More than 20 years of experience in Fortune 100 companies weigh on the resume of María José Martí (Valderrobres, 1976), a UPC engineer who flew to the United States as a technology consultant and consolidated her position as CFO of the largest American Express business and CRO of MetLife for Latin America.

Until one day she decided to quit her job and create a startup.

From New York, the entrepreneurial bug led her to create ZeroError, an AI platform that analyzes data and helps detect possible anomalies. And after presenting her project on bigger stages such as Mobile, and other more familiar ones such as Tech Barcelona’s Afterwork, María José has recently been awarded as the best entrepreneur at the DonaTIC awards.

TB: What is the purpose of your project?

MM: ZeroError is the tool I always needed when I was an executive on Wall Street, but it didn’t exist yet. An artificial intelligence platform for data analytics that detects errors using complex anomaly detection techniques. It’s aimed at data-driven organizations and leaders who have to make decisions and need to know if they can trust them.

TB: Where are you at and where do you see it in two years?

MM: We are scaling, with a lot of traction in Operations and Supply Chain areas, where we can get tangible results in a few weeks. In two years ZeroError will become the standard for data quality in any industry.

TB: A good idea you’ve had.

MM: Launching ZeroError.

TB: What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced?

MM: Well, several. But each one of them helps you grow and forge your character: from moving to the United States, staying there, balancing family life while accepting promotions and positions of greater responsibility… Not to mention that my latest challenge has been to leave a ‘steady’ job to start a startup.

TB: The best advice you’ve ever been given.

MM: Years ago, at the beginning of my career, I was very shy in meetings and had a lot of accent speaking English. But my boss told me, “If you don’t speak in the first five minutes of a meeting, chances are you won’t speak for the whole meeting. No matter how good your analysis is, people have to notice you, or else you’re not relevant. You have to decide if you want to sit at the big boys’ table.”

TB: A role model.

MM: Elon Musk is very controversial and does not inspire me on a personal level. In fact, we couldn’t have more different values. But professionally he takes the bull by the horns. He always says that he is ultimately responsible for engineering decisions, and he says it while sending rockets into space. And this is totally what I have been doing all my life and continue to do with ZeroError. I have a great team of advisors and experts, but the ultimate responsibility for critical decisions, both technology and business, is mine.

TB: A technology that will shape the future.

MM: Definitely Artificial Intelligence (and how well we use it).

TB: Face-to-face or remote?

MM: There are advantages to both models. The important thing is to be productive.

TB: A startup or company.

MM: American Express. I spent most of my career at the New York headquarters and it helped me develop, especially as a leader. I had great mentors and made a lot of friends there.

TB: What makes you disconnect?

MM: 3 things: spending quality time with my kids at home, having dinner with my husband or friends, and doing pilates, several times a week, because without disconnecting you don’t follow the class.

TB: A book to recommend.

MM: “De la Sabana a Marte” by Professor Xavier Sala i Martín. It is an indispensable book for understanding Artificial Intelligence…. and in a few months the second part is coming out!

TB: A series, movie or song that defines your moment in life.

MM: “No Surrender”, by Bruce Springsteen, and “Atento”, by my friend and singer-songwriter Rafa Pons.

TB: A recipe, a restaurant.

MM: If it’s in Barcelona, “Hisop” and “Bodega Sepúlveda”.

TB: A place in the world.

MM: Valderrobres, Barcelona and New York.

TB: Where would you invest 100k?

MM: In the person. I have never made a mistake by investing in the person, in their startup, in their passion to move the project forward and knowledge of the problem.

TB: If you were not an entrepreneur…

MM: Now it’s hard to think about having another profession. It seems that everything I have done in my professional and personal life has been to get to this point.

TB: What is Tech Barcelona for you?

MM: Incredible partners! The work they do to foster relationships between business, startups and research are fundamental. I’m their number one fan and the proof of that is that we don’t stop doing things together.