrepo, Principal at Publicize

Daniela leads strategic initiatives at Publicize, a global PR firm serving technology startups and Fortune 1000 enterprises from its hubs in Medellin and Barcelona. As a graduate of Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Social Communications and PR, she leverages her academic background and industry expertise to position clients at the forefront of the media landscape.

Beyond her executive role, Daniela is a driving force in the ecosystem, actively mentoring talent at both the Founder Institute, Universities and top tech events. Her industry authority is further recognized through her contributions to Entrepreneur Magazine and Forbes, her speaking engagements at conferences like TechBeach, and her recent role as a Judge for Colombia’s National Digital Journalism Award.

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Paula Andrea Ruiz, Head of Culture at Somos Internet

Innovation needs talent to thrive, and Paula is ensuring this need is constantly met so Somos Internet can continue to scale its software and services in more than 50,000 Colombian households. 

Late last year, Somos Internet raised $18 million in Series A funding, a significant chunk of which will go to strengthening the company’s engineering and operations teams. As  the head of culture and recruitment, Paula has a major role to play in ensuring talent continues to be nurtured and innovation propelled. 

Whether founders, CEO, or heads of departments, Colombian women have carved a firm place in the country’s tech landscape. As 2026 unfolds, keep a pulse on these powerhouses and how they’re helping amplify innovation opportunities for women and men alike. 

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Laura María Hernández Ospina, Project Manager at Source Meridian

Laura has dedicated the past 11 years to Source Meridian, evolving from an international business background into a specialized leader in healthcare technology. With a comprehensive 360° view of the software lifecycle, she currently directs cross-functional teams focused on Security and Compliance, successfully guiding clients through rigorous SOC 2, HITRUST, and HIPAA certifications for the U.S. market.

Driven by a spirit of continuous learning and a passion for mentorship, Laura views leadership through a human-centric lens. She is committed to empowering her colleagues to grow from scratch, fostering a collaborative culture where teams succeed united as “galaxies” rather than individual stars, ensuring that technical excellence is always matched by collective professional growth.

The post 10 Female Tech Leaders in Colombia to Watch in 2026 appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Sunday mounted a forceful defence of his government’s 23.7% minimum wage increase for 2026, pledging to issue a temporary decree to keep the so-called “vital wage” in place after the Council of State provisionally suspended the original measure.

Speaking in a televised address on Feb. 15, Petro said that while he disagreed with the high court’s decision, he would respect the judicial process and comply by issuing a transitory administrative decree, pending a final ruling.

“The vital wage will remain in place until the new decree is issued,” Petro said, rejecting claims that the increase had triggered inflation or job losses and insisting that workers’ purchasing power must not be subordinated to shifting economic variables.

The Council of State questioned the technical justification and procedural basis of the December decree that lifted the monthly minimum wage to 1.75 million pesos ($470) – close to 2 million pesos including transport subsidies – forcing the government to revisit the measure barely six weeks after it took effect on Jan. 1.

Rather than retreating, Petro escalated the confrontation, calling for nationwide demonstrations on Feb. 19 to defend what he described as a historic social gain for Colombian workers.

“We’ll see each other in all public squares across Colombia,” the president wrote on social media, framing the dispute as a struggle over dignity and constitutional labour rights rather than a technical wage-setting debate.

Petro anchored his argument in Constitutional Court ruling C-815 of 1999, which he said obliges governments to consider not only inflation and productivity but — “with prevailing character” – the constitutional mandate to guarantee a minimum, vital and mobile wage.

Even higher wage not ruled out

In a move that further unsettled markets and business groups, the government signalled that the revised decree could maintain – or even exceed – the original 23.7% increase.

Labour Minister Antonio Sanguino said on Monday that “nothing is ruled out” as the government reconvenes the Permanent Commission on Wage and Labour Policy, bringing unions and employers back to the negotiating table.

The president himself suggested that a true “vital wage” should be closer to 2.15 million pesos, well above the current level.

Sanguino said the commission would review updated economic indicators from the national statistics agency DANE and the finance ministry, including inflation data for early 2026 and labour market trends from 2025.

Inflation and employment debate intensifies

Petro dismissed warnings that the wage hike could fuel inflation or unemployment, arguing that recent data contradict those claims. In a post on “X”, he said that even with Central Bank’s inflation forecasts near 6.4%, wage growth would remain strong and support domestic production and productivity. “It would be a national stupidity to lower the vital wage,”added  Petro, affirming also that the country’s first leftist administration would still listen to business leaders.

Economists and employers, however, remain sceptical. Financial analysts claim the suspension highlights institutional concerns over policy predictability, and fear the standoff could undermine investor confidence at a time when Colombia is grappling with deep fiscal debt and high labour informality.

The wage dispute has sharpened tensions between Colombia’s Executive, judiciary and private sector, just three months before first-round presidential elections in May 31.

The outcome of the Council of State’s final ruling – and whether the Executive succeeds in forging a late compromise with employers — will shape not only labour costs in 2026 but also a broader debate over economic governance and the autonomy of the Banco de la República.

For now, the minimum wage remains in legal limbo — enforced by decree, contested in court, and to be defended by his political base this week on the street.