THIS IS MY STORY
I was born to Brazilian parents on what some would consider the "wrong side of the tracks" in Parkdale - a downtown Toronto, Canada neighborhood. I treated it as my JediSkool for becoming a successful entrepreneur and the limitless person I am today. It's where I developed a growth mindset and the skills to assess the unexpected, make timely and calculated decisions, solve problems creatively, and measure my surroundings. And no matter what, stay the course.
With my parents working and my grandmother raising me, I spent most after-school evenings and weekends with my extended family, a global melting pot of first-generation immigrant kids from Africa, the Caribbean, India, the Middle East, the Philippines, and South America.
Outside my window, I observed two worlds: One where my parents left our apartment for work to ensure my brother, and I would experience a better life than they did, and the other, the streets, where hustlers and entrepreneurs created and assembled around a dope culture and sound known as Hip Hop. And though I didn't know how to articulate it then, I witnessed how my parents and HipHop fueled the growth of North America's economic engine but didn't accumulate asset value from their contributions. So, my need to understand how money moves ignited.
At age 12, I started my first business, buying and selling used goods in my neighborhood. Sixteen years later, I was introduced to tech after my street team evolved into a digital brand marketing company. Digital led me to tech and tech to wealth management.
In 2017, my Partner and CTO launched NicheeLabs - an engineering lab building software, machine learning, and artificial intelligence-powered solutions that produce intuitive experiences, improve systems performance, accelerate time to market, and impact bottom-line growth.
In 2022, I became Founder and General Partner at Matr Ventures, a VC fund investing in founders with a Mamba Mentality building scalable deep tech companies. The best part is that many of these Founders look like and possibly grew up like me.
Before shifting my time to build Matr Ventures, I was a Partner, Head of Investment Banking at the advisory firm Toren & Associates. The firm, a former client for four years, invited me to be a Partner in 2018. Becoming a partner wasn't part of my plan. Still, it's how the universe blessed my path into investment banking and earned me the title "The Girl Who Moves Money." By the time I stepped away in August 2021, I had completed buy/sell transactions totaling over $5 billion in AUM for wealth managers - including discretionary, non-discretionary money managers, family offices and banks.
Understanding the business of wealth management (how money moves) and the tech industry as they exist today, I'm committed to partnering with Founders + Business Leaders + Family Offices to grow, preserve and protect wealth while evolving the venture landscape and encouraging families from historically disadvantaged backgrounds to learn about and create family offices to help close the wealth gap in favor of #TheCulture.
Economic empowerment through entrepreneurship is my life assignment; supporting artists and advancing Black, Indigenous, and Latin communities via stem is my north star.
LFG!!!!!
No cap.