Felipe Zalamea is an economist from Sorbonne University (Masters, 2010). After a 1-year ground research on social innovation (finance, agriculture, fair trade and tourism) travelling across South America (2011), he moved to London where he worked 6 months for a social venture intermediary, acquiring valuable experience within the social enterprise sector. Then he founded Sumak Sustainable Travel (2012), a London-based social enterprise specialised in community-based tourism and sustainable tourism in Latin America. He has visited and promoted hundreds of local sustainable tourism projects.

His areas of expertise include marketing (mostly digital), PR, sales, management and sustainability. For 5 years Sumak Travel was a tour operator and Felipe was its general manager and director. In 2015 Sumak Travel moved operations to Costa Rica and in 2017 became an ecotourism platform generating leads for its trusted local partners, which are responsible tour operators following the principles of fair trade as well as Sumak’s responsible tourism policy. Its mission now is to help responsible travellers find a local, ethical tour operator they can trust in Latin America. Felipe is mainly in charge of digital marketing (focus: SEO) and business development. Additionally, since 2017 Felipe is a PhD student at the University for Peace in Costa Rica (UN-mandated), where his research focuses on finance, community-based tourism and entrepreneurship in rural contexts.