Inspiring Women SUMMER 2020

In January 2017, I received an invitation from Georgetown University to attend a two-day
program called Search Inside Yourself (SIY). In that moment I realized that I was longing to have
a pause in my life to connect with myself. So, I decided to attend and what happened next was
the beginning of my “purpose-full” life.
The experience was so powerful that when
I came back to Colombia I decided to
share the mindfulness and compassion
practices I learned with as many people as
I could. At the end of 2017 I applied to
become an SIY certified teacher, which I
am now, and decided to develop a
mobile app to share human wisdom for
everyday actions: Mindful Synchrony.
SIY is a mindfulness and neurosciencebased
leadership program developed in
2007 by one of the first Google engineers,
who wanted to share meditation practices
and their benefits with his teammates. Now
more than 35,000 employees at Google
With my family
have been trained in this program, and
since 2012 it has been shared in more than
150 cites and with more than 50,000 people around the world. I am the first Colombian to have
been granted a teacher certification.
My Mindful Synchrony app brings together human wisdom from life experiences to inspire
everyday actions and broaden our perspective and interpretation of life. I can say that I am the
first Colombian woman to lead a technology driven company – in the same category as apps
such as Calm, Headspace or Insight Timer.
What was the first step you took to get involved in the COVID-19 response? At the end of
January, I had the chance to attend a Dr. Joe Dispenza program in Bogotá, and that day I was
invited to give a mindfulness workshop to a group of executive women in Cartagena in February.
What was amazing about those days in Cartagena was that as part of the agenda, we were
invited to visit a very poor neighborhood in which the JuanFe Foundation works with vulnerable
adolescent mothers. At that time, the virus was already in motion in Wuhan, but we didn’t
expect what would happen next. The experience was very humbling in the sense that those girls
were surviving every day to live and feed their babies with hope and bravery based on love.
Two weeks later, I was back in my home making decisions on how we were going to face the
upcoming weeks now that the quarantine was announced in many countries. But my heart was
resonating with those girls because my challenge was not to survive. I had food. I had work. I was
with my family. These girls were facing the fear of being stuck at home without being able to
work or attend the foundation facilities to eat and receive training. They were facing the danger
of being emotionally and physically abused, the uncertainty of not having food to feed their
children and the prospect of losing hope.
So I decided to do what I could to help. With my husband, who is the co-founder of the app, we
decided to make all the app content free up until August 31 to be able to support as many
people as possible during these difficult and uncertain times.
Since COVID-19 started, tell us about a typical day for you. I get up at 5:00 in the morning to
meditate and write. At 6:00 a.m. I take a 6k run. At 7:30 a.m. our children are ready to take virtual
classes. Once they are engaged with their studies, I begin to work on the app, creating content,
inviting new mentors, promoting the app on social networks. I am also accompanying teams in
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