Rafa Villa Email & Phone Number

Rafa is a serial entrepreneur specialized in social, business, civic and public policy innovation. His expertise is focused on the management of collective action for the generation of economic, social and public value (innovation ecosystems, value chains, clusters, multi-stakeholder cooperation, etc.). He has worked for more than twenty years in the areas of innovation, public goods, international cooperation, public policy and political economy in his native Colombia, and regionally in Latin America and the Caribbean. Currently, Rafa is CIO at P-Lab. From a professional point of view, Rafa has focused his efforts and accumulated experience, as well as a vast network of contacts at the strategic and operational levels from coordinating the portfolio of more than 100 multinational projects throughout his corporate work before dedicating himself entirely to his innovation boutique firm, P-Lab. In recent years he has concentrated his efforts in supporting the structuring and reengineering of civil society organizations, foundations and cooperation networks to scale and deepen their social value, as well as private companies in their transformation to purpose-driven and environmental social impact models. He also dedicates part of his entrepreneurial vocation to spin-offs and new ventures in education for the XXI Century, artificial intelligence, triple impact investment models and specialty coffee, his passion inherited from his ancestors; founding along these years five start-ups: Policy lab (Innovation consultancy), AMP-HAUS (business consultancy), Vital Tech (artificial intelligence-based toys), EchoU (Edutech for tourism) and Pacifico Coffee Devs (innovation in high-value specialty coffee)Prior to working at P-Lab, Rafa was linked to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Washington D.C., USA, as a monitoring and evaluation specialist for the Regional Public Goods Program for 8 years. Prior to that he was a Regional Technical Cooperation Specialist at the IDB from 2003 to 2007. Between 2001 and 2003 he was Advisor for the Public Administration Reform Program (PRAP) and for the Business Development Directorate (DDE) of the National Planning Department. During the same period, he was a consultant in the areas of technological development and regional competitiveness for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

Listed skills include International Development, Public Policy, International Relations, Policy Analysis, and 19 others.