Founder of Build The Dream
Vanessa Santos
Two decades in the rooms where wealth and power actually move. Now she builds the one she needed on the way up.
- Founder & CEO, Build The Dream
- Keynote Speaker
- Investor
- Board Member
Vanessa Santos built her career at the intersection of corporate America and entrepreneurship, and then chose a different path entirely. She expanded Gilt.com to more than 120 countries, won a CES Innovation Award at Mastercard, and co-developed a digital platform serving millions of students across Latin America.
She co-scaled #WeAllGrow Latina to multiple millions and led it through an acquisition. A Forbes Most Powerful Women of Latin America honoree and Kennedy Center inaugural entrepreneur award recipient, she has spent two decades in rooms most women are still trying to get into.
Today she is the founder and CEO of Build The Dream, a media and lifestyle world built on one conviction: success should not require self-erasure. She writes Letters From The In-Between, read by more than ten thousand women, and serves on the board of the Wellness For The People Foundation.
She is the daughter of Dominican and Ecuadorian immigrants, first-generation everything, and she started her first business at thirteen. Now she holds the door open.
“The most dangerous thing a woman can do is stop performing and start building.”
Recognition
- Forbes Most Powerful Women of Latin America
- Kennedy Center inaugural entrepreneur award
- Mastercard CES Innovation Award
For keynotes and speaking inquiries, Vanessa's speaker hub lives at vsantos.co.
Visit vsantos.co