Background and career

How I got here

Darinel Ortega
Darinel OrtegaPanama City
Based in
Panama CityHappy to talk across any time zone
Since
199828 years of uninterrupted practice
Track record
5 industriesBanking · automotive · technology · services · corporate
Focus
IT strategy and governanceEnterprise architecture and sustainable results
Also
Entrepreneur and business ownerMy own ventures alongside my career
Languages
Spanish · technical English

I started out as a programmer. That is still the part I enjoy most: understanding a problem well enough to write it down, and then building something that genuinely solves it.

My career began in the late nineties, writing software for the legal sector, where I learned that a system is worth as much as the process it puts in order, not as much as the technology it runs on. From there I moved into the technology industry, implementing enterprise solutions for clients in very different sectors, and then into the automotive industry, where for eleven years I modernized legacy systems and built the integration platform that connected the whole operation.

Banking was the most demanding school of all. Almost a decade across architecture, systems and technology leadership: a core migration, omnichannel digital platforms, regulatory projects and the discipline imposed by an environment where an outage is measured in reputation and in fines. That is where I finally understood that architecture is a conversation with the business, not a diagram.

Today I work on digital transformation inside a business group. My priority has not changed: technology should be useful and sustainable. Clear objectives, simple metrics, improved processes and open communication across areas.

Alongside all of that, I am an entrepreneur and a business owner. Having your own business changes the way you look at technology: you stop arguing over other people's budgets and start signing your own. That double position —deciding inside an organization and answering for a company of your own— is what sharpened my judgment the most.

In recent years my focus has shifted towards artificial intelligence, but from the same place as always: not as a demo, but as a capability. AI in software development, in defending the organization and in business decisions, with agents built into processes that have an owner and a metric. It is the same question I put to low-code and RPA in their day: which process does it improve, and who is accountable for it.

How I work

  • The decision first, the tool second. No platform justifies its cost on its own.
  • Avoid unnecessary complexity. What cannot be operated cannot be sustained.
  • Measure little, measure well. Metrics somebody actually looks at every day, not decorative dashboards.
  • The team first. Teach, delegate and build leaders who can sustain the change.
As an educator and mentor, what interests me is the professional growth of teams: developing leaders who can drive change with a positive and lasting impact.

Education

  • Law and Political Science degree — USMA (in progress)
  • Master’s in Higher Education Teaching — Universidad Latina de Panamá, 2023
  • Software Development degree — Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá, 2009
  • Business Leadership diploma — ADEN, 2014

Certifications and courses

  • IT Governance, ITSM, COBIT 2019 and ITIL — Pink Elephant, 2024
  • TOGAF — Enterprise Architecture Foundations, 2024
  • Microsoft Azure Fundamentals, 2023
  • Scrum Essentials and agile practices, 2023
  • Low-Code Development with Power Apps, 2023
  • Oracle Cloud Fusion · Lean IT · DevOps
Capabilities

What I work with

Strategy and governance

Digital transformationIT governance Enterprise architecturePMO Risk managementRegulatory compliance ScrumDevOps ITIL / Service managementContinuous improvement (Kaizen)

Cloud and infrastructure

Microsoft AzureAWSIaaS / PaaS / SaaS DockerKubernetesTerraform PowerShellCI/CD

Artificial intelligence and automation

AI agentsAI applied to development RPAPower AutomatePower AppsOutSystems

Development

C# / .NETJavaVisual Studio EclipseGitHub / GitLabAzure DevOps MicroservicesESB / SOA

Databases

Oracle 12c–21cOracle APEXSQL Server PostgreSQLMySQLMongoDB

Enterprise platforms

ERP OracleSAPMicrosoft Dynamics CRMOpen Banking

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