Cantellus group adds AI firepower as former Mediasmart founder Noelia Amoedo joins as advisor

SAN FRANCISCO: The Cantellus group is sharpening its AI edge—and it’s doing so with intent. The boutique advisory has roped in Noelia Amoedo as advisor, bolstering its bench as clients grapple with the messy middle of AI adoption, governance and trust.

Amoedo is no theorist. She is a builder. Best known as founder and CEO of Mediasmart, she scaled the AI-led programmatic advertising firm into a profitable global SaaS business before steering it to a successful acquisition by listed Affle Group. The deal turned heads—and set the tone for a career spent converting emerging tech into hard currency.

Over a 25-year, five-continent career, Amoedo has led international expansion at Palm/HP, Hi5 Networks and the Buongiorno group, riding—and often shaping—waves from micropayments and mobile services to social networks and AI-powered advertising. Few can claim to have seen so many tech cycles from the engine room.

Today, as managing partner at Nodeom, she advises enterprises on human-centric AI strategy, helping boards and c-suites navigate governance, ethics and adoption without killing innovation. Her pitch is simple but sharp: human + AI collaboration is not a risk to manage, but a competitive advantage to weaponise.

A Fulbright scholar and Aspen Institute fellow in Spain, Amoedo holds an MS in electrical engineering from Stanford University and a BS in physics from the University of Santiago de Compostela—credentials that explain her comfort moving between code, culture and corner offices.

For Cantellus, which advises clients on frontier technology strategy, oversight and governance, the appointment is timely. As regulation tightens and AI moves from pilot to P&L, Amoedo’s mix of entrepreneurial grit and governance nous could prove decisive.

In an era of black-box algorithms and boardroom nerves, Cantellus has chosen clarity over hype. And with Amoedo on board, it is betting that the future of AI will be built not just smart—but human.