Rodrigo Zepeda

Industrial & Systems Engineer · Tec de Monterrey · UC Berkeley IEOR 2026–27

Rodrigo Zepeda

I design systems where people and organizations grow.

  • / Systems engineering
  • / Human development
  • / Strategy
Open to co-founders · mentorship · 2027 internshipsBuilding with UC Berkeley × SkyDeck · Berkeley, CA
Rodrigo Zepeda in a checked shirt, arms crossed, in front of the Golden Gate Bridge
San Francisco · 2026

The system

Inputs · process · outputs

Inputs

Process

Outputs

Systems map

Select any node to trace what feeds it and what it produces.

Questioning

Five questions · five results

My biggest advantage, at work and in life, is the capacity to question.

A good question is only useful if it leads somewhere. These are questions I asked in real projects. Select one to see where it led.

How is the process working now, and what do we need to understand to give customers a better experience?

Dow · operations and customer experience

One connected flow, about 3× faster

Mapping how the regional sample process really worked showed that customers waited while every request stopped at each handoff between commercial, customer service and logistics. Connecting the three into one flow, run by an AI agent, made samples about 3× faster and was tied to $16M USD in won opportunities.

See the work →

How can the constraint turn into a competitive advantage?

ASU case competition · supply chain

Allocate the scarce resource where value is highest

GPU supply capped AI server output below demand every year. Instead of treating it as a limit, we built a decision engine that tested 297 network strategies across 5,000 scenarios each, and turned the constraint into a strategy: a hybrid network and GPUs sent first to the highest-value demand.

See the work →

How can we measure the narrative alignment of greenwashing?

Research · greenwashing

Narrative-alignment KPIs

Compare what a company says about sustainability with where its capital actually goes, for the same company and the same year. The paper turns that comparison into Power BI indicators, using BP as an illustrative case, and treats each gap as a signal worth a closer look.

See the work →

Which question helps a person find their own answer?

EGS · facilitation

Socratic dialogue, every week

Facilitating 3 groups of 9 and a campus of 35+ taught me that the best question is the one that lets each person find their own answer.

See the work →

Can we measure human development in humanistic leadership?

In progress · AI

An agent for humanistic leadership

Together with EGS I am training an AI agent that assesses human development through humanistic leadership, using essays from many contexts so it stays fair to people who think and write differently. It is still in training; we project applications in academic and talent development.

See the work →

Roles

Company · role · what I learned

Each role is a small constellation. The center is where I was and what I did. Select any point around it to see what that role taught me.

DowMarketing & Sales Support
Polyurethanes North Region Latin America · Feb 2025 – Jun 2026

Dow

Marketing & Sales Support

Dow is where I developed my commercial skills. I managed a $12M USD customer account, supported the sales team with market and lead research, and learned how a global company turns process into revenue.

  • Commercial
  • Power BI
  • AI agent
  • Confidential · no client data shown
What I learned

  • Commercial skills

    Managing a $12M USD account taught me to read a customer's business, prepare commercial analysis, develop materials and hold a relationship over time.

  • Process redesign

    I mapped the regional sample process and connected commercial, customer service and logistics into one flow. Samples moved about 3× faster, tied to $16M USD in won opportunities.

  • Business intelligence

    I built and maintained a commercial Power BI dashboard used for strategic decisions across Dow's four Latin America regions: Brazil, North, South and Andean.

  • AI automation

    The final deliverable of the sample project was an automated AI agent that runs the process, so the improvement does not depend on one person.

  • Market research

    Lead and market research to support the sales team's pipeline.

Select a point in the constellation · 5 of them
EGS Global Leadership ProgramFacilitator · former participant
Tec de Monterrey · 2024 – 2026

EGS Global Leadership Program

Facilitator · former participant

As a facilitator I guided human development through Socratic discussion: three groups of nine people and a campus of 35+ in weekly dialogue sessions. Facilitating human development is what I am most passionate about.

  • Facilitation
  • Social impact
  • Indicators
What I learned

  • Socratic facilitation

    Weekly dialogue sessions with 3 groups of 9 and a campus of 35+. The work is asking questions that help each person find their own answers.

  • Leading 35 people

    As a participant in the 4th generation (cohort of 168), I led a 35-person team in Escuela Móvil, a project with a vulnerable community in Querétaro.

  • Measuring impact

    I built an indicators manual and an evaluation dashboard, and co-planned a two-day community fair later documented as a replication manual.

  • Recognition

    Don Eugenio's Circle, the program's highest distinction, and the Social Entrepreneurship award.

  • Community methods

    In the 5th generation I supported Camellón, a methodology for perceived safety and community intervention.

  • Storytelling

    I built the program's LinkedIn strategy from zero: impressions grew from 7 to 46,800 and external visitors from 1 to 1,394. My article on humanistic leadership drew a response from Jim Kouzes.

Select a point in the constellation · 6 of them
Tec de MonterreyMentor · NOVA & Peer Mentor
Peer Mentor 2024 – 2025 · NOVA Mentor, present

Tec de Monterrey

Mentor · NOVA & Peer Mentor

Mentoring is facilitation one person at a time. I have walked alongside university freshmen and now high-school students in a program built on conscious leadership.

  • Mentoring
  • Conscious leadership
  • Community
What I learned

  • Conscious leadership

    In NOVA I guide five high-school students directly, helping them name their values before they choose a path.

  • Peer mentoring

    Eleven mentees through a full academic year, accompanying their first steps at the university.

  • Community building

    As community leader of Ekvilibro for the 2024 Community Games, our community brought more than 100 participants to the main event.

  • Representing the Tec

    Years as a Student Ambassador, sharing the Tec's story with students deciding their future.

Select a point in the constellation · 4 of them
ConsultingIndependent Consultant · academic & freelance
Mexico · 2024 – 2026

Consulting

Independent Consultant · academic & freelance

Short, focused projects with real companies. Details stay at a high level because of confidentiality agreements.

  • Logistics
  • Process mapping
  • Strategy
  • Confidential · no client data shown
What I learned

  • OXXO CEDIS

    Time and workflow measurement at distribution center workstations to optimize the operation.

  • Coppel

    For Compras Tecnología, Coppel's technology purchasing department: a financial metrics dashboard, traceability, process mapping and optimization.

  • Nitamy

    Two projects for a Mexican candy distributor: marketing strategy and heuristics, and logistics optimization.

  • Tec physical plant

    A proposal to bring Industry 5.0 technology into the university's physical plant, plus measurement and optimization of cleaning routines and workflows.

  • Eugenio Garza Lagüera Institute

    Organizational process design for the Institute of Entrepreneurship.

  • Freelance

    A B2C app, and a restaurant concept covering design, strategy, supply chain and the financial model.

Select a point in the constellation · 6 of them

Projects

Problem · approach · result
Supply chain · Spring 2026

From constraint to competitive advantage

Representing Tec de Monterrey and Mexico at the SCMA International Case Competition, Arizona State University. Team with Emiliano Navarro, Lizbeth González and Karyme Ventura.

  • Python
  • Monte Carlo
  • Network design
  • Multi-objective scoring
0100K200K−8.3K2024−32.5K2025−60.8K2026GPU-limited capacityAI server demand
Max servers = GPU supply ÷ 1.2 GPUs per server. The gap is unmet demand.
See the decision engine →
Problem

Averion, a build-to-order tech infrastructure company, gets 30% of revenue from AI servers. GPU supply caps output below demand every year, and the gap grows to 60.8K units by 2026.

Approach

We built a decision engine in Python. It generates every plant-to-market assignment and logistics mix, runs each through 5,000 Monte Carlo demand and carbon-price scenarios, filters by hard constraints (profit ≥ $210M, CO₂ ≤ 8.0 kt, ocean share ≥ 80%, resilience ≥ 60), and scores survivors on weighted profiles. If nothing is feasible, a relaxation step names the binding constraint.

Result

A constraint-driven hybrid build-to-order network: Mexico serves North America, Malaysia serves APAC, the US is kept for priority builds. Scarce GPUs go to the highest-value demand first. Ocean is the default shipping mode, to keep cost and emissions low, and air freight is used only for SLA-critical or high-value orders.

  • 297strategies
  • 5,000scenarios each
  • 1.485Mdata points
  • 4KPIs: profit, CO₂, growth, resilience
In progress · with EGS

An AI agent for humanistic leadership

  • AI
  • Assessment
  • Inclusion
Question

Can we measure human development in humanistic leadership?

Approach

Built on RCES-NLI (Rhetoric-Conditioned Essay Scoring with NLI Opposition), a Longformer-based model that reads long argumentative essays structured as hypothesis, argument, counterargument and conclusion. It scores five dimensions: emotional sum, modality (assertive or aggressive), stance and impartiality, justice, and concern for one's own and others' results, which maps to a conflict-handling style.

Status

Still in training. We project applications in academic and talent development.

Product · Berkeley × DeepMind Hackathon: Build. Ship. Pitch. Win.

AstroLingo Quest

A child-friendly language game. Kids make story choices, watch short astronaut scenes, and learn English and Spanish vocabulary by typing the words they see.

  • AI tools
  • Google Cloud Run
  • EdTech
  • EN / ES
Try the live prototype ↗
Prototype 2 · AstroLingo Quest: choose a scene, recall the word, type it.
Design bet

Story choices give kids a reason to want the next word. Typing makes recall active, and a teacher mode lets a classroom follow along.

Earlier version

Prototype 1 · RotLingo. "Turn your scroll time into brain time." You type any theme and the lessons adapt their vocabulary and grammar to it.

Research & writing

Data · sustainability · ethics · leadership
Published · 2025

Big Data as Sustainable Educational Key to a Waste-Free Future

Zepeda Pérez, R., Thierry-Aguilera, R., Vilalta-Perdomo, E. Proceedings of the IISE Annual Conference & Expo 2025. Abstract ID 9052. Author and presenter.

How can economic growth and environmental preservation be reconciled? This review argues that much of the answer is educating people to apply technologies such as big data. It covers how industry uses big data to cut its carbon footprint, improve energy efficiency and run more sustainable supply chains, and what makes that education hard.

  • SDG 4
  • SDG 7
  • SDG 12
  • Waste management
Read the paper · PDF ↗
Accepted for presentation · IEEM 2026

Greenwashing Risks and Business Intelligence: An Illustrative Diagnostic Framework for Sustainability Narrative-Performance Alignment

Zepeda Pérez, R., Thierry-Aguilera, R., Arana-Solares, I., Granados Mendoza, I. F., Escobedo Velasco, A. Accepted for presentation at IEEM 2026. Supported by the Writing Lab, Institute for the Future of Education, Tecnológico de Monterrey.

Greenwashing, the practice of overstating or misrepresenting a company's sustainability efforts, has become an increasing concern as businesses face rising environmental expectations, regulatory scrutiny, and stakeholder demand for credible ESG disclosure. This paper examines how Business Intelligence (BI) tools can help create an illustrative diagnostic and dashboard for surfacing potential misalignments of misleading sustainability claims by transforming ESG data into human-ready insights for review. Using platforms such as Power BI, the study visualizes key analytical features that signal potential greenwashing, including misalignment between qualitative narratives and quantitative performance, reporting inconsistencies, and deviations from industry benchmarks. An illustrative BI-based model is then developed and simulated to demonstrate how analytics dashboards can operationalize risk patterns while enhancing transparency and accountability in sustainability reporting. The findings highlight both the opportunities and challenges of integrating BI into ESG assurance, particularly regarding data quality, governance, and standardization. By bridging data analytics with ethical oversight, this research positions BI not only as a risk-mitigation tool, but as a value-generating mechanism that strengthens customer trust, supports informed stakeholder decision-making, and reinforces long-term corporate credibility.

  • ESG analytics
  • Power BI
  • SDG 12
  • SDG 16
Read the paper · 5 pages · PDF ↗Extended version · 7 pages · PDF ↗
Manuscript in progress

EGS Neural Network: Rhetoric-Conditioned Essay Scoring with NLI Opposition

Gutiérrez-Bernal, S., Pérez Guerrero, J. Á., Macías Delgado, F. I., Zepeda Pérez, R., Amézquita Garza, M. Tecnológico de Monterrey, School of Engineering and Sciences and School of Humanities and Education.

Sentiment analysis struggles with long essays where people argue through logic and rhetoric instead of explicit emotion. This work proposes a model that scores each section of an argumentative essay and measures how strongly the argument and counterargument oppose each other, to assess humanistic leadership traits such as impartiality, justice and conflict-handling style.

  • NLP
  • Longformer
  • Humanistic leadership
  • Responsible AI

Work in progress. Full text available once published.

Published · LinkedIn

The Impact Leadership Opportunity (ILO) Initiative: A Model for Humanistic and Collaborative Leadership

Written for the EGS Global Leadership Program and published on LinkedIn. It drew a response from Jim Kouzes, co-author of The Leadership Challenge.

Read on LinkedIn ↗

Axiology

Three values · eight principles

Axiology is the study of what we value and why. Mine starts from three values. Select one to see the principles that grow from it, or select a principle to see its roots.

My values

Beyond work

The person behind the CV

If we meet for coffee, these are the things I will probably end up talking about.

Off the clockMind · body · art

Off the clock

Mind · body · art

Reading, training, music and writing. The things that keep me curious and grounded.

What I learned

  • Philosophy & spirituality

    Most of my reading is philosophy, spirituality and psychology. It is where my interest in ethics as a practical tool comes from.

  • Psychology

    Psychology helps me understand others, and through them, myself.

  • Taekwondo

    I practiced Taekwondo for 18 years and competed as a professional athlete for 10 of them.

  • Gym & sports

    I love sports and these days I am back in the gym.

  • Dancing

    I love to dance salsa, bachata and merengue.

  • Music

    Jazz, rock, alternative and Latin rhythms.

  • Poetry & writing

    I write poetry and keep a journal. Writing is how I find out what I think.

  • Meditation

    Meditation and journaling are my daily practice for listening to my own conscience.

  • Wine

    A good glass of wine, ideally with jazz and a long conversation.

Select a point in the constellation · 9 of them
ServiceVolunteering · social development

Service

Volunteering · social development

Service is one of the values that guide me. These are some of the communities, projects and organizations I have worked alongside.

What I learned

  • La Otra Bandita

    Escuela Móvil, a project with a vulnerable community in Querétaro, through the EGS program.

  • Camellón

    In the EGS 5th generation I supported Camellón, a methodology for perceived safety and community intervention.

  • Family foundation

    A family foundation through which we direct resources and donations across Mexico City and Chiapas.

  • Partnerships

    Through one of my social ventures, I have worked on partnerships with organizations such as Mercy International to support this work.

  • Chiapas

    Connecting people from vulnerable communities in Chiapas with social innovation projects.

  • Social service

    My social service at Tec de Monterrey, with AMPRE in Mexico and with ComposTec on my campus.

Select a point in the constellation · 6 of them
Federación de EstudiantesSponsorship Coordinator · student government
Campus Ciudad de México · Jun 2025 – Jan 2026

Federación de Estudiantes

Sponsorship Coordinator · student government

The student government of Tec de Monterrey's Mexico City campus. As Sponsorship Coordinator I built the partnerships and funding behind the largest events on campus and in the region.

  • Partnerships
  • Sponsorships
  • Finance
What I learned

  • Strategic alliances

    I built alliances with companies, entrepreneurs and organizations to create high-impact projects and events for the student body.

  • Sponsorships

    I secured sponsorships for the campus's and the region's largest events, which raised the institution's visibility and opened more opportunities for students.

  • Social event

    I secured sponsors for a social event for four homes for the elderly in Mexico City, with cultural and artistic activities.

  • Financial control

    I managed the Executive Committee's financial control and kept it in a healthy position for long-term initiatives.

  • Scholarship funding

    I designed funding strategies that support student scholarships and widen access to education.

Select a point in the constellation · 5 of them

Now

October 2026 · Berkeley, CA
Building
A startup through a UC Berkeley × SkyDeck partnership. My ideas sit at the intersection of AI, human development, ethics and memory management.
Looking for
Mentorship, conversations with founders, and co-founders who want to build in that space with me.
Studying
Exchange year at UC Berkeley IEOR, including engineering economics.
Mentoring
Five high-school students in Tec de Monterrey's NOVA leadership program.
Open to
2027 internships in the Bay Area in strategy, operations, consulting or AI products.
Rodrigo Zepeda, professional portrait

Let's talk.

Founders, mentors and future co-founders especially. I also like conversations about leadership, education, philosophy and how AI changes all three.