While growing up as the daughter of a (now retired) Venezuelan Ambassador, Carolina was relocating from one country capital to another, living and studying in British, French, American and local schools in South America, Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. She went to college in Caracas, Venezuela and obtained her MBA at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
During her career in the Consumer Banking, Payments and Management Consulting industries, with Citibank, MasterCard, and Accenture, etc., as well as with a startup, Carolina held a variety of roles that provided her with strong foundations and transferable skills:

• Operations / Process Reengineering: designing new processes, optimizing existing process flows, capacity planning and minimizing resource utilization
• Strategy: market positioning, competition analysis, long term planning and milestone setting
• Sales / Profitability Management: goal definition, team leadership and motivation
• HR Management: Sourcing, hiring and evaluating staff and managers
• Customer Service: Defining processes and scripts, training and managing telephone and face to face representatives
• Relationship management skills: Building partnerships, negotiating vendor and stakeholder agreements
• Analytical approach: Defining metrics, simplifying complex scenarios
• Entrepreneurship experience: Creativity to solve for corporate support and/or funding, and set guidelines for work/personal life balance.

For over 10 years, Carolina was a competitive horseback rider, winning important showjumping events in several countries. After becoming a Systems Engineer, she explored other adrenaline loaded activities: paragliding, scuba diving and downhill skiing, with the occasional whitewater rafting trips, waterskiing, hot air ballooning, snowmobiling or hang gliding adventures. In the past 15 years, Carolina has also enjoyed kayaking, hiking, ziplining and ropes courses, and most recently rappelling and self-balancing board riding.

While growing up in New York State, later as a college student in Tampa, Florida, and then during vacations throughout his 30-year banking career, Patrick would spend long hours planning and participating in adventure trips with groups of family or friends (a week of cat and heli-skiing, a tour of whitewater rafting rivers, learning whitewater kayak skills, training to pilot a hang glider, etc.).

To adapt and become an expert in Adventure Sports and running an outdoor business, Patrick has been conducting extensive research, taking courses, getting certifications. For example, he’s been certified in Wilderness First Aid and Outdoor Leadership through the Appalachian Mountain Club, taken numerous courses on small business startup and management, and has actively been interviewing owners and managers of various adventure companies and outfitters. Patrick recently participated in the International Association of Amusement Park & Attractions (IAAPA) expo, even joining their Rookies & Newcomers program for a deep immersion with industry leaders, working to obtain the title of an IAAPA certified attractions manager.

During his career in the financial services industry with Citibank and Bank of America, Patrick developed expertise in Cash and Treasury Management, and led a variety of teams and functions in support of corporate clients across all industries and geographies. He has held a wide variety of roles that provided him with strong foundations and transferable skills for his re-invention as an entrepreneur, including:

• Product Development/ Innovation: brainstorming and ideation, process design, technology integration, patents and intellectual property rights, service agreements, partner and vendor management
• Product Management Overseeing a budget, P&L ownership, project planning, stakeholder leadership
• Operations / Process Improvement: team management, risk management, regulatory and policy compliance, metrics generation and utilization, six sigma and total quality concept implementation
• Sales / Marketing: consultative and relationship-based selling, collateral design, marketing campaign design and execution, building customer loyalty programs, contract negotiation, design, delivering effective presentations, creating compelling proposals, price-setting, objection handling
• Training / Quality Control: assessing training needs, designing training courses and materials, delivering effective training, training the trainers, adapting to suit learning styles
• Customer Service: treating customer fairly and with respect, problem-solving, escalation, team-work, managing outcomes, dealing with complaints
• Communication skills: Individual and team management, leading groups and meetings, consensus building, public speaking, organizing conferences and events
• Leadership: actively listening, inclusion and celebration of diversity, inspiration by ideas and results, leading by example, coaching, tackling difficult discussions

Outside of the office, Patrick has always been most enthusiastic about trying new outdoor adventures and finding adrenaline-pumping activities.

Favorite outdoor activities currently: hiking, whitewater rafting, mountain biking, kayaking, downhill skiing, motorcycling and disc golf.

Favorite adventures, sports and experiences: hang gliding, snowcat and heli-skiing, skydiving, wind tunnels, bungee jumping, snowmobiling, scuba diving, water skiing, ultimate frisbee, trail running, ziplining and ropes courses, hot air ballooning, glide plane ride, helicopter flying lesson, ATV riding, 4×4 off-road driving, horseback riding, and, most recently, zorbing, flyboarding, rappelling, self-balancing board (a.k.a.hoverboard) riding and electric unicycle riding.