More Method than Epic: Miryam Lazarte’s Commitment to Unite Creativity and Market

Miryam Lazarte’s first Canadian postcard is not a meeting room or a polished co-working space, but a sober landing: Montreal, biting winter, a map to be drawn. She had never been to Canada—not even as a tourist—and yet she chose to arrive “through the front door”: with permanent residency and a plan that mixed her creative craft with her business experience. There was no time for romanticism. She had to learn the pulse of a new ecosystem quickly and, at the same time, not lose the compass that already defined her. “I’ve always seen myself as an entrepreneur,” she says. She does not present it as a label, but as a way of being: spotting opportunities, building teams, iterating.

Her story matters because it dismantles two common simplifications. The first is that skilled migration is a direct passage to success. In reality, it demands successive reconstructions, uncomfortable decisions, and honest conversations about what is and what is not working. The second is that Latino leadership in Canada can be explained only by “external adversities.” Listening to herself, Lazarte chooses another route. “The strongest obstacle is mental,” she warns. She does not say this to blame the victim, but to focus on what can be trained: purpose, method, negotiation, networks.

Her origins sustain that view. The daughter of a Peruvian mother and a Colombian father, with a Chilean grandfather, she grew up and worked in Colombia, but never felt “totally Colombian.” Frequent trips, contact with other cultures, and a sense of belonging that was multiple from early on shaped her perspective. The family was also her first business school. “In Colombia I had several companies with my family: some worked, others did not, and I learned from all of them.” The balance is neither epic nor dramatic; it is clinical. Entrepreneurship, in her case, means learning to read the market, cutting in time what is not moving, and taking care of what does scale.

Migration to Canada was, she says, more a strategic decision than a romantic leap. “I wasn’t attracted to the United States; Canada was my natural choice.” She arrived as a permanent resident and her first stop was Montreal. That fact is not minor. Resolving immigration status from the beginning bought her mental time for something else—studying the terrain, building a network, outlining an offer—instead of living at the fragile pace of temporary permits. Even so, adaptation was not automatic. She had to translate credentials and, above all, describe a professional proposition that brought together the creative and the strategic without leaving her stranded halfway between both worlds.

That double pulse—design and business—is now her trademark. Lazarte studied graphic design and international business development; today she runs an accelerator, operates in the language of startups, talks to investors and, at the same time, “is still involved in marketing and branding, which is my side as a designer.” What matters is not the list of roles but how they feed each other: brand sensitivity helps refine value propositions; training in international trade forces her to measure, negotiate, and scale. This intersection produces a leadership style that refuses to separate narrative and metrics.

Her professional territory also has a deliberate bias: emerging markets. It is not about exoticism or philanthropy, but about recognizing shared patterns. “The conclusion is that in emerging markets we have more similarities than differences: we all struggle with the same things,” she says after accompanying more than 300 startups in the program she leads. She stresses that “it is not our merit” that some have become unicorns, but acknowledges the value of being close to these trajectories: learning in real time the rhythm of accelerated scaling, the typical mistakes, the financing routes that actually work.

When she talks about obstacles, Lazarte prefers a mirror to an accusing finger. “We come with limiting beliefs,” she sums up. Cultural and family messages that narrow possibilities before we even ask. Her diagnosis does not deny external bias—she is clear that being a woman, a person of colour, and a migrant has marked conversations—but it refuses to let those forces have the last word. If everything is explained from the outside, there are no internal levers to move. She proposes the opposite: train your voice to negotiate, treat learning as an investment, and ask questions that open doors.

This emphasis on method also appears in how she describes identity. She has not adopted a highly visible feminist label, she says, because she prefers skills and results to speak. At the same time, she is clear that her biography opens conversations with people who want to understand “the human and business side of coming from emerging markets.” Being Latina is not a decorative adjective here; it is a memory of crisis that becomes muscle. “In Colombia and Latin America we live constant crises. That makes us strong and teaches us to focus on solutions rather than problems,” she says. Resilience is not a slogan; it is a way of prioritizing.

The migrant dimension of her leadership has another particularity: she does not romanticize staying at all costs. Her advice to those who arrive young is as unsentimental as it is useful: clarify why you are here and accept that, if the country does not come together for you, “it’s okay to go back.” In her experience, many Latinos stay “out of pity,” afraid of what others will say if they return. She proposes a different criterion: decisions based on one’s own dreams, not on borrowed narratives. In Canada, staying should also be a meaningful choice.

In listing her achievements, Lazarte is careful. She prefers to frame processes rather than medals. Still, there are verifiable milestones in her testimony: leading an accelerator; supporting more than 300 startups; integrating internationalization, investment, and brand design in practice; trading with people “from all over the world” without losing focus on emerging markets. Her greatest satisfaction, she says, has been “integrating [her] two careers very well” and seeing first hand full cycles of value creation. “It is not our merit that some companies have become unicorns,” she repeats. Her merit lies in sustaining the ecosystem where these growth curves are possible.

At the core of her leadership—and perhaps her most replicable contribution—is a triptych: curiosity, method, network. Curiosity pushes her to explore technology and investment. Method forces her to turn intuition into strategy. The network gives her speed and reach. That combination explains her vocation to “connect emerging market talent with mature markets.” It is not only a cultural bridge; it is an engineering of opportunities: translating a pitch, adjusting a financial narrative, introducing the right person at the right time—small actions with a high multiplier effect.

On a more intimate level, Lazarte never loses sight of the support that anchors her. “I’m married, I’m the mom of a 14-year-old daughter, and I’m very passionate about my family,” she says. Her parents and brother live in Spain; distance has not reduced closeness. This network does not appear as decoration; it is structure. Founders, she suggests, also need a place to land and people with whom to celebrate. The company does not replace the home; it stands more firmly when it acknowledges it.

The lessons she offers others are stripped of solemnity. To a newcomer, she suggests “internalizing the reason why you are here.” If that reason is weak, any obstacle will knock it down. If it is clear, it helps to prioritize. And the gentle reminder she would give her younger self sums up a learning she does not consider exceptional: “You are going to achieve much more than you expected.” She does not say this to inflate expectations, but to invite people to dismantle the low ceiling they sometimes bring with them. Ambition with method: that is the pair.

The reading she offers of the Latino community’s place in Canadian leadership circles returns to the starting point: the mental obstacle. It is not about denying external barriers, but about refusing to give them an explanatory monopoly. In her equation, the way forward is to discipline thinking—to ask, negotiate, and train—and to build a community that raises the bar. Her experience with hundreds of startups offers clues: when success stories are told rigorously—team, product, market, metrics—they cease to be miraculous exceptions and become roadmaps. In the entrepreneurial world, the best inspiration is always a well-told case study.

The closing of her account does not seek a grand moral, just a sober echo. Lazarte does not present her trajectory as an ascending line without turbulence. She prefers a more realistic movement: arriving with status resolved; bringing design and business into dialogue; leading an accelerator that sees companies born and mature; having a frank conversation about the barriers we carry and the ones we face; and choosing, again and again, method over epic. In this itinerary, Latino identity is neither an alibi nor a trophy; it is a toolbox. And its function, she insists, is clear: to open.