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- VC Mx: Bárbara González, Co- CEO Fillip
VC Mx: Bárbara González, Co- CEO Fillip
Bárbara González Briseño, Co-CEO of Fillip and former Bitso CFO, is reimagining how Latin America monetizes sports and media through culture, creativity, and long-term vision.
Mack Meyer
December 09, 2025
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Bárbara González Briseño thinks in decades, not quarters. After helping turn Bitso into one of Latin America’s most prominent fintech stories, she co founded Fillip to professionalize sports and entertainment properties across the region. The thesis is simple and powerful. Take culturally loved IP, plug it into a serious operating system, and compound value across media, sponsorships, live events, and merchandising. Her approach blends operator grit with a clear feel for how audiences actually watch, buy, and participate in sports today.
Purpose only compounds when it meets discipline. I am interested in businesses where the cultural energy is already there, and all that is missing is the operational backbone to turn passion into durable value.
Fillip is built as a holding company, not a fund, because time horizons shape behavior. With no obligation to exit on a schedule, Bárbara can focus on doing the slow, unglamorous work that unlocks real monetization. That means standardizing data, modernizing sales, tightening unit economics, and helping founders and families transition from legacy practices to modern operating rhythms. It also means treating fans as participants rather than eyeballs, which reshapes how content is cut, where it lives, and how revenue splits.
I want to wake up in ten years and see a portfolio of properties that are healthier, more entertaining, and more valuable because we built the systems that let them breathe. We are not flipping assets. We are compounding culture.
What shaped her mindset growing up?
Bárbara grew up in a household where excellence was the baseline. Her mother’s side of the family is packed with academics, many of them women with advanced degrees who treated study and service as normal life. That environment set a quiet but unshakable standard. Work hard. Prepare well. Aim high. It also gave her a living blueprint for balancing ambition with responsibility, which later became essential as she built companies while raising a young family.
Pressure is a privilege when it points you toward preparation. I learned early that if I was going to sit in important rooms, I needed to arrive better prepared than anyone else and let execution do the talking.
That foundation turned into practical habits. She plans years ahead. She designs her calendar with deliberate guardrails. And she measures progress by whether the hard things actually ship. The North Star never changed. Earn your seat with competence, then use it to build something useful that lasts and opens the door for the next wave of women who are watching.
I try to be the example I wished I had on day one. Do the work, protect your time, ask for what you need, and then deliver so well that the results speak for you.
Why finance first, and why an MBA?
She chose finance because it forces clarity. Models must balance, cash flows must reconcile, and details matter. Investment banking sharpened her speed and discipline, but operating called to her because outcomes were hers to own. The MBA was a tactical wedge, a way to earn the initial seat in rooms where decisions get made, and then let performance carry the rest. She now tells younger operators that there are many on ramps into meaningful work, but whatever path they choose should expose them to real accountability as fast as possible.
The MBA can open a door, but ownership keeps you inside. Advisory work taught me to analyze. Operating taught me to decide, to commit, and to live with the consequences until the problem is actually solved.
She encourages graduates to consider early stage roles precisely because they compress learning. In a small company you might finalize an investor deck at noon and buy office supplies at two and rebuild a forecast at five. Nothing makes you a complete operator faster than being responsible for outcomes across the stack.
If you want growth, choose environments that stretch you daily. When your name is on the line for both the tiny details and the big decisions, you grow into someone who can be trusted with real leverage.
What did the Bitso years really teach?
Bárbara joined Bitso at the top of the 2017 cycle and then lived through the long, cold contraction that followed. Volumes fell, capital was scarce, regulators had questions, and every dollar mattered. She learned to obsess over runway, to make uncomfortable tradeoffs quickly, and to keep the team focused when sentiment outside the walls was overwhelmingly negative. Those habits hardened a core belief. Survival is a skill. It is built in the hard years, not the euphoric ones.
I still remember celebrating the first green day after months of red. When payroll is the problem on your desk, abstractions fall away. You learn to prioritize trust, compliance, and cash because those are the foundations you scale from later.
When the market turned during COVID, Bitso’s patient investments in product and regulation paid off. The company could finally meet demand with infrastructure that would not crack under pressure. The experience reaffirmed her bias toward preparation over hype and toward building systems that can carry real weight when the wave arrives.
Endurance is a competitive advantage. If you can stay principled when it is hard and stay operationally clean when it is easy, you give yourself the right to grow.
Why move from crypto to sports and media?
After six years in a heavily regulated frontier, she wanted to build in a space that was joyfully cultural and commercially under optimized. Latin American sports properties have enormous audiences and deep emotional roots, but many remain family run and under monetized. Distribution is shifting to creators and free platforms, which rewires the revenue map for anyone who understands how to package rights, data, and experiences for a mobile first generation.
I wanted to build where the work feels fun and meaningful every single day. Sports in Latin America is identity, family, and pride. If you modernize these properties with respect, you unlock value for fans and owners at the same time.
She also recognized a behavioral shift. Gen Z still loves competition, but they want shorter formats, creator lenses, and streams they can watch on their phones. Audience is not disappearing. It is moving. Operators who meet fans where they live will win the next decade.
The same love for the game is there. Change the format, change the camera, change the pace, and you rediscover demand that was never gone. It was just waiting to be addressed properly.
What exactly is Fillip?
Fillip acquires control of sports and entertainment IP and then operates it with a centralized engine. Instead of starting from zero with each brand, Fillip brings shared teams for content production, audience data, sponsorship sales, event operations, ticketing, and licensing. That backbone lets each property turn attention into money across four lines that reinforce one another: media rights, sponsorships, live events, and merchandise.
We take the reins so we can do the real work. Centralize the capabilities that matter and let every acquired property plug into the same engine from day one.
This is not financial engineering. It is operational compounding. With a consistent data layer, Fillip can price inventory more intelligently, negotiate distribution with leverage, standardize measurement for sponsors, and design events that actually fit how fans want to attend. Merch is not an afterthought. It is a storytelling channel that travels with the fan long after the final whistle.
Beloved IP is a gift, but it needs structure. When media, sponsors, events, and product pull in the same direction, brands become healthier and fans feel better served.
How are fan habits changing and why does it matter?
Fans have not lost interest in sports. They have lost patience for formats that ignore their lives. Many want vertical video, creator commentary, behind the scenes access, and highlight rich feeds that fit into short windows. Free platforms like YouTube and Twitch now rival, and sometimes surpass, paywalled audiences. Sponsorship value follows attention, so packaging must evolve, and operators must be fluent in both broadcast and creator ecosystems.
Fans are still here in massive numbers. Give them speed, access, and personalities they care about, and they will show up over and over again on the platforms they already use.
That reality informs Fillip’s content and commercial approach. Clips and creator simulcasts pull people in. Premium long form and live events deepen the bond. Thoughtful merchandise lets the relationship travel into daily life. The right mix depends on the property, but the principle is constant. Respect behavior, then monetize it.
We are not trying to force fans back into old habits. We are meeting them where they are and building experiences that feel natural and worth paying for.
What does Fillip look for when buying or building?
The filter is cultural depth plus operational headroom. Fillip targets properties with passionate audiences, credible history, and room to improve the business model quickly once plugged into the shared engine. The team evaluates media portability across countries, sponsor fit, event quality, and the practical path to profitable merchandise. If the first ninety days can show clear uplift in two of the four lines, it is a strong signal.
We look for beloved properties that are under monetized, not unloved properties that are over explained. If the audience is real, the rest is execution.
They also assess the human side. Many assets are still family owned, so trust and transition matter. Fillip brings patient capital and professional operators, but it also brings respect for what already works. The goal is not to strip a brand of its soul. The goal is to give it a body that can compete.
Stewardship matters. We honor the identity that fans love while upgrading the systems that keep the lights bright for the next generation.
How does she balance company building and motherhood?
Bárbara has three young boys. She treats time like a product that needs guardrails and iteration. Mornings for school drop off and evenings for bedtime are protected. Work happens around those anchors with high intensity and low ceremony. The clarity reduces decision fatigue and guilt, which raises the quality of both work and family life.
I do not take breakfast meetings, and I am not available at bedtime. Those windows belong to my kids. After that, I am back online and fully present for the work that needs me.
She is candid about tradeoffs. Some habits pause. Some nights run late. What matters is that the non negotiables hold and the results show. That example, she hopes, makes it easier for other women to set their own terms and still chase ambitious outcomes.
I want other women to see that you can design a life that holds both. Be explicit about your boundaries and then deliver at a level that makes those boundaries indisputable.
What is she most proud of, and what remains hard?
People are the compounding engine. Recruiting mission aligned operators and giving them a system to win is the work she is proudest of. The hard part is change management inside legacy organizations where habits are decades old. Patience, transparency, and proof are the tools. You show one upgrade, then another, and momentum takes over.
I am proud of the team we are building. They are competent, kind, and relentless, and they make the properties we touch meaningfully better.
The road will not be smooth. Cycles will swing, negotiations will stall, and some transitions will be messy. What will not change is the operating cadence and the belief that Latin America’s culture rich sports landscape deserves modern stewardship and modern returns.
Compounding works in culture the same way it works in finance. Start clean, act consistently, and give the flywheel time. The region is full of upside. We intend to earn it.
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