Every person has gone through it: there’s a worrying bank account charge that can’t be placed, a late-night query, and the need for customer service. There’s a sudden twist, though, when one realizes that there isn’t a stressed, harried human agent at the end of the line — but a chatbot that sounds and feels eerily human. AI customer service in the finance industry has become increasingly the norm. Thanks to finance trailblazers like Maria Alejandra Pulido, Chief Operating Officer of YC-backed powerhouse Domu, more and more customers are enjoying a streamlined, more efficient reality.
Customer service has eroded to rote drudgery for many consumers. With Pulido, however, it becomes dynamic, empathetic, and, best of all, methodical. As COO, Pulido has successfully reimagined the finance and customer service industry with the help of AI. Here, customer service AI bots don’t just answer queries, but anticipate expectations, reactions, and possible questions that makes every case smoother to deal with. Pulido knows exactly what she has to offer and talks of her skills: “My expertise lies in combining AI with financial services knowledge to build products that improve collections, compliance, and customer service. I organize engineering teams to create solutions that align with client needs, drawing on my experience in customer service and international transactions.”
Her brilliance is gripping. With the innovation that she brings to the table, it’s no wonder that her background has perfectly set her up for success.
Empathy at Scale: Pulido's Blueprint for Bot Brilliance
Pulido started her career as a student in finance and international affairs in Colombia. In her time as a university student, she went for an exchange student stint in Germany, opting to study in Cologne Business School for finance. Soon enough, after a stellar history in her university, she started contributing to the success of various companies.
Her first job was a professor assistant role in Law in Universidad Externado. Instead of this job being a surprising twist in comparison to her background and studies, it actually equipped her with skills in strategic planning and people management. She eventually pivoted to becoming a customer service representative in the finance giant PayPal, where she gained first-hand experience in the challenges presented by the customer service industry.
After years of fielding PayPal billing gripes, her genius slowly emerged in code, algorithms, and finance. Unbeknownst to Pulido, she was making decisions that were preparing her for the daily realities of a C-suite executive. She made the trip to Holidu in Munich, Germany, to complete a business internship. Here, she shone in operations. She developed systems for various metrics, scaled operations as the company grew, coordinated daily operations, and enhanced operational efficiency. Beyond her internship, the experience further enriched her in what she could do as an individual. She recounts: “During an exchange program in Germany, I studied finance and interned at a startup, which sparked my passion for fast-paced environments where I could make an impact quickly.”
This passion led her to the path of a tech fellowship on product development, tech tools, and start-up programs in Colombia. Soon enough, she was on the Founding Team at KillB, optimizing workflows and implementing tools and systems to monitor logistics and drive growth. Juliane Martins, CEO of KillB, saw her expertise shine: “Throughout her time with us, she worked closely with colleagues from diverse backgrounds — tech, finance, operations — and was always able to collaborate effectively. Her empathy, versatility, and proactive nature were crucial to many successful projects.”
After a few years of service, Pulido was soon positioned in Domu. There, her experience shines as she orchestrates chatbots for finance giants like Chubb Insurance, Alliance One, BNP, PNC and Teleperformance, drawing on her own customer service experience. There, they dissect queries in real time, drawing on transaction histories to craft context-based replies. She overhauled the entire process for many immigrant clients of U.S. lenders, who were more accustomed to WhatsApp than to the usual SMS-based processes. In response, Pulido’s team engineered different multilingual bots to weave in cultural nuances into every challenge and resolution in a query, spiking their success rates. On this experience, Pulido reflects with pride and excitement: “One project I'm proud of is improving customer service for a client by implementing AI to handle initial inquiries. Having worked in customer service myself, I understand the challenges agents face. Our AI solution provides agents with better data, reducing their workload and improving client interactions.”
Leadership and Critical Thinking in Finance
Pulido developed a razor-sharp grasp of finance’s regulatory maze, drawing on compliance drills and customer service experience. She ensured smooth processes while still prioritizing compliance with rules and regulations. Her chatbots expertly triage inquiries, referring only the most challenging and complex ones to human agents. As a result, agent burnout went down, increasing work satisfaction.
Pulido humbly shares her take on leading her team and contributing to the company: “I’m fully committed, taking ownership of every project and giving 100%. Clients see me as reliable, proactive, and focused on solving their problems quickly. I help them prioritize critical issues while ensuring less urgent tasks are handled efficiently, fostering trust and organization.”
Camila Zancanella, co-founder and CPO of Domu, takes more pride in Pulido, saying: “As COO, Ms. Pulido oversees our strategic operations, infrastructure scaling, and cross-functional execution across product, people, and partnerships. She has applied her deep expertise in financial services and operations to streamline inefficiencies in AI-assisted debt collection, directly impacting both our technology and client outcomes. One of her most critical contributions was the optimization of our AI-powered bots, where she used SQL, Python, and AI tools to reduce latency by more than 60% She identified the latency problem after conducting a comprehensive performance analysis using Postgres queries and internal dashboards to measure end-to-end response times across the speech recognition, large language model (LLM), and telephony layers.” It is clear that Pulido had much to contribute, but Zancanella didn't stop there.
She continues: “Domu’s continued success depends directly on Ms. Pulido’s leadership,
execution, and operational expertise. Her ability to integrate advanced AI solutions with
financial services workflows has made her role indispensable to our growth and market
leadership. I can state without hesitation that Ms. Alejandra Pulido plays a leading and
critical role at Domu Technology Inc.”
Nicolas Diaz Durant, Domu’s CEO and co-founder, believes that her professionalism also extends to her personal life: “On a more personal level, she has been an incredible mentor and collaborator. She is always willing to share her knowledge about AI, data privacy, and fintech innovation. Her combination of strategic thinking and hands-on technical expertise has helped our team overcome both the technical and regulatory barriers that often slow down AI adoption in finance.”
Case Cracked: Real Wins, Raw Insights
However, it isn’t just Domu that Pulido has helped. During her stay at KillB, she served as their Business Development and Operations leader and was a member of their founding team. KillB was a unique fintech company, offering borderless payments, insured USD savings, and modular APIs that enable Latin American businesses to access cross-border banking services.
In her time in KillB, Pulido was a powerhouse in the legal, sales, and business development departments. Not only did her strategic systems increase operational scalability, smoother onboarding, and faster iterations, but she also spearheaded the development of automated infrastructure. The latter included tools like Notion, Airtable, Retool, N8N AI Agents and custom Python scripts. Manual, tiring processes were skipped and transformed into smooth operations.
Beyond internal systems and operations, Pulido built real-time dashboards and automated mechanisms to track KPIs. With Pulido, KillB was able to enjoy a redesigned way to track KPI frameworks, transactions, and volume trends actively. Delays and anomalies became rarer and rarer.
Lisa Muramoto, KillB’s CEO, remembers Pulido well, saying: “Alejandra’s contributions went beyond executing tasks: she shaped KillB’s operational DNA.Her role in Colombia helped establish regional best practices, supported regulatory alignment, and ensured KillB’s value was delivered seamlessly in diverse Latin American contexts. Her expertise, technical orientation, and ability to collaboratively design and scale innovative operational systems make her an extraordinary leader, precisely the kind of professional whose influence continues to propel our firm’s mission forward.”
In her current company, Domu, CFO Felipe Cortes feels the same way: “Her insights helped us automate core financial processes, saving significant operational time and improving analytical precision. Just as importantly, she helped us establish a stronger culture of cross-functional collaboration between finance and data teams.” Beyond his observations of Pulido as a worker, he also notes her passion, concluding: “I first noticed her growing expertise in AI during a project she led that explored how machine learning could improve portfolio risk assessment. She had a deep understanding of the financial logic behind every model, but what really impressed me was how she could make complex AI concepts accessible to non-technical stakeholders. She bridges two worlds, finance and data science, in a way that feels both rigorous and practical.”
With the raw insights that Pulido unlocks through her skills, it’s no wonder that her presence in any company always brings guaranteed success.
Beyond Borders, Beyond Finance
The secret to Pulido’s success is that she is never static nor stagnant in her career and personal development. From being an exchange student in Germany to a leader in various start-ups and companies, Pulido has shown a chameleon-like readiness to adapt to every environment and industry. For example, she was a distinguished attendee of a gathering of leading engineers, AI researchers, and industry experts in VIBE25, held in San Francisco, California. In a series of highly technical capture-the-flag challenges focused on AI jailbreaks and security vulnerabilities, Pulido was recognized to possess superior technical ability.
James Tan, partner at Transpose Platform Management, observes: “Her ability to
design exploits, identify weaknesses, and build defensive strategies against sophisticated LLM jailbreaks demonstrates mastery of both the technical underpinnings of large language models and the real-world challenges of deploying AI securely. She is a leading professional with rare, high-demand skills at the intersection of AI innovation.”
More than a participant, Pulido has also occupied the role of a judge at MHacks 2025, which hosted 700+ hackers from all over North America. Desola Fujah, MHacks Head of Outreach, fondly says: “The judges are one of the most instrumental parts that brings a hackathon together. At MHacks, we love to work with judges who can bring their unique experience and skills to the table. As a judge, Alejandra’s expertise was indispensable, and helped make our event impactful and memorable for all hackers.”
Even in the tech space, Pulido is one memorable individual. This is no incident. Pulido goes far in making sure she stands out, saying: “I want to be remembered as someone trustworthy who delivers results while prioritizing client needs, data security, and innovation. I want to be known for taking end-to-end ownership to achieve impactful outcomes.”
Horizon Ahead: Bots as Brand Builders
Moving forward, Pulido is focused on envisioning and executing “multimodal” chatbots, which incorporates text, voice, and videos to encompass a holistic service. Such a service would result in further streamlining and efficiency on the company’s end. On this, Pulido muses: “I aim to make AI secure, compliant, and human-friendly for financial services. By automating processes and improving customer interactions, we enhance results, strengthen brands, and build better client relationships, as seen in our work with major BPOs and insurers.”
Across companies, it’s clear that Pulido’s strategy simply works. Chatbots don’t replace human representatives. Instead, Pulido focuses on empowering them, forging fintech’s empathetic edge.
Pulido knows, all too well, that there are still gaps that must be filled — and she aims to do it with AI: “Clients are frustrated by inefficient debt collection and poor customer interactions. Our AI recovers overdue payments efficiently while humanizing interactions with natural-sounding voicebots. For example, we’ve helped big banks in Latam like BBVA and Nubank as well as international clients like Chubb and American companies such as Amwins, Ascent and Real Time Solutions, optimize collections, saving time and improving financial results without compromising their brand or overwhelming end users.” Her bots have proven they can be tools and catalysts for driving change in the finance industry.
All in all, Pulido is a powerhouse in practically every aspect of the fintech industry, from employing the necessary technical skills to implement better systems to strategizing for smoother customer service operations. She’s definitely a trailblazer to watch out for in the coming years.
