Pedro David Espinoza
TED Speaker, Entrepreneur, Investor, and Author
Twitter: @pdespinoza123
Pedro David Espinoza is a TED Speaker, entrepreneur, investor, and author. At the age of 19, Pedro became the founder & CEO of SmileyGo, an app that helped companies invest smarter. His startup gained funding from Frank Baxter (Jefferies CEO) and was part of SkyDeck. In 2017, Janet Napolitano (U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security) awarded Pedro The University of California Entrepreneur Winner. In 2018, Pedro founded Pan Peru USA, a venture that empowers women to become entrepreneurs. With the support from Bristol Myers Squibb, Western Union, and First Republic Bank, Pan Peru has grown from empowering 1 to 60 women. At the age of 24, Pedro wrote a book with Jorge Titinger, with contributions from Eric Schmidt (Google CEO), Reed Hastings (Netflix CEO), and Dan Schulman (PayPal CEO). In 2020, his book received The Latino International Book Award #1 Business Book.
Educated at Stanford, Harvard, and Berkeley, Pedro began his career as a car mechanic. At the age of 15, Pedro launched his music singles on Apple, Spotify, and Amazon. Pedro is a venture investor in companies such as Nadine West, Kiwi Campus, and Feed.FM. He’s been a keynote speaker for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and others. At the age of 19, Pedro became an Under 30 Change-Maker and Young Entrepreneur to Watch by IdeaMensch. Given his commitment to sponsor Black & Brown entrepreneurs, the Silicon Valley Business Journal recognized him as a 2021 Latinx Business Leadership Honoree.
At the age of 24, Pedro became a sought-after inclusion, diversity, and equity speaker. Oracle, Walmart and Splunk are a few of the companies Pedro has worked with to help them create a culture of belonging. Pedro has given workshops for ERGs and leadership teams to help them attract and retain top & diverse talent. Pedro is working on his second book, The Real ROI: Return On Inclusion. Michael Dell (Dell CEO), John Hennessy (Alphabet Chairman) and James Morgan (Applied Materials CEO), are a few of the leaders he’s interviewed.
Pedro has been profiled in Nasdaq, KRON-TV, Univision, Telemundo, Hispanic Shark Tank, Times of Israel, Fox, and Forbes. In 2017, The Voice of America named Pedro “The Robinhood of Technology”. In 2019, Pedro wrote a book Differences That Make a Difference with Titinger (SGI CEO) by interviewing 175 executives. Pat Gelsinger (Intel CEO) wrote the foreword. Pedro serves on the boards of Hertz Peru, Autoespar Toyota, and GESA.
In 2021, Pedro joined SVLG to lead the 100 Startups Initiative and The Innovators Fund to support diverse founders through funding, resources, and corporate partnerships. Pedro has received numerous awards and recognition for his business success, he has received the 2022 HITEC 100 Award – which features the 100 most influential global Hispanic executives in technology.
