Daniel Cardenas

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Ten years building operational systems across Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe. Bilingual native English and Spanish, professional Portuguese. Currently consulting in Panama and Mexico.

Open to operations leadership roles and selective consulting engagements. Email or LinkedIn — whichever you prefer.

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Including the following helps me respond well:

  • Role or engagement scope and rough timeline.
  • Where you're based and where the work would happen.
  • A sentence on what you have in mind.

Based in Panama City. Open to roles across Panama, Mexico, and the broader Latin American region; remote work considered for the right scope. Most replies within two business days.

Frequently asked questions

What kinds of roles are you considering?

Senior operations leadership — Operations Manager, Head of Operations, COO, or PMO Lead — at multi-entity businesses, founder-led companies needing operational discipline, and organizations operating across Latin America. Typical scope includes SOP design, PMO implementation, multi-jurisdiction vendor coordination, family-office operations, and 3PL/import-export logistics. I have a clear preference for situations where operational complexity is intrinsic to the business — multiple entities, multiple countries, or technically uncommon environments.

Where are you based and where do you work?

I'm based in Panama City, Panama. Currently consulting concurrently in Panama (Spongi — multi-entity family office and short-term-rental portfolio) and Mexico (Transformación Puebla — manufacturing PMO). Operational experience spans Panama, Mexico, Brazil, and Aruba, and I'm available for remote work or travel across Latin America and the Caribbean. Most work is hybrid: remote with on-site presence as needed.

How do you typically structure engagements?

For full-time roles, the conversation usually starts with a short call to confirm fit and clarify what success looks like in the first 90 days. For consulting, typical length is three to twelve months for an embedded operational lead, or shorter for defined-scope projects such as PMO implementation or SOP design. Either way, I keep work selective — generally one to three engagements running concurrently — so each gets real attention.

What industries have you operated in?

Hands-on operational experience across aquaculture and marine technology, manufacturing, family-office and real estate, hospitality and food service, and R&D/technology field deployments. Notable recent engagements include four years at Innovasea (international R&D operations for oceanographic and aquaculture technology), four years at Open Blue Sea Farms (commercial aquaculture scale-up), and current work across a Panama family office and a Mexico manufacturing PMO.

What languages do you work in?

Bilingual native in English and Spanish. Professional working Portuguese, conversational French and Italian. All client work to date has been conducted primarily in English and Spanish. The language depth matters because most engagements are cross-border by design — vendor coordination, regulatory navigation, and stakeholder management often happen across two or three languages within a single project.