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About

Founder, marketplace operator, and hands-on builder.

Founder and marketplace operator behind ZONA. I work across strategy, pricing, growth, operations, analytics, and product, and build technical systems when they're the fastest way to solve the problem.

Founder

Katherine Solano

I'm a founder and marketplace operator. I founded and operated ZONA, a two-sided nightlife marketplace, end to end: strategy, pricing, venue partnerships, growth, retention, and operations. 150K+ downloads, 60+ venue partners, ~$1M in transaction volume, and $200K+ revenue, across iOS and Android.

I also embed where the work is hardest and own the outcome. I deployed a digital intake system on-site in a Lima clinic that cut wait time in half, reconciled 500K+ transactions across a multi-vendor integration, and built applied-AI systems end to end, from a runtime AI-governance layer for healthcare (Sentra) to a real-time voice agent and a multi-modal clinical triage tool with its own eval harness. I don't just spec AI; I build it, deploy it, and measure whether it actually worked.

I work as an operator first: diagnose the business problem, decide the right intervention, then build it myself, including AI systems, when that's the fastest path to an answer. My background spans marketplace operations, strategy, and applied AI.

I also design the interfaces myself rather than handing that off.

MBA, Pepperdine University.

Experience

Work history.

Every role I've held, with dates.

  1. Oct 2023–
    Present
    Founder & Marketplace Operator — ZONA

    Miami, FL / New York, NY. Founded and operated a two-sided nightlife marketplace end to end: strategy, pricing, venue partnerships, growth, retention, and operations. 150K+ downloads, 60+ venue partners, ~$1M in transaction volume, $200K+ revenue.

  2. Feb–May 2026 Operations Analytics Consultant — Policlínico El Bosque

    Lima, Peru. Redesigned patient intake and scheduling, cutting wait time from 20 to 10 minutes and no-shows from 20% to 12%. Read the case study →

  3. Sep 2025–
    Jan 2026
    Data & Operations Consultant — SmartDealer Technologies (InDesign Data)

    Miami, FL. Scoped a reconciliation review across 500K+ transaction records in a multi-vendor integration, cutting mismatches 25% and manual reporting time 40%. Read the case study →

Applied AI & Academic Programs

  1. Feb–May 2026 Product Manager, Team Lead — IBM SkillsBuild AI Experiential Learning Lab

    Remote. Led a 4-person team building Sentra, an AI runtime governance layer for autonomous agents; shipped an MVP and demoed it to IBM at program close. See the demo →

  2. Jun 2026 Product Manager, Team Lead — NYU Berlin Global Intensive

    Berlin, Germany. Led the healthcare adaptation of Sentra, validating AI-generated medication decisions against live patient data. Won the final pitch competition, presented to Google and Join Capital. See the demo →

Contact

Get in touch.

For roles, collaborations, and product work, use the contact form on the home page.