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Meet Ruben

Strategic decisions expert, author of commercially published books, Data Mirage and Bulletproof Decisions, and keynote speaker.

ABOUT RUBEN

Ruben's Early Story

Ruben Ugarte has been thinking about strategic decisions ever since he was a little boy, though he didn't call it that. He grew up in Honduras, a small country in the heart of Central America, where he spent countless hours daydreaming and creating completely different worlds in his mind, the essence of strategic thinking.

His fondest memories include walking around his family’s house with his dog—a cocker spaniel named Princesa (Princess in English)—trying to understand the world around him, down to the smallest plant.

Even as a kid, he was already thinking of how to help others. He once asked his parents if he could build a treehouse atop this massive mango tree in their backyard. When they asked him why he wanted a treehouse, he replied, “to see clients.” It’s not quite clear why this 8-year old was seeing clients but the seeds for his future work were present.

The First Strategic Decision

When he was 12, his family immigrated to Vancouver, Canada. In one single decision, his world changed and he went from seeing life in 480P to 1080P. The move gave him two drastically different perspectives on the world and what was possible. These two perspectives would go on to shape his thinking and ideas.

His love of learning and the future only grew during his teenage years. He taught himself how to write code by reading obscure books in German (translated to English) over many late nights. He soon started helping organizations create websites, getting first hand experience in the world of business at a young age.

From the Classroom to the Real World

At 19, he started his first official business with his dad, which they ran for four years and received several press mentions. Their tech startup was focused on taking educational content and putting it online, years before online courses became popular. While the business never took off (the software was eventually sold), it provided a perfect training ground for seeing the impact of good and bad strategic decisions. 

After nine months of soul searching and backpacking across 9 countries and 25 cities, he found his next opportunity. He became enthralled by the world of data and the role it played in decisions.It seemed like having the right data could help organizations make better decisions.

He started focusing on decision-making, especially around strategy and innovation. He realized that decisions are the pivot points where change happens. If you can help an organization make better decisions, you can create a drastically different future.

The Present

That’s where you find him today. He has taken the learnings from working with 90+ organizations across five continents and distilled them into essays, videos, a weekly newsletter, speeches and two commercially published books (Data Mirage and Bulletproof Decisions).

His goal is to provoke how organizations operate by making drastically superior strategic decisions. His love for learning is still there, as he continues to understand why organizations make good or bad decisions and how he could make a difference.

Ruben resides in beautiful Vancouver, Canada, alongside his family and a 2-year old Golden Retriever named Remy, who maintains a regular "job" in pet therapy.