Maria Fernandez Guajardo is a transformative product executive and entrepreneur with a 25-year track record of shaping the tech landscape from early-stage startups to global companies like Meta and Google. With a unique blend of technical depth and business acumen, she has led the development and global launch of consumer and enterprise products across industries and emerging technologies.
Maria is the creator of Inspirational Pragmatism, a leadership framework designed for organizations navigating extreme uncertainty. She helps companies move fast with purpose by empowering people, streamlining decisions, and crafting adaptable product visions that thrive in today’s high-velocity environments.
Previously, Maria was the global product lead for Gmail at Google, where she led teams across business and consumer segments to deliver one of the company’s first generative AI products at scale. Prior to that, she held senior leadership roles at Meta, where she transformed Facebook’s video ecosystem (Reels, Watch, Live), launched new audio experiences (Podcasts, Music), and pioneered “VR for Work” with the introduction of Oculus for Business—Meta’s first direct hardware offering for enterprises. She also oversaw core technology product management for Oculus, helping advance foundational mixed reality capabilities.
Maria has also served as Vice President of Product at Clear Labs, a biotech company focused on food safety through genomics, and RetailNext, a retail analytics pioneer using computer vision. Her career began in engineering, marketing, and business roles at Texas Instruments and Cadence Design Systems, working across the U.S. and Europe.
She is the co-author of Sail to Scale: Steering Startups Clear of Mistakes from Launch to Exit (2024), written with Heather Jerrehian and Mona Sabet to help founders navigate the pivotal decisions of startup growth.
Beyond her corporate work, Maria is committed to supporting women in tech and advancing STEM education. She founded the Silicon Valley Club de Ejecutivas Españolas and served on the board of Ignited Education. She has been named one of the top 40 leaders in the Bay Area by the Silicon Valley Business Journal and recognized by CNET as one of the most influential Latinos in tech.
Maria holds an Engineer’s degree in Electronics from the University of Zaragoza (Spain) and from Enssat (France), and she has completed executive education at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. She is trilingual in English, Spanish, and French.
