Skip to main content
Emilio Bogantes

ENES

About

From a public university in Costa Rica to MIT Professional Education.

Emilio Bogantes, smiling, in a white shirt

The story

In February 2011 I took a part-time job as a junior systems engineer at Universidad Nacional in Heredia. I looked after Linux servers and Active Directory and built the department’s website.

From there I went where the problems got harder. At Baum I built e-commerce and booking systems for hospitality and luxury brands. At Hangar Worldwide I was promoted from back-end developer to Technology Lead, working on digital platforms for Fortune 500 clients.

In 2022 I became Director of Engineering at Soom, a regulated SaaS for medical-device manufacturers. I was the most senior technologist in the company, answering to the CEO and investors. I led four managers, hired the Costa Rica team, and we modernized the product, already in operation, in five months.

In 2023 I co-founded Pangea Holdings and ran its technology as CTO until July 2026: two managers, 15 engineers, and AI systems that had to work on Monday morning for real customers.

Since 2025 I’ve been a Learning Facilitator on MIT Professional Education programs in applied generative and agentic AI, in collaboration with Global Alumni. Senior leaders from around the world bring me the question I keep meeting in the work: what is worth building, and who will own it?

And in 2023 I went back to Universidad Nacional, this time to give individual courses and workshops ad honorem.

How I lead

Two rooms. One person accountable.

In my experience, transformations often stall between the boardroom and the engineering floor. Investment, risk and priorities get decided in one. Architecture, cadence and talent get decided in the other. I answer in both, because that gap is usually where the money goes missing.

What I hold to

  • Technology on its own does not transform organizations. Leaders do.

  • Predictable execution is a leadership job. You can’t hand it to the team and hope.

  • An architecture decision should lower risk and raise throughput. If it does only one, ask why.

  • AI belongs where you can measure the value, govern the risk and actually get it into production.

  • Say the uncomfortable thing early. I once challenged a rushed upgrade on sites with 30,000 to 40,000 daily visits, laid out the risks and a staged plan, and we shipped with no data loss.

Where this is going

Costa Rica stays home base.

Next, I want a senior technology or AI role with real authority over the outcome.

Over the longer term, I want to do at a larger scale what I already do at Universidad Nacional and on MIT Professional Education programs: help this region produce the people who lead this technology, as well as the people who build it.

Education

An education still in progress.

  1. MBA in Artificial Intelligence

    University of Cumbria, through Robert Kennedy College

    Started 2023. Dissertation pending.

  2. Chief Technology Officer Program, Blended Professional Certificate

    MIT Professional Education

    Professional program, completed 2023. Not an academic degree.

  3. Bachelor’s degree in Systems Engineering

    Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica

    Completed 2015.

  4. Software Architecture: Principles and Practices

    Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

Languages

Spanish
Native
English
C2

Away from work

Three things that keep me steady.

  1. Golf

    For patience.

  2. Horseback riding

    Because a horse can tell when you’re not calm.

  3. Travel

    Because it keeps showing me what I assumed.