Between the forest and the digital innovation.

Eric Gallardo grew up in São Paulo, Brazil, surrounded by city noise — buses, sirens, music, and the constant hum of urban life. But on weekends, his father would take the family out of the city: fishing in quiet streams, hiking through forest trails, picking fruit from trees. Nature was always there, waiting just beyond the edges of the city.

Years later — after a career that took him across industries and continents, into digital strategy, marketing technology, innovation, and AI — Eric found his way back to nature through an unexpected door: birdwatching.

It started by accident, with a video camera and a bright yellow bird he’d never noticed before. That one moment led to a birding group, field guides, early mornings in the forest, and thousands of photographs. And somewhere along the way, he noticed that the skills he was developing as a birder — patient observation, contextual thinking, knowing where to look and when — were the same skills that made him better at his work.

Birding Thinking is what grew out of that realization.

Today, Eric is a digital technology and innovation leader with more than 25 years of experience in marketing technology, digital strategy, and AI-driven business transformation. He has worked across industries and geographies, leading teams and advising organizations through the kind of rapid change that makes most people react instead of observe.

He lives in Cary, North Carolina, with his family — and yes, he still goes birding.