How OnTop made every employee an AI operator — without a single layoff | Maria Camila Ramirez, COO

Shamil Malachiyev: Hello, everyone, and welcome. My guest this morning started her career at Accenture and then joined the founding team of an HR tech startup, OnTop, which was part of the Y Combinator winter batch in 2021. Now, as chief operating officer, she's leading the company to execute its vision effectively. Please welcome, joining us from Bogota, Colombia, Maria Camila Ramirez. Hi, Maria.

Maria Camila Ramirez: Hi, Shamil. Thank you for inviting me to this amazing podcast. I'm very honored to be here in this space, and happy to invite others to join companies and to have a great impact that can help millions of people.

Shamil Malachiyev: Thank you. I'm very honored to have you on the show too. I know a little bit of your backstory, so I'm pretty sure this is going to be an amazing and exciting episode. Can we start with you giving us a little bit of information about the work that you do at OnTop, what the current scale is, and what the current vision behind the company is?

Maria Camila Ramirez: Yeah, for sure. For the ones that don't know, OnTop is a payroll platform that enables companies anywhere in the world to hire and pay people in different countries. We enable companies to manage contracts and to onboard new workers in any country. And as well, we offer those different workers, or remote workers, access to financial services in US dollars. So we're connecting a payroll platform with financial services. Our vision is to continue to work and build products for this contingent workforce, because it's something that is going to continue to scale. We have lots of content creators, lots of consultants working remotely, and that's how the economy is going to work. So at this point, what we're building is financial infrastructure for that contingent workforce. It's not just offering a US dollar account, but as well access to a card, a Visa card that we have, early wage access, investment features, these kinds of financial services. At the end, what we want to do is be the global bank for the future of work.

So as COO, my job is basically enabling this to happen. I'm working on different new initiatives, including the early wage access product and the investment feature, which is something that we started last year and has been having a lot of traction. We've already achieved almost $3 million in assets under management on the investment feature, with just two months live. So it's very interesting to see how these kinds of products are very attractive for this new workforce that is looking for alternatives to have strong currency, to have mobility, and to have freedom. Because at the end, that's what we want to convey and to promote out there: freedom.

Shamil Malachiyev: Nice. I think after COVID hit, everybody went remote, and after a couple of years companies started realizing: if we are fully remote, then it doesn't matter where we hire from. You stop trying to hire people in your own town, and the whole world is your oyster. As long as the time zones can mix and match, we can hire people from anywhere. But that's the problem: how do you pay them? What's the payment structure? There are just so many nuances that are hard for companies to manage when they have a global workforce. So I think it's a very good time for a service like OnTop to help companies hold all of this together.

How do you find the chief operating officer's role? In my vision, from everything I've seen, there is the role of the chief executive officer, which everybody thinks is the person doing the most in the company. But in reality, if you look at it, that's the person doing a bit of business development, talking to clients. And then you see the chief operating officer, who's literally running the whole town, making sure that everybody's doing everything and the KPIs are hitting. For me, this is the hardest part of building a company, being a chief operating officer. What can you tell us about your experience?

Maria Camila Ramirez: Yeah, and I think it's very interesting, because in 2024 our former CEO left the company, and that's when Julian, our CEO, who was COO before, became the CEO. When they both had the chance to lead the company, they were more like co-CEOs, because they didn't have a proper operations team to manage all the different projects that they led, all the different areas, from the founders' vision. I think something we've done pretty well, with Julian as CEO and me as COO, is understanding: what are the big bets that the company is currently making, and how can I, as the COO, make that happen?

Almost a year ago, I was in San Francisco for three months, and I started understanding everything that was happening with AI, and brought that AI vision to the company as well. It shouldn't just stop with the tech team and the product team; this was something that everyone in the company should be entitled to and should be breathing, almost. So: different projects, mixing execution with culture, taking the vision that we have from the C-level to the rest of the teams. That's how we've been handling this around AI, and it came from the COO vision of how we can enable the team. I basically started to create trainings with my team for the rest of the company: teaching them how to use the tools, teaching them how to build an agent. This was something that should not be concentrated in two, three, four people; it should be in each and every team. So we now have an AI champion per team, who's getting that AI vision into their specific area.

We work very closely with the rest of the areas as well, understanding what the spinal cord of OnTop is, and how we make sure that we are executing towards the OKRs that we have as a company. Right now, as well, we used to have a financial services team, which was reorganized, and now I'm also owning the financial products side. Because at the end, we are a payments company: we enable companies to pay people. So that's part of operations as well. Part of my role as COO has been to establish what we call operations in the company: not just core operations, but as well how we can enable internal tools for the rest of the areas to be much more productive, with AI, with automations, with lots of different initiatives. If I can summarize it, I would say it's around AI, internal automations, payments, and launching new products. And that's the vision that we want to have: a testing lab right here, to test different products and to launch very early, learn very early, and see if that's something that we want to scale, or just not prioritize and kill at a very short price.

Shamil Malachiyev: Talking to all of these different companies, everybody's trying to integrate as much AI as possible into different functions within the company. How did you go about actually identifying where AI fits the most, and how do you structure the culture change, the operations change? It's a proper change-management initiative, isn't it? How did you go about implementing all of that?

Maria Camila Ramirez: I would say change management is very hard to convey with different teams, especially with analysts. Because at the end, if you can have an agent doing their job, or you can have something in place that is going to be much more productive than what they are doing right now, that's always going to generate some resistance, some way of not wanting to adopt those kinds of tools. So what we've done is build solutions hand in hand with the teams. If we manage to build, and to bring them in very early on to what we're building, it's not that we're going behind their backs; it's actually understanding what's taking the most time out of them, what's generating the most bottlenecks, and understanding what they could be doing if someone else, or something else, could be doing their job.

At this point, what we've been doing with AI is not necessarily to build efficiencies and to reduce the headcount and reduce the payroll. That's not part of our vision. It's actually allocating people to do the most out of their time, and to be much more intelligent with their time, for the company, of course, and for them as well, as they adopt the tools. It's not that we're going to do some layoffs because we now have automated X, Y and Z. It's actually making sure that they have adopted the tools that we've built, and now they have much more time to do things that we were not able to do.

Shamil Malachiyev: As chief operating officer, does it help having had all of that experience leading up to it, being the chief of staff, all of those positions? You saw so many different functions within the company and you operated within them, so now it's a bit easier for you to see the total picture, right?

Maria Camila Ramirez: Yeah. And I think something we've done very well at OnTop: when I was chief of staff, I was able to join all the OKR sessions of all the C-levels with the founders, so I had the full picture. I knew how the dynamics worked around everyone in the company. And now as COO, I continue to join those sessions, but now I know how to make things happen. As chief of staff, I did have different initiatives and projects and pilots that we were doing at that time, but I didn't have a team, so I didn't have to report what my team was doing. So now it's very interesting, because I continue to have all the vision, but as well, operations is the central spine of the company. I can see: I don't know, sales is having some issues with the conversion rates, or the pipeline is not enough. So, okay: how are we going to build AI tools, or agents, to qualify leads better, or to understand how to generate more leads? And that's what we're doing with AI. It's not necessarily building tools for ops; it's working very closely with the different areas to make them achieve their goals in a better and shorter way.

Shamil Malachiyev: What would you say are the key qualities that a good chief operating officer needs to have? Maybe something that's hard to see from the outside, for people who've never been in that position, but from your experience you've realized: wow, these came really handy. What are those qualities?

Maria Camila Ramirez: I would say structure. I think that's a very important one. You mentioned I was at Accenture at some point; that kind of structure, I earned it at Accenture. And of course, with my experience at OnTop, I think that's something that I've been excelling at in some sort of way. I would also say hunger, or openness to get more on your plate. I think that's not for everyone. Especially in a startup, there are many moments in which priorities might change. Understanding that kind of change, embracing the change, understanding that probably what we prioritized yesterday is no longer our priority today, and that we need to change accordingly and try to set up a plan very fast. I think that's another one.

And third, I would say thinking as a founder, even though you're not. I think it's part of the role. You are the central spine, again, of the company, so you basically put together all the dots, you connect all the dots, and you need to make sure that everyone is aligned, that no one is working in silos, that probably we can make some synergies across areas, and that probably we can start doing something that has not been started yet, because it's not a priority for someone else, but probably you have the capacity to get there with your team and to support different areas. So I would say it's problem solving, because you identify very easily those problems, and then you can jump in to create a solution with the teams. I would say it's founder mindset combined with problem solving. And I think every founder needs to be obsessed with the problem.

Shamil Malachiyev: And how good are we at dealing with stress? All of my friends, when I finished university, most people were going to do consulting; that was pretty much the only option. Working at a startup was just a very weird idea back at the time. And all of those options, being a consultant, working at a startup, these are high-stress, high-pressure environments. How do you deal with stress?

Maria Camila Ramirez: You know, I think it depends on everyone. Every person is a whole different world, and what works for me might not work for everyone. But in my case specifically, I've gone through different hard moments in my life, and I've done so many different things. Hard things, for instance: seven or eight years ago, my dad suffered from esophageal cancer. I was in university; that was harder than actually getting my grades in the university. And then two, three years ago, my mom suffered from breast cancer. I was still at OnTop, I was chief of staff, and I never took some time off to deal with my mom's illness, or took my time off because I wanted to decompress or whatever, because I thought: okay, I need to be a professional. I've always been a professional, and that's probably not recommended for everyone.

But I think in my case, trying to hold onto something and see the whole picture: I've gone through so many hard things that what makes me stressed is not necessarily work. It's understanding that if something stresses me, it's because I might not be structured, or I'm not being on top of the things. But if I have a plan and I have organized chaos, I might be able to solve it. In my personal life, I know there's chaos at some times, but if I let them mix together, I think that's where stress comes in, because I start mixing up: okay, I'm going through this at work, and then I'm going to my personal life. We're always going to have some stress at work; it's normal. But if you try to organize, and you try to be very vocal about what you're feeling, what you're going through... everyone in the company knew I was going through that. So if you're very vocal about it, and you understand that you have people supporting you, then I think that's not going to be a stress.

And I think habits are very important to decompress as well. So I've been very mindful about my habits: sleep, exercise, reading, my personal time. I have scheduled me-time spaces in my agenda, just to be with me. If I'm stressed out, I just book myself me time, to decompress.

Shamil Malachiyev: Can you give more details on those?

Maria Camila Ramirez: It's no-meeting time. Probably not going through Slack, not juggling around different tabs, but actually stillness. Just not doing anything, and understanding: this is what's happening, this is what's getting into my mind the most, and I'm going to focus on one single thing. And that's something that I always bring to the team. Okay, if you're stressed, it's because there's disorder. You're not being organized, or you're missing structure, or you have too many things on your plate. And that's a matter of prioritization, going again to what's really important. Okay, you have to do five different things? Focus on just one. Just close one, and then go through the rest. Decompressing, and closing things, and then opening up again: I think that's the way that it works for me.

Shamil Malachiyev: I've noticed that a lot of people in leadership positions, especially with hard lives, tend to overwork themselves. And sometimes, to relieve stress, because it's a build-up of cortisol within our bodies, all you need is to just sit down and cry for 20 minutes, and then you feel better. Is that something that you allow yourself to do?

Maria Camila Ramirez: I would say I allow myself to cry. I've had my moments. I remember when we were going through YC, I was very young, and this was the first time I was going through so much pressure on the numbers. I was doing a lot of manual stuff, and I didn't have a team, so I was doing lots of things. I remember there were some days I woke up and I said to myself: this is my last day, I'm going to resign. I'm going to quit, I'm going to quit, I'm going to quit. And I think the moment I understood that that was the narrative I was telling myself, something changed. I understood: okay, I'm going into this negative loop, waking up and saying to myself I'm going to quit because this is too hard. It wasn't too hard. It was part of it. Of course, I'm now looking backwards when I say this; at that time it was very hard, it was a lot of pressure. But... what was the question?

Shamil Malachiyev: I'll put a mark, don't worry. I was wondering if it's okay to be emotional in these kinds of things.

Maria Camila Ramirez: Yeah, if I allow myself to cry, that was the question. Okay. So I would say I allow myself to cry, but most of all I allow myself to feel. If I'm stressed, understanding where the feeling is coming from, and as well being vocal. And I think that's something that I've worked very hard on with my team as well. If they're stressed, if they're sad, if they're going through hard moments: come to me, raise the hand, and let me help you. But if that's not visible, I think that's something that's going to be very hard to work out.

And going back to my mom's cancer, for instance: when I got the news, my dad had already gone through this, so I was very upset. I was very mad, because I didn't understand why we were going through this process again. And I spoke with the founders at the time, and they told me: if you want to take one month off, or six months off, while your mom is in the treatment, go ahead. We're going to wait for you. Just feeling that support, it meant the world to me, because I knew: okay, if I really, really need to use that card, I have it. And I never took that time off. I went to the chemo, and I had meetings during the chemo. I'm very fortunate to have a remote job. But I knew that if something happened, they were going to be supporting me. And that's something that is very important. Not necessarily crying, I might say, but being very vocal with my feelings. I think that's something that I allow: being vulnerable, at the end.

Shamil Malachiyev: Yeah. And did you ever feel like you were escaping into the work?

Maria Camila Ramirez: I've always been escaping in different situations. When my dad was going through his illness, I had an eating disorder. And now my obsession was work. But I think it was completely different. I've grown a lot as a person, so I won't say it was escaping into work, because I was very present with my mom. But probably I relied a lot on those responsibilities, not to think about the worst-case scenarios, not to think this was the worst thing happening to me, or be a victim and just focus on that specific thing, but actually to have a purpose and some different motivation, reallocating my energy into something that really drove me.

Shamil Malachiyev: When you were a kid, when you were a young girl, did anything point to you taking a path of consulting and startups? These are very demanding, stressful, logical directions. Maybe you were influenced by one of your parents, or what was it that made you lean towards this path?

Maria Camila Ramirez: Well, my dad has always been an entrepreneur. He has a steel company in Colombia; it's very big. And I knew I always had this secure option: if I graduated from university, I could just go and work with him at his firm. But at the same time, I saw my mom, who did have a very great job, and she sacrificed her job just to be with us while we were at school. She got into the household, and I didn't like her losing that freedom of: okay, I'm an executive and I do things for myself. I think that kind of drive, for me, came from watching my mom's situation: okay, I really want to be someone self-made, probably, not depending on my husband or not depending on my dad. And at the end, I think I always wanted to make my dad happy and to make him feel proud of me. Because they split up when I was a kid, and then they came together again, but that was a very stressful moment when I was a kid, and I always questioned myself: wow, I don't understand why he is abandoning me. I think that's part of one of my wounds as a kid, and something that I've been healing with therapy, and of course different things that I've been doing. But yeah, I always tried to make my dad feel proud of me, because he abandoned me when I was five years old, and I didn't want to rely again on him. I was trying to be safe, to be the owner of my own life and not depend on others. And I think I did it at university. I also hacked my way at Accenture. I also hacked my way at OnTop, and I've had an amazing growth here.

Shamil Malachiyev: And that is something that made you strong, to be able to withstand?

Maria Camila Ramirez: Yeah. At the end, I feel independent. I know my dad is very proud of me. But from some time to now, I've been doing my job not to make him feel proud, but just to make me feel proud: to have my own story, to have my own voice, to be authentic, to be myself. And that's something that I've been working on the last couple of years.

Shamil Malachiyev: That's my thing with therapy. I've been going myself for about five years now. With a lot of entrepreneurs and C-level leaders, there's always this internal thing that they need to prove themselves to either their father or their mother, and that drives them like a fire. And the thing is, once you go through a lot of therapy and you start feeling okay with those things, that fire dies out. Next time you have a really hard day, you don't feel like: I need to prove it to everyone. You're like: well, I don't need to prove it to anyone. But then where does the motivation come from? It feels like it's so much harder for people to find the motivation of doing things for themselves, because sometimes you need to sacrifice your free time, your peace, for the sake of the company. But psychotherapy teaches you: you're in control. Learn yourself, and the more you learn yourself, the less these things fuel you in a bad way.

Maria Camila Ramirez: Yeah, no, and I think at the end, it's different to be self-made, if that makes sense.

Shamil Malachiyev: Absolutely. Especially now, with housing prices and everything just crazy. Being self-made, you have to drink water for years.

Maria Camila Ramirez: Yeah. I used to rely a lot on my dad specifically, and I didn't want to be a shadow girl for my husband or a shadow girl for my dad. I think this really gives me some strength: making it for the right reasons. I think that's what motivates me. I know I'm doing this for me, and I know I'm doing this for what it brings me. I love having a team. I love working with the people I work with. I love having freedom. And that's something that my dad, my husband, whoever, cannot give me. It's something that I am the only one responsible for looking for and working on.

Shamil Malachiyev: Do you think there are any downsides to this position of trying to be extremely independent?

Maria Camila Ramirez: Of course there are. I think, especially at startups, it's very common to make hard decisions on people, and on time as well. Of course, I don't have kids now, but I do want to have kids. And I know at some point I'm going to have to deal with those kinds of decisions. Okay: am I going to work up until 9pm, or am I going to be with my kids and spend time with them? And I think I want to get to that point, at my age, where I no longer have to make a decision, but those two worlds can live together. And I think that's something that I love about OnTop. We have lots of moms, we have C-level moms as well, and I see how their kids come into the camera. I think there's no better position to be in than actually having the chance to combine the two worlds.

Shamil Malachiyev: I think it's part of the healthy work culture that we've seen being built. Before, especially in the US, it used to be: if you're becoming a mom, okay, you can take a week off to give birth, and then we expect you back at work. And now it's more about family also being an important part. And then especially in Europe, you see people saying there has to be a work-life balance. But if you're a person who just needs to get shit done, there is a lot of stress, there are a lot of tasks, and you sacrifice a lot for the vision, for the efficiency, to grow. And you see a lot of people saying: but there has to be a balance. Where do you stand on that? What's the balance for you?

Maria Camila Ramirez: I think it's more about integration, more than balance. Because at the end, for us, working remotely, I think it's more about finding the right spaces and being very transparent with the team. Hey, I'm not going to be available from this time to this time, or I'm going to be driving my kids to school at this time, and I'm going to have to get into the meeting while driving. I think we need to normalize those kinds of things. In Latin America, for instance, it's very common to have a nanny or a driver and that kind of stuff, but that doesn't work for every country, especially when working with global teams; that's not normal. And I think that's something that we need to normalize: understanding people have their own lives, and if they have a medical appointment, or they have to go to their kid's performance at school or whatever, I think we need to be much more flexible. And I think that's something that goes into the culture of each and every company, and how they conceive these kinds of situations for everyone.

We do it at OnTop, honestly. One of the virtues in our culture is: we honor our time. So I honor your time, and you honor mine, and I honor mine too. Everyone is very transparent with their time. So you might see in different calendars: I'm going to go to my kid's tennis class, or I'm going to go to my kid's golf class. And if they need to have an urgent meeting, they'll have it. But probably on the phone, and probably there are going to be some next steps out of it: okay, I'll get home and I'll do this and that. But I think that's something that goes into the culture of each and every company. It might vary according to what they have. But at the end, I see it more as work-life integration than work-life balance. Because balance means you need to sacrifice something, so that the other priority is higher: my priority on family is higher than my work.

And last year I got married, and I was organizing my wedding, and I had a lot of stress out of it. And people told me: hey, last year, I know you had your mind somewhere else. And now this year, you're being way sharper. You're now fully on it. And I think, again: if you're vulnerable and you're saying, hey, I'm going through this, I think your team can as well support you. It's not about bringing all the personal issues to the company, but it's about giving visibility into how your life looks, so that we can support the rest of the team and we know how everyone is.

Shamil Malachiyev: And it's also different at different stages of the company, isn't it? Can you tell everybody who's listening, because a lot of the listeners have either been thinking about entrepreneurship for a long time, or have been sacked, or just left the job in their corporate world and are looking at this startup world and want to get involved: how would you describe the different stages of a company's existence, and which stage of startup should they pick?

Maria Camila Ramirez: Yeah. I would say at the beginning there's, I don't know if it's the book Blitzscaling, I don't know if you've read it, but they name the different stages. The family: it's just four people, the founders and the founding team. Then it's the village: it's more or less 20 people. You have the first hires, and the dynamics are different: everyone knows everyone. That's where you actually build a culture, and you set up the pace of the company, how fast and how much grit you want your team to have. I think that's what happens with those first 20 hires. Many of our first 20 hires are still in the company, and they have very good positions across it.

Then, when you go to 80: I remember when I got to Slack and I saw 80 people, I was like, what, this is crazy. I no longer know everyone. That's, I think, when it goes up to a city, if I'm not wrong. But I think that's the moment where you need to be much more strict, and you need to be much more mindful about what you tolerate and don't tolerate in terms of culture, because there are now more people. So you're always going to have detractors and promoters. So you need to be very careful about who you're bringing onto the team, and how you are organizing your people. And then after 80, I think it's like: okay, now it's a very big company, you need to build systems that allow you to have full visibility in terms of performance. I think those are the different stages. Of course, there's way more after 100 people. But I think it goes from actually being very close, having everything centralized, with a very early founding team, and everyone has visibility of everyone and what everyone is doing and everything, to: okay, we need to build systems, and then we need to make sure that everyone understands and follows the systems. Otherwise, it's going to be a mess.

Shamil Malachiyev: Do you ever miss that romantic time of the start of the company, when it's not a business yet? It's an idea, it's a lot of energy, it's a lot of uncertainty. It's like: how do we do this?

Maria Camila Ramirez: I would say I had the benefit of being naive and not having much experience, and I didn't know what was expecting me. And probably I didn't understand what we were doing, and why we were doing what we were doing. But I remember: okay, we need to do this. Why? Just because. I will make it happen. So I think that's the kind of energy at the beginning. You're testing so many things that you're not questioning why, and if it's going to be scalable, and if it's going to be a long-term shot, or if it's going to be the final, ultimate, best decision. You're just testing out what works and what doesn't work. And being so early gives you the flexibility to turn on and turn off so many things, so you don't need to marry something or follow it through for the long term. It's: okay, we're going to test this. We understand there's a problem: let's make it happen, we're going to build a solution. We have this use case with a client, they need to do this: okay, let's make it happen.

And I think at the beginning, there were no excuses, and there were actually no doubts about whether we should do something or not. Our mindset was just execution first: let's do it, let's do it, and we're going to make this happen. We never thought we couldn't do something, or questioned whether we were able, or whether we should be doing this or not. It was just a matter of: this is the job to be done, we're going to do it. Okay, let's do it. So I think that's the beginning, and I think that's the right energy to have: to learn very fast if that's what clients want. Talk to clients, of course, be very close to them, get feedback, and iterate very fast. So that's why I talk about the flexibility of iterating, pivoting, or persevering with that specific idea. But yeah, it's a matter of drive, of making things happen now. And also, in the early days, there's no one else that would be doing the job. It's either you, or your co-founder, or no one else. So someone needs to do it. Who's going to do it? Doesn't matter. Just do it.

Shamil Malachiyev: Hmm. And do you remember... because I remember when I was just starting the company, even when we were up to eight people, there was still a lot of anxiety. I was very anxious about: is this going to work? Is this destined for us? Can we actually make it? Did you ever have those anxious thoughts, where you're like: okay, if I want to have a positive outcome, I need to align myself, they call it the higher vibrations, to position yourself so the universe brings you the right opportunities, and you're in the right state to grab them?

Maria Camila Ramirez: Yeah. I think in my case, I didn't have anything to lose, honestly. So when I spoke to the founders about joining them, I was at Accenture, and I didn't calculate it: okay, this is what's going to happen, and I need to earn X money. I didn't care about that at the time. I just wanted to work with them, honestly. My main reason to join OnTop was because I admired the founders, and I wanted to have very capable and interesting people around me. And that was the main reason why I joined OnTop. So if you ask me specifically: I didn't calculate the risk. I just said, okay, this is what it is. I'm going to start as an ops analyst on the founding team. Let's do it. Okay, let's do it. I'm going to earn X. Doesn't matter. And of course, I didn't expect to have this kind of growth. I think it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And now I'm telling the story, of course, but if I had been staying in consulting, probably I wouldn't be telling the story, and I would be a consultant, and I would be very happy being so. But I think taking that leap took me to where I am, and I think that's part of betting. You need to make a bet, to either win or lose. But when you bet hard, the upside is way bigger than just staying in the comfort zone.

Shamil Malachiyev: What are the main differences that you see between the Maria at Accenture, just starting her path, and the Maria that we see now?

Maria Camila Ramirez: I would say it's the level of ownership, honestly. I think when you're in a very big corporation, there are systems built, there are instructions for anything that you're going to do. And part of what I've been experiencing at OnTop, and I think it has been fascinating, is building my own path at OnTop. So I've been building teams, I've been hiring people, I've been launching products, I've been redefining how I want to be as a leader. I've been investing in myself to get executive coaching. I've been developing myself in the way I navigate the role. But I think with so much structure and career path, it's very hard to really find your own purpose, because you're doing something that you need to do. What we do at OnTop is a lot of experimenting, and a lot of testing out new things, and bringing my own voice and personality to my leadership style, and how we can work around different problems. I think that's the main difference: it's following an already-built path, like many people, versus building my own path according to my needs.

And that's something that I discovered very early when I started with my executive coaching: I used to compare myself a lot, because I was the youngest leader in the company at some point. I was seated with people with more than 20 years of experience, coming from banks, coming from other financial services. And I said: hey, this is imposter syndrome. Wow, I've never gone through this. And then I understood: okay, the first step to not comparing myself is understanding what my qualities are, and what others' qualities are. And I think that's something very interesting, because my qualities are not theirs. My quality at that point was: I know how OnTop is wired. I built this from scratch. I started this as well. I know every single detail about OnTop. And they don't. Their experience is actually working with different banks, and working around compliance, or several different things that are more industry-related than actually the company, and the culture, and how we built this, and how we've come so far with the company. So I think that's also part of it.

Shamil Malachiyev: What I like a lot is, as you said, you take ownership. And that's something that's really cool, because there are a lot of people... looking at your story, you decided to go to psychotherapy, for example. You decided to get executive coaching. You understand: okay, this is something that's going to help me live a better, more effective life, and you just go into it. Because other people, me myself included back in the day, would be like: well, if I start getting coaching or help, that means first admitting that in some places you suck, basically, and there is a lot to grow. And usually that first step of admitting it to yourself becomes the first step to growing and getting better. How did you come, internally, to a point where you were like: I'm just going to keep improving, I'm going to find that executive coach? Were there internal shifts, a lot of things driving up to that moment?

Maria Camila Ramirez: No, actually, we had a chief mindfulness officer in the company, who was working very closely with the executive team, and her job was basically helping all the executives in the company to be much more productive and to shine, basically: to be the best versions of ourselves.

Shamil Malachiyev: It's like Wendy Rhoades from Billions, from the TV show.

Maria Camila Ramirez: Yeah, basically. So she was in the company, let's say, four months or so. And then, when she left the company, I decided to continue my sessions with her independently. Because when she was at the company, that's where I learned: I can't compare myself. I need to see that my qualities are different from other people's qualities. And I decided to continue my sessions with her. And I think the first year was much more about the chief of staff role, and how to work and build trust with executives. It was the first time the company had a chief of staff, and it was very hard, because I knew I couldn't just lead with authority, because I wouldn't get the trust I needed to gain to do my role. So I started working on how to gain the trust, how to manage conflict between different leaders. And that was year one.

Year two was much more about myself: who is Maria Camila besides OnTop? Which is something that was always going through my mind every time I presented myself. Okay, what do you do? I'm Camila, I work at OnTop. Okay, what else? Who are you? So that was year two, and that's where I got into psychedelics. And it was very interesting, because on the psychedelics, one of the most interesting things that I saw was me being laid down, and someone pulling a blanket out of me, asking: who is Maria Camila, and who is Maria Camila without OnTop? And I've been understanding this throughout all this time. It's not just: okay, I know I need to work on myself. It's as well having my own voice, and being able to express myself. I was very introverted, shy. I hated being on podcasts. I hated being on stages. And since that time until now, I've been putting myself out there, into uncomfortable situations that make me grow, so that I feel more confident talking about myself, and not necessarily just expressing: okay, this is what I do, I'm at OnTop, and that's it. Because I know every person has their own world, and it goes beyond the company they've built, the company they've founded, the company they've worked at for 30 years or whatever. So I've been exploring that.

Shamil Malachiyev: It's so scary to think that in 100 years, nobody's going to know my company, probably. Shamil, what has he been doing? I also thought for a bit... I was listening to a lot of Tony Robbins performances, and he says one of the biggest things, which relates to taking the blanket off of "who am I without OnTop": it's "am I, by myself, enough to deserve love?" Basically, without all of these things. It's the central question of not being enough. Have you ever struggled with that kind of thing? And what helped you understand: yeah, I'm enough, I deserve love, the Maria Camila that I am inside, without all of this, is an amazing person, and let's play the game?

Maria Camila Ramirez: I would say everyone has different roles in life. So it's not that I'm just Maria Camila, the COO of OnTop. I'm Maria Camila, the daughter. I'm Maria Camila, the wife. I'm Maria Camila, the mom.

Shamil Malachiyev: The podcast guest, too.

Maria Camila Ramirez: The podcast guest, right? I have a matcha brand as well, with a friend, and that's a new venture, an endeavor that I'm exploring. So I've been doing lots of things that make me not just Maria Camila from OnTop. Exploring: okay, my relationship has nothing to do with OnTop. Of course, we both love tech, my husband is a tech founder as well, but it's not the only thing in life. How is it that I'm exploring each and every area of my life with authenticity? At the end, I think that's what I've been looking for throughout all these years. It's not just to make someone proud, and it's not just to show myself as the executive, the one that has had a lot of luck and growth. This is something that I've worked for, and it's all the rest of my areas that have enabled me to achieve X, Y, Z. So I think that's why I talk about integration. My husband has a drive; okay, probably that's something that we have as a family, and that's something that catapults me, I don't know if that's a word...

Shamil Malachiyev: That's a good analogy.

Maria Camila Ramirez: ...that makes me normalize working hard. That's the drive. That's how founders think. We love doing family hackathons in our house, just vibe-coding things and doing stuff for ourselves. But at the end, that's something that I do have in my environment, and that's something that we need to look for in our environments. It's not that you are who you say you are. You are how you act. How you act is what defines who you truly are.

Shamil Malachiyev: And with trying to get better in life, well, with anything: a lot of people are saying that you don't really need education as much when you have ChatGPT, when you have Claude, especially Opus 4.6, which just gives such good answers. What do you think? Is it worth it for executives to be aiming at something like an executive MBA, getting that professional experience? Or is it possible to just work on your own with LLM models and actually achieve a similar result?

Maria Camila Ramirez: Hard question. I seriously considered pursuing an MBA. I studied, I did my essays, I had the recommendation letters, I had everything ready to apply, and I decided not to. I wanted to go to Stanford, and yeah, I decided not to apply. That's when I became COO, and this was just after the former CEO left the company. And I knew, I thought: okay, this is a great opportunity for me to learn new things, to learn new leadership skills, to understand what's coming next. And going through all the growth that OnTop has had, from first hires and founding team to more than 17 million dollars in ARR, it's something that you're not going to experience everywhere, right? And part of the reason I wanted to do an MBA was moving to the Bay Area. So I understood I was probably pursuing this for the wrong reasons, and it's not necessarily the only way I can end up in the Bay Area.

Shamil Malachiyev: You're still extremely young. You have so much time to go to the Bay Area, Seattle, New York. There's just so much opportunity.

Maria Camila Ramirez: Yeah. So I decided not to apply. And I think at this point, with everything that we're living through with AI, it's amazing. To just be under a program... that's my personal opinion. What I've learned, and the tools I've learned in the last year, it's crazy. Everything you can do with Claude, with Cursor, with Lovable, with Vercel, you name it. I think that's something that the MBA programs are probably not teaching, and that's probably the future. At this point, we're doing lots of things with stablecoins as well; that's where the future is going. So being in the front row of innovation at a company, I think that's something that I truly value. And this time, I just chose conviction in what we're building and our vision, instead of just getting the MBA.

Shamil Malachiyev: And as a closing question, I want to ask: there are a lot of people, like Maria Camila when she was 18, just entering the industry. Especially now, there's a lot of uncertainty: what is the world going to look like, what skills to learn, which kinds of companies to work for to get that experience? What is the piece of advice that you could give to all those people who are feeling anxious and uncertain about themselves? Maybe a lot of people suffer from imposter syndrome, not thinking they're good enough to make a big change, or not feeling confident in their own powers. What could you say to all of them?

Maria Camila Ramirez: I would say you need to start by knowing yourself. That's number one. I think I didn't know myself a few years ago. I've been getting to know myself for the last couple of, I don't know, three years, and working on that. So I think, if you know who you are and what your values are, I think that's the most important thing. At the end, we're first persons, then workers. And I think that's, at the end, what's going to be translating into your work. So understanding who you really are: your values, what you value, how you love to lead your life, if you want to travel, where. I think that's part of it. And second, I would say: try to look for mentors. If you're early in your career, I think that's...

Shamil Malachiyev: Where do you find them?

Maria Camila Ramirez: I would say at this point, at this stage, everyone is very approachable on LinkedIn. That's how you reach out. Let me tell you: I met William, the CEO, through a DM on Instagram. People are approachable, but you need to take the first step. You need to write that message. You need to pick up that phone. You need to ask for that intro. And people are always willing to help. So I would say: try to look for mentors, try to reach out to people, try to ask favors. You need to be very vocal about what you need, so that people can help you. And that's it.

Shamil Malachiyev: Thank you so much for being a part of the show, for coming here today, for giving an hour of your time. I think this episode has been incredibly valuable for anybody trying to make their way in the reality of hustle culture and uncertainty. And I think a lot of people can relate to your story as well: going through struggles, building that character, really getting to know yourself, and making the best choices for yourself. Thank you so much for coming to the show. It's been a pleasure.

Maria Camila Ramirez: Thank you, Shamil, for inviting me. It was a very fun time.