# Daniel Sáenz

> Daniel Sáenz (Dani) is a Colombian creative technologist based in Madrid: Creative Tech Director for Coca-Cola Europe at WPP · AI lecturer. His portfolio at https://danielsaenz.com is a playable video game that tells his life through ten eras of video games, from 1980 to today, with AI woven into the experience.

The website is interactive, so this file sums up the same information as plain text. A plain web version is at https://danielsaenz.com/cv/en/ (English) and https://danielsaenz.com/cv/ (Spanish).

## About
- Hey! I'm Daniel Sáenz, but please call me Dani. I make digital ideas come true by combining emerging technology and creative thinking, and I teach others to do it with AI.
- Born in El Líbano (Tolima, Colombia). He has lived in Bogotá, Medellín, Lima, Scottsdale (US) and Madrid, his home since 2016.
- Today he focuses on new business: inventing AI-powered products, designing processes and pitching them.
- He has worked for more than 50 markets, including the United Arab Emirates, the US, Europe and Latin America.
- Languages: Spanish (native) · English (fluent)

## Experience
- **Creative Tech Director for Coca-Cola**, WPP · Europe (Madrid, London, Berlin) (2023 – today): I lead Coca-Cola's digital activations in Europe: the Coca-Cola app, OneXP and out of home. I designed and rolled out the AI integration plan for the creative teams, and I'm an AI Guru for WPP Open.
- **Creative Tech Director**, VML · EMEA (Madrid) (2019 – 2023): I turned my teams' techiest ideas into reality with emerging technology. My most visible work happened here.
- **Digital Development & Innovation Director**, Young & Rubicam · Spain (2016 – 2019): I led the agency's digital development and innovation, from prototype to production.
- **Programming & Design Lead**, Awesome Web Marketing · Scottsdale, US (2015 – 2016): I ran the special projects department and built some of the most visited websites in the US at the time.
- **Creative Director**, Young & Rubicam · Bogotá (2013 – 2015): I pushed the agency's digital ideas and won my first advertising awards.

## Teaching
- Generative AI Course Director, Brother School of Creative · Madrid (2024 – today)
- Strategy & AI lecturer, Brother LATAM · Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Guatemala (2024 – today)
- Marketing & Creativity lecturer, The Valley · Madrid (2024 – today)
- Generative AI lecturer, Mutante · Barcelona (2025 – today)
- AI training and talks, Companies such as Bayer, Repsol and LVMH (2023 – today)

## Awards
- Cannes Lions · Gold & Bronze: FIFA 14 launch in Colombia
- Cannes Lions 2024 · Silver: Test Bético, Real Betis (also LIA 2024 Bronze and Clio Health 2025 Silver)
- Misión Espacial: Hamburguesas El Corral: my first time as technical director, awarded in Ibero-America and at The One Show

## Education
- Customer Experience, Forrester (2021)
- Human-Centered Design, Acumen Academy (2019)
- Graphic Design, Universidad Nacional de Colombia (2010)
- Psychology, focused on cognitive psychology, Universidad Nacional de Colombia (2006)
- Programming, Universidad de los Andes and self-taught (2002 +)

## Selected work
- **Coca-Cola Icons** (Coca-Cola): A campaign that brings back some of Coca-Cola's most iconic prizes, like yo-yos, Walkmans and cameras, so a new generation can discover them.
- **Coca-Cola Flavors** (Coca-Cola): A twist on the classic to launch the Coca-Cola flavours, with an interactive experience, AI-generated assets and activations that invite everyone to give the classic their own touch.
- **Vidrio Retornable** (Coca-Cola): A fun interactive experience that takes you into Coca-Cola's recycling plant to show how returnable glass bottles are recycled.
- **Citrus Kick Effect** (Cappy · Coca-Cola): When you change something in your daily routine, great stories are born. With that idea we built an activation that, from a simple quiz and generative AI, lets every user create their own unique story.
- **Portals of Magic** (Coca-Cola × Tomorrowland): A digital activation where the special-edition Coca-Cola Tomorrowland can becomes the key to magical portals leading to different experiences.
- **Sweat is Beautiful** (Aquarius): A digital activation that uses AI to analyse your level of effort and rewards you with a sample of Aquarius Red Peach.
- **Bank Albilad** (Bank Albilad): A banking app with savings goals, rewards and a 3D world, so managing money feels more like a game.
- **Club Bayer** (Bayer): A metaverse space where pharmacists can find information about Bayer products and join events, talks and games to earn points.
- **Game is Not Over** (Virtual Hero · Movistar+): An interactive game where your smartphone is the controller and any computer screen is the display, to promote the launch of the animated series.
- **#VendoOpelCorsa** (Opel): A social media activation built on social listening that took over the conversation around one of the most iconic jokes in Spanish culture.
- **A Billboard for Your Eyes** (Federópticos): A billboard that used face recognition to detect whether you struggled to read its text, and showed a promotion based on the result.
- **Emoticoke** (Coca-Cola): The first web domain to use a smiley emoji instead of regular characters.
- **FIFA 14** (Microsoft): To celebrate FIFA 14 including Colombian teams for the first time, we replaced the replays of a live match with gameplay footage of the same play.
- **Safe Window** (beIN Sports): A football news website disguised as the software you use at work. We built 11 different interfaces, from email to spreadsheets and 3D software.
- **True Colors** (beIN Sports): An algorithm that processed live video to help colour-blind people watch football matches better.
- **Live Preroll** (beIN Sports): The only preroll ever to show a live broadcast of Spain's biggest football match. We built our own media platform to run it on a well-known online sports magazine.

## Documents
- [Web CV (English)](https://danielsaenz.com/cv/en/)
- [CV (English, PDF)](https://danielsaenz.com/assets/docs/daniel_saenz_cv_en.pdf)
- [CV (español, PDF)](https://danielsaenz.com/assets/docs/daniel_saenz_cv_es.pdf)

## Contact
- Email: hi@danielsaenz.com
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/danielsaenzlopez/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eldanielsaenz/