Ricardo Villate is responsible for the management and direction of IDC's business across the Latin America region.

Mr. Villate has more than 20 years of experience in the IT and financial industries in Latin America. During his tenure at IDC, he has held various positions within the organization. Prior to becoming Group Vice President for Latin America, he was the Vice President for all Research and Consulting in the region and, prior to that, General Manager, Southern Cone (Argentina, Chile, Peru). Before that, Ricardo held several regional management positions. He started his career at IDC Latin America as a senior analyst in the enterprise IT industry. His knowledge comes through his years as an IT market consultant combined with his background in the financial services industry.

Mr. Villate spends much of his time traveling throughout Latin America presenting at industry and vendor events on digital transformation, 3^rd Platform innovation and the evolution of ICT, marketing in the IT industry, Latin America in the context of Emerging Markets, and IT sales and partnering strategies, among other topics.

He is frequently quoted in the Latin America media including the Wall Street Journal, America Economia, LatinTrade, and BNAmericas.

Prior to joining IDC, Mr. Villate worked as a director for Fiduciaria Popular, a financial institution in Colombia, and in IBM Colombia.

Mr. Villate is a graduate from the Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, Colombia, with a degree in Industrial Engineering. He also holds a marketing degree from the University of California at Berkeley and an economics degree from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogota. While in the Colombian army, Mr. Villate lived in the Middle East.  He is a native Spanish speaker.