01What you're building

What are you building right now, and what does it make possible that wasn't possible before?

I'm continuing to build a global function that brings together licensing, regulatory compliance, and government affairs as a strategic revenue generating capability, not simply a support function.

When I joined Sportradar in 2017, the function didn't exist. Today, I lead a global team managing over 130 active regulatory approvals across the United States, Canada, Latin America, EU and Africa.

Sportradar operates across a highly regulated, rapidly evolving set of industries (sports betting, iGaming, fantasy sports, lottery, prediction markets, and media) where the regulatory landscape can shift almost as quickly as the technology and products themselves. Day to day, that means building the regulatory infrastructure that lets us operate legitimately in markets that didn't have clear rules a few years ago, and in some cases still don't. It means leading the regulatory workstreams for major acquisitions. I've managed the approval processes for seven acquisitions over six years. And right now, I'm deep in prediction markets and event contracts. I recently led Sportradar's formal comment submission to the CFTC on its proposed rulemaking, where we put forward detailed recommendations on settlement data standards, integrity monitoring, information sharing, and market transparency, including a set of recommended minimum standards for prediction market integrity monitoring systems.

My focus has been on building the infrastructure, processes, technology, and team needed to anticipate legislative and regulatory changes rather than simply react to them, creating visibility across jurisdictions, using technology and data to make legislative and regulatory work more efficient, and bringing our licensing, compliance, government affairs, legal, product, and commercial teams closer together.

What that makes possible is a company that can move into new products and new geographies without regulators, partners, or the market having to take our legitimacy on faith. Regulatory isn't the brake pedal; it's what makes expansion possible at all. When the function is working well, the business doesn't just ask, "Can we do this?" It can ask, "How do we do this responsibly, efficiently, and at scale?"

02What it took

What did it take to get here that people don't see?

A lot of the work that creates a strong function happens quietly, and, in my case, a lot of what it took to get here started long before the title.

I'm originally from Colombia. I practiced M&A law in Bogotá, working on multiple local and cross-border transactions that totaled more than $4.5 billion combined. But I wanted something different. So I left, moved to New York, earned a master's degree from Columbia University and a master's in International Sports Law from ISDE, and joined Sportradar as a legal intern. That was 2017. I went from intern to building the company's entire licensing, regulatory compliance, and government affairs function from the ground up, establishing the relationships, the processes, the policies, and the team that the company now relies on across every market where it operates.

People see the finished product: a new market entered, a regulatory issue resolved, a comment letter submitted to the regulatory agency or legislative body, a licensing process that just works. They don't see the hours spent parsing a proposed rulemaking line by line, reconciling what a regulator says in a hearing with what the facts actually show, or the drafts that got cut because the language was persuasive but not precise, making sure a response is accurate before it's favorable.

It has taken persistence, curiosity, and a willingness to keep pushing even when the answer wasn't obvious. It has required learning how to operate across very different parts of an organization: advising the executive leadership team, serving for a while as the secretary of the global Board of Directors, leading the betting regulatory workstream for the company's IPO.

And perhaps most importantly, it has required building a team and trusting people enough to give them real ownership. You don't build a great function by trying to be the smartest person in the room. You build it by creating an environment where the people around you can become better than they thought they could be.

03Who carried you

Who carried you, and what did they teach you that you still use every week?

My parents.

When I decided to leave a legal career in Bogotá and move to New York to start over in a completely different industry, they were the ones who supported that decision without hesitation. They didn't just encourage me; they carried the weight of that transition with me, financially and emotionally, at a time when the outcome was far from certain. Moving to a new country, starting a new career, rebuilding from scratch: none of that happens without people who believe in you before the results justify the belief.

What they taught me is that the people closest to you deserve the same trust and investment that you ask the world to give you. That lesson shapes how I lead every single week. I try to lead with a very simple principle: human first, employee second. People have lives, ambitions, insecurities, strengths, and challenges that don't disappear when they walk into work. If you understand the person, you can better understand the leader and teammate they're capable of becoming.

I've also learned to pay forward the opportunities that others gave me. A big part of leadership, to me, is creating opportunities for people who may not yet have the confidence (or the obvious path) to see themselves in the next room. I know how much it matters when someone opens a door for you anyway.

04For the leader coming up

What is the one thing you'd tell the leader coming up behind you?

You don't need the title before you start acting like a leader. Take ownership. Ask the difficult question. Speak up when something doesn't make sense. Volunteer for the problem nobody wants to own.

But pair that boldness with precision. Precision is a form of respect: for the truth, for the people relying on your judgment, and for your own credibility. The people who last in this field are the ones who reach for the framing that's most accurate, because that's the version that still holds up in a year, in a hearing, or in front of a regulator who's seen every trick.

And don't lose yourself trying to fit someone else's definition of what a leader is supposed to look like. Your background, your experiences, and even the things that make you different can become your greatest strengths. The most effective leadership I've seen is authentic.

05Adelante

Adelante means forward. Where are you taking your function, your company, or your industry next?

I want to help the industry move from playing defense to playing offense, and I'm taking my team toward a clear goal to make that happen: to be recognized worldwide, by clients, partners, regulators, and legislators, as the legal and regulatory experts shaping the future of the industries we work in, not just operating within them.

The industries we touch (sports betting, iGaming, fantasy, lottery, prediction markets, media) are all changing incredibly quickly, and the regulatory expectations across each of them are growing more complex by the day. Too often, the entire ecosystem (companies, regulators, legislators) is stuck in reactive mode, responding to developments after the fact rather than setting the terms in advance. I want to change that, and I want Sportradar to be the company that helps legislators and regulators play offense too, by serving as a trusted expert resource they can rely on when the rules are being written.

We're already doing it. Prediction markets are the clearest example: everyone is reacting to a patchwork of state, federal, and international positions that haven't settled. That's exactly why I led Sportradar's comment submission to the CFTC this year, not to wait for the rules to be written, but to help shape them by bringing our expertise to the table on data quality, integrity monitoring, information sharing, and market transparency. That's the kind of work I want to define this function going forward: being in the room where the standards are set, bringing the same rigor we've applied to sports betting licensing across dozens of jurisdictions to every new frontier we enter.

Getting there means using technology and AI to eliminate unnecessary manual work, building regulatory intelligence that helps the business make better decisions, and developing people who can operate at the intersection of law, regulation, technology, and commercial strategy. If we do that well, the function becomes more than a gatekeeper. It becomes a source of competitive advantage, helping the company move faster, enter markets more intelligently, and helping regulators and legislators build frameworks they can trust.