Earl Martin Valencia
Earl Valencia is currently the Co-founder of a stealth fintech start-up and the founding Partner at Cognity Labs, one of the first virtual startup accelerators connecting emerging markets and Silicon Valley. He was previously a Managing Director for Digital Transformation at Charles Schwab, a broker-leader managing over $3 Trillion in assets. He also was in the tech and Innovation teams at Bridgewater, the world’s largest hedge fund and Silicon Valley tech firms.
Earl spent 4 years in the Philippines and co-founded QBO, the National Innovation Center of the Philippines, IdeaSpace Foundation, the leading incubator and accelerator based in Manila and was the VP of Corporate Development and Innovation at Smart/PLDT, a telecom with 60 M mobile subscribers. For his contributions to Philippine innovation, he was awarded by the President of the Philippines as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men and Women of the country and honored by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader.
He also recently launched a podcast entitled “The Startup Mindsets” where he interviews founders, social innovators and corporate entrepreneurs to understand the mindsets involved to create massive change through business and technology.
Earl obtained a degree in Electrical Engineering, Summa Cum Laude, from Boston University, where he was the founding chapter president of Eta Kappa Nu and a member of Tau Beta Pi.
He also has a Masters in Systems Engineering from Cornell University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.