Mariana Gonzalez brings a background as an industrial engineer who grew up around her family's retail business in Mexico and later worked as a buyer and in operations and logistics at Costco, giving her a retail and supply-chain view she applies to food, packaging, and materials startups at Collateral Good, where she and Michael Kleindl co-manage a €100M fund backed by corporates like Grupo Bimbo and Hugo Boss. She's known for a grounded, patient approach to commercialization timelines in food tech and for pushing founders toward honesty and transparency, reflecting a realistic mindset about today's investing climate rather than growth-at-all-costs thinking.