# Cristina Vila Vives

> Cristina Vila Vives is the founder and CEO of Cledara, a SaaS spend-management platform that gives companies visibility and control over their software subscriptions. After more than a decade running operations teams in the financial industry, she launched Cledara in 2018 to solve a problem she kept seeing firsthand: companies losing money and time to a sprawling, unmanaged stack of software. Cledara now serves over a thousand customers across Europe and the United States, and Forbes has named her among the business leaders changing the world.

- **Role:** Founder and CEO at Cledara
- **Organizations:** Cledara
- **Nationality:** Spanish
- **Education:** Postgraduate studies in HR, Psychology, Business and Finance
- **Known for:** Founded and scaled Cledara to more than 1,000 customers across Europe and the US., Named by Forbes as one of the business leaders changing the world., Led Cledara to become the first company to use Bond's Embedded Credit platform.

## Career timeline

- **pre-2018** — Spent over 10 years leading operations teams in the financial industry while completing postgraduate studies.
- **2018** — Founded Cledara, a SaaS purchasing and management platform, with co-founder Brad van Leeuwen.
- **2020** — Led Cledara's US launch, becoming the first company to use Bond's Embedded Credit platform.
- **2022** — Cledara raised a $20M Series A; total funding reached roughly $24.3M.
- **2023** — Cledara grew past 1,000 customers with offices in Denver, London and Barcelona.

## Achievements

- Founded and scaled Cledara to more than 1,000 customers across Europe and the US.
- Named by Forbes as one of the business leaders changing the world.
- Led Cledara to become the first company to use Bond's Embedded Credit platform.
- Raised a $20M Series A round for Cledara.

## Latest updates

- **2023-07** — Appeared on the Reading Unicorns podcast discussing overlooked software management problems, Cledara's growth, and fundraising lessons.
- **2023** — Cledara operating across offices in Denver, London and Barcelona with 1,000+ customers.

## Links

- Website: https://cledara.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cvilavives/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/Cledara
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6kGH5LERqI
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/Cledara/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/cristina-vives
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-07-22