In one paragraph
Emilio Bogantes is a Costa Rican technology and AI executive with more than 15 years across software engineering, architecture, and technology leadership. He co-founded Pangea Holdings and was its Chief Technology Officer from March 2023 to July 2026. Earlier he was Director of Engineering at Soom, a regulated SaaS company serving medical-device manufacturers. He is a Learning Facilitator on MIT Professional Education programs, delivered in collaboration with Global Alumni, and an ad honorem instructor delivering individual courses and workshops at Universidad Nacional. He is based in Heredia, Costa Rica.
Results
Before and after.
A title says where I sat. These say what changed.
~80%
lower cloud costs
Soom, a regulated SaaS for medical-device manufacturers. A five-month modernization of the product already in operation, inside FDA and EU MDR constraints.
How it was done4–6 weeks → 1–3 days
to onboard a customer
The same platform. Approximately 80% of manual customer-onboarding work was automated.
How it was done2 weeks → minutes
for complex forensic reports
A legal team facing 13,000+ scanned files. Specialist AI agents do the reading. People verify the result.
How it was done15 sites in 3–4 days
moved off WordPress
A US insurer, about 35,000 daily users per site. Scripts and AI handled the volume. Humans validated it.
How it was done
01 04
Why I do this
Latin America already supplies the engineers. I want it to supply the leaders too.
I’ve spent my career inside the nearshore model between the US and Latin America. It works, and it has built good careers, mine included. Too often, though, the decisions get made in one place and the work gets done in another.
So I hire for ownership. I give unpaid courses and workshops at Universidad Nacional. I’ve run a community where engineers here learn from each other. The aim is plain: more people from this region in the rooms where technology decisions get made.
01 02
How I think
People first. AI with purpose.
People × Processes × Data × AI =
Readiness for AI-enabled transformation
Sustainability runs through every factor.
I start with people and clear ownership, then assess processes, data and AI for a defined initiative. I am developing this formula to assess readiness and identify essential gaps before implementation. Sustainability shapes every factor, and agreed measures of quality, value and impact track the results.
Selected work
- Regulated SaaS modernizationModernization of a regulated SaaS product already in operation for medical-device manufacturers: separate per-customer infrastructure consolidated into one shared platform.Approximately 80% lower cloud infrastructure costs
- AI-assisted legal researchA forensic research tool that interprets and searches a large body of legal protocols.Complex forensic reporting reduced from about two weeks to minutes, with human verification
- Applied AI for construction materials and logisticsAn AI operation that captured after-hours demand, extended customer-service capacity, and optimized delivery routing.Avoided hiring approximately three to four additional people
01 03
Writing
- Why Enterprise AI Pilots Fail Before ProductionIn my experience, AI pilots rarely stall because the model is wrong. More often, they were never designed to reach production.
- Cost per Completed Task: The Metric That Changes AI EconomicsMeasuring AI by tokens or seats hides whether it is actually cheaper. Cost per completed task tells you the truth and changes which use cases are worth funding.
- Responsible AI Is an Engineering Discipline, Not a Policy DeckPrinciples on a slide do not change what an AI system does in production. Controls in the system do.
01 03
Next
Three conversations worth having.
A senior role
CTO, VP of Engineering, Head of AI. Technology decides the outcome, and the mandate is real.
An honest assessment
An outside read on a platform or an AI program, before you commit more money to it.
Teaching and public work
Universities, fellowships and civic programs working on technology and leadership.
01 03
I read every message myself.