Women in Tech Week 2026: Advancing LATAM Women into Global Technology Leadership

Recognising experience, improving decision quality, and advancing talent into executive roles.

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Artificial intelligence is altering the technical requirements and decision-making structures across global organisations. Yet women remain underrepresented in technology and in the leadership positions directing its integration.

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According to UN Women’s 2026 findings on AI and women’s employment, women account for approximately 22% of AI professionals worldwide and hold fewer than 14% of senior leadership positions in the sector. These figures reveal a gap in who participates in developing AI and who decides how the technology is applied.

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At the same time, interest in new opportunities is evident. In Talent500’s Women in Tech Report 2026, 95% of survey respondents indicated they would consider moving into AI-focused roles if given the right organisational support. This points to a critical consideration for employers: access to opportunities and the structural conditions organisations create directly dictate whether interest becomes executive progress.

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For companies working with talent across borders, Latin America is central to this conversation. The region produces professionals accustomed to international contexts and high operational complexity. At Remoti, this connects several areas of our work, from identifying talent to helping professionals apply new skills. Four members of our management team share their perspectives on recognising women’s capabilities and providing meaningful opportunities to participate in the future of technology.

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Recognising the Experience Behind the Title

A job title offers only a limited view of a person’s professional experience. Responsibilities such as managing complex projects, aligning international stakeholders, making operational decisions, and coordinating distributed teams reveal capabilities that nominal titles frequently obscure.

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Sarah, Client Partner at Remoti, confronts this discrepancy when presenting senior candidates to global enterprise clients. "Our focus is strictly on the scope of problems a person has solved," Sarah explains. "When we present senior candidates to global clients, we translate their experience into strategic ownership: P&L accountability, cross-functional coordination, and execution across time zones and cultures. Many women in the region have run entire functions under nominal titles like ‘coordinator’ or ‘lead.’ Making that real scope visible is critical."

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This perspective matters when evaluating career progression in Latin America and the Caribbean. An analysis by IDB Invest and LinkedIn found that women represented 49% of entry-level positions, 35% of managerial roles, and 26% of senior executive positions. The decline in representation across these levels illustrates why career progression requires as much structural focus as recruitment.

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The LATAM Advantage: Connecting Talent to Strategy

María del Mar, Staffing Partner at Remoti, views this transition as a profound opportunity to connect existing capabilities with roles carrying greater responsibility, rather than framing AI purely as a risk.

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"LATAM presents a distinct opportunity to position highly capable female professionals into the exact strategic roles that AI demands," she notes. "We have professionals accustomed to working in international contexts with a growing exposure to technology. The objective is connecting that talent with global opportunities and facilitating their evolution toward strategic positions."

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By evaluating profiles based on stakeholder management and process transformation, companies can use AI as a mechanism to reduce traditional barriers to professional progression. This approach relies on providing continuous training and tangible opportunities for executive mobility.
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Who Influences the Technology We Use?

Access to senior roles matters because those positions dictate which problems companies prioritise, which users they consider, and how products are developed. 

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Carolina Hernández, Product & Growth Manager at Remoti, views women’s participation in these decisions as a strict requirement for decision quality.

"In product development, critical failures often stem from operating on incomplete assumptions about the user," Carolina observes. "When the teams prioritising and designing products share highly similar backgrounds, structural friction points remain entirely outside the conversation."

For global companies serving diverse markets, understanding users requires deep contextual awareness. Professionals transitioning from finance or operations bring first-hand knowledge of systemic frictions.

"Incorporating these diverse experiences fundamentally changes the hypotheses we test, the blind spots we identify, and the risks we mitigate before expanding a global solution," Carolina adds.

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AI Learning Needs a Path Into Leadership

Recognising experience and integrating diverse perspectives must connect with practical opportunities for skill application. Data from the Observatorio de Mujeres y Equidad de Género (OMEG) of Bogotá’s District Women’s Secretariat reported that 15.1% of female AI users applied the technology to programming, compared with 24.9% of male users. While these figures refer specifically to programming, they highlight the necessity of active, supported integration into daily work.

For María Luisa Limas, Operations & Human Resources Manager at Remoti, learning builds actual value when applied directly to existing operational responsibilities.

"Building confidence with AI requires transitioning from learning platforms to everyday problem-solving," Maria Luisa explains. "We direct our teams to start with a defined operational problem, deploy AI to address it, and rigorously assess whether the output improves the underlying process."

This practical application develops judgment alongside technical familiarity. It gives individuals the framework to identify improvements, verify sources, and take ownership of their recommendations. "For women developing their path toward executive roles, we must connect this everyday practice with opportunities to lead improvements, present recommendations, and participate in decisions," Maria Luisa concludes.

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Making Opportunity Part of the Conversation

The perspectives shared by Sarah, María del Mar, Carolina, and María Luisa connect four essential components: recognising operational scope, facilitating access to strategic roles, integrating cognitive diversity into product decisions, and connecting practical learning with executive mobility.

The data provides a clear context. Women represent a smaller share of senior positions in AI than of the overall AI workforce, yet the willingness to transition into these roles is overwhelming when supported correctly.

Companies must examine their internal structures. They must ask how experience is assessed when titles are inadequate, who participates in product decisions, and what mechanisms exist to apply new skills toward executive progression.

Ultimately, building resilient global operations relies on the exact adaptability that LATAM women consistently demonstrate. By translating their operational experience into strategic executive roles, organisations secure the talent capable of leading the next generation of technology.

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