I kept seeing the same thing in every company.
Operations invisible. Knowledge trapped in spreadsheets, emails, and the heads of a few key people. Employees using ChatGPT in secret. Leadership making decisions on a four-day delay. Fifteen years across KPMG, JPMorgan, two startups, and a $2B SaaS company taught me one thing: AI cannot help until the data is governed. I walked in, structured the chaos, and watched margins move. That is what Work-Smart.ai does.
Work-Smart.ai is Ignacio Lopez. I diagnose your operation, build the AI infrastructure your team will actually use, and stay to make it work. Fixed-fee engagements, 4 to 16 weeks. Custom-built, client-owned. Based in Miami. English and Spanish. Not a firm. Not a team. Me.
What changed inside the operation.
Not a firm. Not a team. Me.
Four things I am not.
- 01
Not a Big 4 firm with junior teams and slide decks.
- 02
Not a SaaS subscription with monthly fees and lock-in.
- 03
Not a generalist agency rotating you between consultants.
- 04
Not a tool you have to learn. A system I build, you own, and your team uses on day one.
Ignacio Lopez
Fractional Head of AI, Work-Smart.ai
I started at KPMG auditing banks and utilities across Latin America. Then JPMorgan, running information risk and the technology audit of Argentina's Central Bank. Then I left to build my own thing. Plored, a fashion marketplace across Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. 37,000 daily users, 310 brands, Startup Chile. After that, an MBA and a Master's in Finance at Hult, with corporate strategy work in Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
Then I did it again. Another startup in Miami. Then Kaseya, a $2B SaaS company, where I owned API integrations and automation for a platform serving thousands of businesses. I learned what operational systems look like when they actually have to hold up.
I started Work-Smart because I kept walking into the same room. The CEO knew AI mattered. The team was smart. The data was in five places and nobody trusted the numbers. The big firms wanted six months and a slide deck. Nobody wanted to sit down, look at the operation, and build the thing. So now I do that.
Based in Coconut Grove, Miami. I work in English and Spanish. I work alone.
You're Not Just Hiring One Person. You're Hiring One Person With an AI Infrastructure Behind Him.
When I walk into your operation, I'm not showing up with a laptop and good intentions. I bring an AI infrastructure that lets one person deliver what used to take a team of five.
Every diagnostic I run is backed by deep research systems that analyze your industry, your competitors, your regulatory environment, and your market position, simultaneously, across hundreds of sources, in hours instead of weeks. When I told a wealth advisory firm that their competitors had roughly two orders of magnitude more branded search visibility, I didn't guess. I ran the analysis across every relevant data point before the meeting.
Every build I deliver uses AI systems that work in parallel, one handles data consolidation, one runs quality checks, one documents. When I built a construction company's cost tracking system, the data model, the dashboard logic, and the documentation were being developed at the same time. That's why a 9-month engagement delivered production-ready modules every few weeks instead of one big release at the end.
Every piece of content I create for AI visibility, the 60-page authority framework, the industry-specific pages, the GEO-optimized articles, is produced through AI systems working in coordinated passes: one researches, the next drafts, the next fact-checks. One person's strategic direction, multiplied by infrastructure that doesn't sleep, doesn't forget context, and doesn't lose quality at volume.
This is the same advantage I build for my clients. The difference is I've been operating this way since before most companies knew what a prompt was.
Engagements that would take a consulting firm 6 months and a team of five, I deliver in 4-16 weeks. Not because I cut corners, because the infrastructure behind me doesn't have the bottlenecks a human team does. You get senior strategic thinking and hands-on execution, backed by an AI operation that runs at scale. That's the actual product.
The career arc that makes the work different.
I saw how enterprises break, from the inside.
KPMG and JPMorgan Chase. Four years auditing banks, utilities, telecoms, and pharma companies across Latin America. I tested whether a bank's systems could survive a disaster. I led the technology audit of Argentina's Central Bank. I built security and disaster recovery strategies for one of the largest financial institutions in the world.
What I took from those years isn't on my resume. It's the ability to walk into any operation, construction, legal, financial services, distribution, and see the process failures that leadership can't see because they're too close. The data that doesn't flow. The manual steps that cost millions. The compliance gaps nobody is watching.
When I tell a construction CEO that his team is losing 10-15% per project to process inefficiency, it's because I've been trained to find exactly that. When I tell a wealth advisory firm that 90% of their institutional knowledge is trapped in Outlook, it's the same diagnostic skill, applied to a different industry. The pattern is always the same. The data is broken. The processes are manual. Nobody has visibility.
If your company has 20-200 employees and your data lives in 5+ disconnected systems, that's the exact environment I was trained to diagnose.
I left enterprise to build from zero, and learned what consultants never learn.
After JPMorgan, I did the opposite. I founded Plored.com, a fashion e-commerce platform across Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Built a team of 6, grew to 37,000 daily active users, signed 310 brands, raised seed funding, and got accepted into Startup Chile.
Then I did it again. After an MBA and Master's in Finance at Hult International Business School, with corporate strategy work across Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines. I went back to building. Another startup in Miami. Then Kaseya, a $2B+ SaaS company, where I spent 2.5 years as Senior Product Manager owning API integrations and automation across a platform serving thousands of businesses.
I've founded companies, managed risk at JPMorgan, and scaled products at a $2B SaaS company. That combination means I build fast without cutting corners. I know what it feels like to make payroll when the systems aren't working. I know the difference between a strategy deck and a production system. I know why a CEO needs to see the numbers on Monday morning, not in a quarterly review. And I know why manual processes, no matter how good the people are, always break when the company grows past a certain point.
That's why Work-Smart delivers production systems in 4-16 weeks instead of strategy decks in 6 months.
If you've been quoted $100K+ by a consulting firm and it didn't feel right, it's because you sensed they'd deliver a plan, not a system. You're right.
I saw the gap that nobody was filling, and built Work-Smart to fill it.
Every company I worked with, inside KPMG, inside JPMorgan, at Kaseya, and at my own startups, had the same structural problem. The technology existed. The people were smart. But nobody was bridging the gap between what the CEO needed and what the systems could actually do.
The big firms send junior teams and deliver strategy decks. The automation agencies build one narrow tool and leave. The team-based fractional AI firms rotate consultants and charge $11,600 or more per month for advisory, not building. And the companies that need AI the most. 20 to 200 employees, $5M to $100M in revenue, real operations with real complexity, get ignored by all of them.
I started Work-Smart.ai to be the person those companies were missing. Not an advisor. Not a contractor. A fractional AI leader who diagnoses, builds, trains, governs, and stays. One person who understands both the executive conversation and the technical architecture, backed by an AI infrastructure that makes one person's output match what used to require a team.
If you're a CEO, COO, or Managing Partner running a company with 20-200 employees and you know AI matters but the first step isn't clear, that's exactly who I built this for.
What I've Built at Work-Smart.ai
I started Work-Smart.ai helping Grupo Lyown, a Miami-based law firm with operations in Colombia, where the founding attorney was answering WhatsApp leads during billable hours.
Lyown
Grupo Lyown, a Miami-based law firm with operations in Colombia, where the founding attorney was answering WhatsApp leads during billable hours. I rebuilt their backend, built them a CRM, and created Victoria, an AI agent that pre-qualifies leads and books meetings automatically. They went from significant ad spend with zero conversions to a 42% meeting booking rate on the same budget.
Read the Lyown case study →Concreto
A construction company with 650 employees running 7 active projects from a 15-tab Excel spreadsheet. I built Capataz, an AI system that tracks costs, certifications, schedules, and documents across every project in real time. The CEO stopped finding out about cost overruns 30 days late. 9-month engagement.
Read the Concreto case study →A $14B Wealth Advisory Firm
Started as a 6-week AI visibility project, the firm was invisible to AI search despite 12 years of expertise. Became a 9-month Fractional Head of AI engagement: Voice DNA, 60 authority pages, proposal automation, knowledge base, intelligence briefing, team training, and a full Operational Blueprint. Everything built belongs to the firm.
Read the A $14B Wealth Advisory Firm case study →Packaging Manufacturer
A 40-year-old packaging manufacturer operating in 4 countries with a website that was down half the time. I rebuilt their digital platform so sales, catalog, hiring, and inbound leads run from one place across every market they sell into.
Read the Packaging Manufacturer case study →Rudolph Architecture
Nicolas Rudolph's architecture firm with three divisions (Residential, Office, Revalue). I built three optimized websites, a client portal with milestone tracking and AI-generated weekly summaries, an admin dashboard connecting CRM, leads, projects, and analytics in a single view. 4-week build.
Read the Rudolph Architecture case study →Joy of Impact
Mapi's nonprofit consulting practice (grant writing, strategic planning, workshops for foundations). She was spending 6-8 hours on grant blueprints and thousands per month on a VA to handle operational work. I set up her AI workspace. Claude environment, tool connections, prompt library migration, VA documentation, and cut those grant blueprints to 1-2 hours.
Read the Joy of Impact case study →Almaga
A coaching and membership business running on 7 disconnected tools. Full platform build, website, two-tier membership system, Shopify integration, content hub, booking integration, and AI visibility pages.
Read the Almaga case study →The path that built the capability.
2009 to 2010
KPMG
Advisor, Performance & Technology
How enterprises actually operate. Compliance, risk, process gaps across banking, telecom, pharma.
2011 to 2013
JPMorgan Chase
Information Risk Manager
Operational risk lives in the processes nobody watches. Technology audits, Central Bank compliance, disaster recovery.
2013 to 2017
Plored.com
Founder
How to build from zero. 37K DAU, 310 brands, 3 countries. Startup Chile XII.
2017 to 2019
Hult International Business School
MBA + Master's in Finance
How to translate operations into executive language. Corporate strategy across Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines.
2019 to 2022
Konica Minolta Innovation Lab, Palo Alto
Technology Innovation Associate
Pitched 9 innovation projects across the corporate venture portfolio. Led an AI initiative for clinical trial recruitment that increased enrollment by 20%. Invited to Singularity University. This was the bridge from operator to AI builder, three years before the current AI cycle.
2022 to 2023
RocketArt Labs
Founder
Platform architecture, 6K users, product-market fit in emerging tech.
2023 to 2025
Kaseya
Senior Product Manager ($2B+ SaaS)
What operational systems look like at real scale. API integrations, automation, compliance.
2025, Now
Work-Smart.aiNow
Fractional Head of AI
Everything above, applied to mid-market companies that need AI built the right way.
Every engagement is different. The approach is the same: I walk in, understand the operation, find where data is broken and processes are manual, and build the system that fixes it. Then I stay, monthly, to make sure it keeps working and evolving.
I work directly with CEOs, COOs, and managing partners. No junior team. No subcontractors. When you hire Work-Smart.ai, you get me.
Based in Miami. Clients across the US and Latin America. Bilingual. English and Spanish.
What clients say about how I work.
"You have taken us to a place where we so quickly as business decision makers understood the need to talk to machines. You came in and explained for the first time in a simple way to us what that would mean. Every single time we met, you have a way of structuring presentations, here is the punchline, here are the three things, now let's look at each one. It's in plain English. It's a flow. You make it so easy for us to make decisions and have confidence that the work we're doing is in the right direction."
Managing Partner, $14B wealth advisory firm
"If you can show me a demonstration of success, I have so many people I can send to you."
Marketing agency working with one of my clients
"Before it took 60 minutes. Now they have it in 30 seconds. Nacho has a really sharp mind, he's someone I trust completely."
Construction partner, Concreto/Grupo Portland
"The bot itself, Victoria, if you haven't booked, it messages you again to get you to book the meeting if you're qualified. In 30 seconds it creates the message and starts talking. You can see all the conversations happening in real time."
Legal firm. Lyown, first AI agent client
How I think about the work.
Start with the data, not the tools.
Most companies try to buy AI before they fix the foundation. Their data is in 5 different places, none of them talk to each other, and nobody trusts the numbers. AI on top of broken data produces broken answers. The data layer comes first. Always.
Build production systems, not pilots.
95% of AI pilots fail. I don't do pilots. I build systems that go into production in 4-16 weeks with governance from day one. If it's not running in your operation, it doesn't count.
Make the complex simple enough to decide on.
The technology under the surface can be complex. The experience for the CEO should not be. My job is to take what's actually happening in your operation and distill it to: here's what matters, here's what you need to decide, here's the first step. A managing partner at one of my clients told me that ability is the rarest thing they've found in a consultant, and the reason the engagement worked.
When you work with Work-Smart.ai:
The 30-minute conversation. You walk me through the operation. I listen for the problem underneath. We review your processes, quantify what it's costing you, and start where the smallest investment gets the biggest impact.
Diagnostic that gives you real visibility into your operation, data, tools, processes, AI usage. 2-4 weeks.
Custom build based on what the diagnostic reveals. Could be a dashboard. Could be a WhatsApp agent. Could be a 9-month digital build. Depends on your situation.
Monthly retainer for governance, optimization, new features, and team enablement, if it makes sense for your business.
Available in English and Spanish. Clients in Miami, across the US, Colombia, Argentina, and Latin America.
Questions about working with me.
Yes. Clients across the US, Colombia, Argentina, and Latin America. I'm based in Miami for in-person engagements (South Florida and visits to construction/legal sites), but most work is virtual, workshops, diagnostics, and builds are fully remote. I work in English and Spanish.
Construction, legal services, distribution/manufacturing, financial services, and professional services (architecture, nonprofit consulting). These are where I've built the most, but the approach applies to any mid-market operation with data that's scattered and processes that are manual. If you have 20-200 employees and your CEO can't get answers without asking five people, that's the right fit.
I work alone. No subcontractors. No junior team. When you hire Work-Smart.ai, you get me directly, from diagnostic through build through retainer. That's the whole point. One person means consistency, speed, and direct accountability. I have AI infrastructure behind me (research systems, code generation, document analysis) that multiplies what I can deliver, but it's all me steering.
AI Ops Setup for solopreneurs is a fixed-fee engagement. Claude workspace configuration, custom skills, shortcuts, and automations for solo founders or small teams. A nonprofit consultant went from 6-8 hours per grant to 1-2 hours after a small setup. If you're solo but serious about AI, that's the entry point.
If your data is scattered, your team is spending time on manual processes, or your CEO can't get answers without meetings, you're ready. The AI Ops Audit (a fixed-fee 2-4 week diagnostic) tells you exactly what's broken and whether AI solves it. Most companies are ready. The question is which layers they need and in what order. Start with a conversation or the free assessment, both give you clarity.
Because you get the person who does the work, not the person who sells the work. A consulting firm sends a partner to win the deal and an analyst to deliver it. I do both. Every system I've built. Capataz for construction, Victoria for legal, Voice DNA for wealth management, was built by me directly. The AI tools I use to multiply output are the same ones I deploy for clients.
Let's talk about your operation.
30-minute conversation. You tell me where the pain is. I'll be honest about whether I can help, and what the first step looks like.