From First Hire to COO: María Camila Ramírez on Scaling Ontop to $1B+ in Cross-Border Payments and 190 Countries

~Gauri Singh

While cross-border payments and global hiring can promise borderless growth, the reality is far more complex. Expanding across dozens—let alone hundreds—of countries often means delayed launches, regulatory risk, and teams consumed by workarounds instead of product innovation.

This was the challenge Maria Camila Ramirez stepped into when she joined Ontop as its very first employee: “When I joined, Ontop basically didn’t exist yet. I came in as an ops analyst, not knowing anything about fintech. Five years later, I’ve been through everything,” she recalls.

At the time, Ontop had no systems in place. There were no payment rails, no compliance processes, no onboarding workflows, and no customer support. Today, this platform lets businesses manage contracts, payroll, and onboarding in just one click.

Maria recalls how everything had to be built from the ground up: “I’ve been launching financial services, improving operations, building teams, and helping the company become cash-flow positive.”

This “from-scratch” experience placed Ramirez among a small group of operators worldwide who have personally built regulated financial systems before scale—rather than inheriting them after growth.

Very few leaders have managed to do all of this at once—integrate AI, handle cross-border compliance, and keep the business profitable over time.

Thanks to Ramirez’s experience working across every layer of the business, from manual payments to AI-driven systems, she gained a deep, practical understanding of fintech. That hands-on experience later became the foundation of her reputation as a global operator. Today, founders often look to her work as a guide for scaling fintech systems without getting stuck in compliance or operational hurdles.

Her early foundational groundwork made Ontop’s first digital platform possible. Within its first year, the company enabled more than 200 businesses to hire remote workers across 55+ countries. As Ontop scaled, Ramirez’s role expanded in lockstep—mirroring the company’s growth from zero to global scale.

Her role expanded beyond internal operations. She started helping define how cross-border employment and payments could be built to last—across both emerging and developed markets. This approach mirrored a broader industry move toward maturity, where growth, compliance, and financial discipline go hand in hand, and not against each other.

By 2025, she had risen from the company’s first hire to Chief Operating Officer: “I’m very good at taking things from zero to one. Since inception, I’ve launched cards, lending products, and now AI-powered financial services,” she shares. Her hands-on execution, paired with strategic depth, made her a central operator during Ontop’s most critical growth phases,” she shares.

Ramirez is among the few fintech leaders who can roll out AI while maintaining business compliance and profitability. This kind of balance is rare in the industry since many companies chase fast growth first and sort out the fundamentals later.

Julian Torres Gomez, Co-Founder and CEO of Ontop, hired Ramirez as the company’s first employee in 2020. He witnessed firsthand as she stepped into leadership roles, first as Chief of Staff and later as COO. Whether it is through fundraising or operational expansion, Gomez sees Ramirez as one of the most decisive contributors to Ontop’s growth: “She brings together hands-on execution and strategic thinking in a way I’ve rarely seen—even among executives with decades of experience,” he shares.

For Gomez, her defining trait is her willingness to take ownership at every level: rolling up her sleeves when needed, staying calm under pressure, and leading teams with clarity and trust: “She’s the most impressive young professional I’ve hired in my 12 years of building companies,” he says, adding that when Ramirez eventually starts her own company, he plans to be her first investor.

Building the Backbone: Operational Infrastructure

Prior to joining Ontop, Ramirez built her career in consulting. This is where she learned how to tackle complex problems. However, during the pandemic, she began reassessing the kind of impact she wanted to have: “I enjoyed understanding the user, but the work stayed behind the scenes. I wanted to build something where I could clearly see the results,” she shares.

At Ontop, impact was immediate and visible. As Head of Customer Success and Operations, Ramirez was responsible for building Ontop’s operational foundation.  She built global workflows for onboarding, billing, compliance, customer support, and payments to support U.S. and European clients. She also replaced manual, fragmented processes with standardized systems. She designed these systems, scaling in both emerging and developed markets, in mind.

Over time, this approach came to reflect best practices across the fintech industry and influenced how other companies plan growth, compliance, and automation.

In parallel, she built and led a 20-person operations team across 10 countries, covering payments, onboarding, billing, and customer support: “Discipline was non-negotiable,” she explains. “You have to deliver what you commit to—especially when you’re building trust from scratch.”

By 2021, these systems had scaled remote worker hiring from zero to over 1,000, increased monthly transaction volume from $0 to $2.6 million, and maintained payment failure rates below 1%. Her team supported more than 200 companies hiring across 55+ countries while keeping churn under 2% through cohort-based retention analysis.

These early operational foundations became the backbone of Ontop’s growth. They allowed compliance, payments, and customer experience to scale together—without slowing the company’s expansion.

More importantly, her work showed that companies don’t have to choose between speed and strong regulatory standards. This belief has become central to Ramirez’s reputation as an operator who builds for long-term strength, not just short-term growth.

That same credibility also established Ramirez as a trusted leader beyond Ontop. Today, this sought-after AI expert plays an active role in the Latin American tech and fintech community as a judge, mentor, and panelist, sharing hands-on lessons about building teams, strengthening operations, and leading through uncertainty.

Orchestrating Global Payment Networks

Ramirez’s approach to global payments was forged in the trenches. In Ontop’s earliest days, she managed cross-border transactions herself: manually moving money, troubleshooting failures, and working directly with payment partners. That firsthand exposure shaped her strategic mindset: “I managed the payments myself in the early days. That gave me a very real understanding of where things break and how to fix them,” she recalls.

As transaction volumes grew, speed mattered, but so did resilience: “It was about making things work, then making them better,” she explains.  Early failures became learning moments. Each issue fed a cycle of testing, fixing, and improving. Over time, manual processes were replaced with automated systems that reduced errors and supported growth

As the work evolved, so did Ramirez’s role. What started as hands-on operations matured into platform-level leadership. As Chief of Staff, she oversaw payment vendors and operations across dozens of countries. She also led a restructuring that reduced cash burn by 40% in under 10 months. That rare mix of cost discipline and payment reliability strengthened her reputation and showed what sustainable fintech scale looks like in practice.

Ramirez’s philosophy remained consistent, which is that products had to function as real businesses from day one: “From the inception of products, I know it needs to be a real business. You have to understand where you can cut expenses and how to generate more revenue,” she explains. This mindset guided every decision, from vendor selection to corridor expansion.

At the same time, this highly regarded expert built and led operations and customer experience teams across over 15 countries in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Strategic vendor partnerships became a lever for development: “Partnering with the right vendors was critical. It’s how we expanded and reduced costs,” she shares.

By the time Ramirez became COO, Ontop’s global payment network had grown into a reliable, automated system. It was no longer just about moving money across borders, but doing it efficiently and at scale. Her focus on profitability rather than growth at all costs has since shaped regional conversations around sustainable fintech growth and placed her among operators rethinking what “success” really means in financial services.

Compliance and Expansion: A Seamless Scale-Up

As Ontop expanded globally, compliance became one of the biggest challenges. However, Ramirez built a system that allowed the company to operate in over 190 countries, all without compromising regulatory standards.

She did not treat compliance as an afterthought; instead, this sought-after expert embedded it directly into everyday workflows. As a result, compliance is now a core part of how company processes—from onboarding and payments to vendor selection.

This reduced friction as the company grew and allowed Ontop to grow quickly without losing trust: “Compliance isn’t just a checkbox. It’s the backbone of trust in global payments,” she explains.

Her approach reflects her philosophy on operations: building systems that are growth-ready day one, instead of trying to patch and retrofit them later.

During a volatile market period, Ramirez led a compliant restructuring across more than 15 countries. She kept both operations and regulatory standards intact, even under pressure. This steady execution helped Ontop secure nearly $10 million in Series A+ funding and strengthened investor confidence.

She has since continued to modernize compliance using AI. By automating monitoring and reducing manual checks, she improved efficiency, lowered risk, and made measurable progress toward profitability.

This systems-level view of compliance and talent later extended into mentoring early-stage founders and young leaders, most notably through Endeavor programs and fellowship initiatives focused on building talent density in fast-scaling companies.

Leadership at the Helm

At Ontop, Ramirez plays an active role across all levels of the business. As COO, she connects strategy with execution, working alongside the CEO to shape roadmaps, drive AI initiatives, and guide the development of new financial products.

Under her leadership, Ontop launched services such as Early Wage Access and investment features that allow workers to invest directly from their Ontop accounts: “We launched entirely new financial services in weeks, not months. AI made that possible,” she says.

Following a company-wide restructuring, Ramirez helped steer Ontop to cash-flow and EBITDA positivity, ensuring growth did not come at the expense of trust or stability: “It’s about building systems that grow with you,” she explains. Achieving profitability while expanding across 190+ countries placed Ontop—and Ramirez—among a rare class of globally scaled yet financially disciplined fintech operators.

The foundation Ramirez built in Ontop’s early days eventually powered the company’s AI-first shift. That foundation enabled Ontop to operate in almost 200 countries and attract investors such as Tiger Global, Point72, and General Catalyst.

The systems she built have had lasting impact, influencing how global payroll, payments, and financial access are designed well beyond Ontop itself.

Inside the company, colleagues dubbed her the “get-things-done officer.” For one, her leadership approach has drawn praise from Federica Vegas, a performance coach and facilitator for Women in Management (WIM) at Stanford GSB, who has worked closely with Ramirez since 2021 while coaching Ontop’s executive team.

According to Vegas, Ramirez stood out early on not just for her execution skills, but for the mindset she brought to every challenge: “She has always had her CEO’s back, as well as the entire executive team’s,” Vegas notes, commending Ramirez’s ability to reinvent her role through multiple company inflection points while remaining anchored to Ontop’s long-term vision.

Vegas remembers how Ramirez stayed calm under pressure. She handled tough situations while remaining confident and self-aware. She wasn’t afraid of difficult conversations and was always working to improve as a leader. At the same time, her technical and operational skills were remarkable. She could build systems from scratch, turn ideas into action, and jump in wherever help was needed: “She turns bold ideas into reality,” Vegas says.

Throughout this growth, this sought-after expert continued to push herself beyond her comfort zone.  Ramirez sees her own evolution as inseparable from Ontop’s journey: “I grew at the same pace as the company. There was no traditional path—just constant learning, being comfortable with uncertainty, and investing in myself as fast as the company was growing,” she shares.

People often talk about Ontop in terms of valuation and global reach. But behind every fast-growing startup is someone building the systems that keep it running. Ramirez’s journey from first hire to COO shows that success isn’t driven by vision alone.  It depends on operators who step in early, take responsibility, and turn uncertainty into progress.

About the Author: Gauri Singh is a content contributor with experience writing business and technology-focused articles for professional audiences. Her work covers leadership profiles, operational strategy, and emerging trends across industries. Gauri has contributed to long-form editorial content designed to present complex topics in a clear, structured, and accessible way. She works closely with editorial teams to ensure accuracy, clarity, and alignment with publication standards..