Daniela Valbuena

Talent and People partner with a career spent in tech, across startups and scale-ups from the start, in fintech, deep tech, hardware, gaming, and media, in LATAM, the US, Europe, and Africa. I've worked hands-on across the full spectrum of People, from Talent Acquisition, Business Partnering, Coaching, People Ops, and Leadership Development. Living in every part of it has shaped how I see the business as a whole, and where the human piece really fits.

What I do best is finding clarity in complexity, turning data, human behavior, and organizational psychology into talent strategies that actually move the business forward. My background is in psychology, and I'm drawn to smart design, where simplicity meets purpose. I like getting under the hood of how things work and finding ways to make them better.

When I'm not on my laptop you can find me on my bike. I'm co-founding VeloPod, a cycling hub for riders who love good roads, real adventures, and finding their people on two wheels.

Talent Acquisition & People Partner at Modak (2024-02 – Present)

US-based fintech platform empowering kids and teens through finance and technology.

• Defined and ran end-to-end recruitment across Engineering, Product, Growth, Operations, and Design, closing 15 hires including Backend & Mobile Engineers, Engineering Manager, Product Manager, Growth Manager, Performance Marketing, Product Designer, Fraud Ops, and Customer Support
• Designed the hiring process for Product and Growth from scratch: scorecards, competency frameworks, and evaluation criteria, building structured, bias-reducing interview loops as the default
• Built a predictive hiring model with the analytics team, identifying attributes correlated with high performance in engineering roles, and used the findings to drive continuous process improvements
• Led a Quality-of-Hire initiative: a company-specific QoH formula combining post-hire performance, hiring-manager satisfaction, and 90-day retention to create feedback loops that improve future hiring
• Owned the full employee lifecycle: onboarding, offboarding, internal mobility, and employee-experience initiatives
• Launched the company's first performance management cycle: structured reviews, calibration sessions, and feedback loops, automated with Zapier and Google Script
• Drove annual compensation: payroll operations, market benchmarking, and salary reviews; developed People policies aligned with SOC 2 requirements
• Built people-analytics dashboards in Looker Studio tracking pipeline health, workforce data, and engagement metrics

Talent Partner & HRBP at Multilogin (2022-09 – 2024-02)

Tech company building browser-fingerprinting and anti-detect solutions for digital privacy.

• Hired ~30 people in under 18 months across Engineering, Customer Support, Marketing, and Product through targeted outbound campaigns across Europe
• Built Backend Engineering, Marketing, and Product teams for a new division from scratch
• Owned full-cycle Engineering, Product, and Growth recruitment: intake, sourcing, screening, and candidate follow-up
• Implemented Teamtailor ATS and structured interview workflows, reducing time-to-hire from ~80 to ~40 days for product and growth roles
• Implemented AI interviewing tools (Metaview, Copilot) to reduce bias and improve evaluation consistency

Technical Talent Partner · People Data Analyst at Reach Labs (2021-11 – 2022-09)

MIT-born deep-tech company building wireless power-at-a-distance technology for industrial and IoT applications.

• Partnered directly with Founder and Leadership on hiring strategy, engagement, and org development; promoted to HRBP scope (employee relations, performance, onboarding, HR policy & compliance, manager coaching)
• Joined as the second recruiter on the team, building the recruiting function from the ground up
• Owned full-cycle recruiting for highly specialized profiles including antenna and RF engineers
• Built people-analytics dashboards in Looker Studio tracking pipeline health, recruiting metrics, and workforce data
• Supported the company's expansion into Africa, leading hiring in South Africa and Nigeria across technical and business functions

Talent Acquisition Partner at dLocal (2020-01 – 2022-02)

Uruguayan fintech unicorn powering cross-border payments in emerging markets, serving Amazon, Spotify, Uber, and Microsoft.

• Recruited Mobile, Backend, and Frontend Engineers, plus Compliance and Account Management roles
• Worked closely with leadership during a period of significant global headcount growth across LATAM, APAC, and EMEA

Talent Partner at Globant (2018-02 – 2020-01)

Global technology company. Clients include Google, Electronic Arts, The Walt Disney Company, and JPMorgan Chase.

• Delivered full-cycle technical recruitment across fintech, gaming, and banking for JPMorgan Chase, Electronic Arts, and Disney
• Designed and launched a Graduate Management Trainee Program, building early-talent pipelines
• Built recruiting analytics dashboards to support data-driven hiring decisions

Technical Recruiter at VMN+ (2017-02 – 2018-02)

Nearshore software development company serving enterprise clients in North America.

• Recruited software engineers across.NET, Java, Python, React, and mobile for clients including AT&T, DirecTV, Telefónica, and Oracle
• Built and managed candidate pipelines for hard-to-fill technical roles in a nearshore environment

Talent Advocate at Hackealo (2016-01 – 2017-02)

Startup connecting curated LATAM developers with top tech companies through transparent, unbiased hiring.

• Joined early and worked directly with the founders to build the recruiting and sourcing strategy from scratch, my first experience in tech and the one that shaped everything after
• Designed sourcing strategies and interview processes for clients including Despegar, Mercado Libre, and Aerolab
• Contributed to product strategy for a platform built on the belief that hiring should work better for everyone, candidates and companies alike

Bachelor's Degree in Psychology – Universidad de Palermo (2014 – 2017)

Certification in People Data Analyst – Universidad del CEMA (2021 – 2021)