About
Karla Berman is a Mexican entrepreneur and investor who swaps a boardroom for a television studio every week on Shark Tank México. Viewers know her for rapid‑fire questions, data‑driven offers and easy laughs, but off‑camera she has spent more than fifteen years steering Latin American tech companies through growth and change. She ran commercial strategy for Google Mexico, later became the first woman to head SoftBank’s operations in the country, and today advises high‑growth “unicorn” startups from her seat on multiple boards, including Endeavor México and the Harvard Business School Alumni Board. In 2024 she also accepted a directorship with the fintech Mendel, adding corporate‑spending innovation to her portfolio.
Now, in the show’s tenth season (2025), Karla returns to the tank, bringing her plain‑spoken style and love of hard numbers to a bigger panel of sharks than ever before.
Before Fame
Business headlines rarely mention that Karla is the youngest child of Mexican show‑business journalist Shanik Berman. Raised in Mexico City, she had a front-row seat to storytelling, but opted for engineering over entertainment: she studied Industrial Engineering at Universidad Iberoamericana, then became a young consultant with McKinsey. A scholarship took her to Boston, and she graduated with an MBA from Harvard Business School in 2007, something that she thanks for hardening her vision for scalable ideas.
Early professional stops included CNN Expansión and Yalo, where she built commercial teams and strengthened her passion for user‑centric design. By the time Google hired her as Commercial Director, she had developed a reputation for translating technical tools into everyday language—skill that would later resonate with Shark Tank viewers looking for clear feedback on their pitches.
Trivia
- Data mantra: Her Instagram bio reads, “In God we trust, everyone else bring data,” a line friends say she repeats in every due‑diligence call.
- Step streak: Karla tries never to go to bed without logging at least 10,000 steps—she tracks them on her smartwatch while pacing during long phone calls.
- Content creator: On TikTok she has racked up more than 185k followers and 1.7M likes by breaking down term‑sheet jargon and sharing quick “lessons from the tank.”
- Board‑game fan: Colleagues joke that her strategic mind was honed over marathon sessions of Settlers of Catan with her kids—she claims the game teaches negotiation under pressure.
- New challenge: When fintech Mendel invited her onto its board, she accepted on condition she could shadow product engineers for a week—curiosity first, title second.
Family Life
Despite a public career, family remains Karla’s anchor. She has been in a long‑standing relationship with Carlos Schvartzman, the classmate she sat next to in secondary school chemistry; together they are parents to five daughters. Her social feeds often feature school runs, science‑fair triumphs and the controlled chaos of a household of seven.
Her mother, Shanik Berman, still pops up on television gossip segments, and the pair support each other’s ventures—Karla cheered from the studio audience when Shanik joined La Casa de los Famosos México in 2024, and Shanik proudly reposts every Shark Tank clip featuring her youngest child.
The Shark Tank México Instagram account even sent Karla birthday wishes on 15 May 2025, proof that her work family is paying attention too.
Associated With
Inside the tank Karla swims alongside a diverse group of investors: Oso Trava, Alejandra Ríos Spíndola, Amaury Vergara, Marisa Lazo, Miguel Layún, Simón Cohen, Ari Borovoy and Mauricio Schwartzmann share the panel in the tenth anniversary season.
Beyond television she collaborates with fellow Harvard alumni, mentors founders through Endeavor México and occasionally partners with former Google colleagues to back early‑stage ventures. Her SoftBank ties keep her close to startups scaling into Latin America, while her Mendel role connects her to the region’s growing fintech scene. Whether in front of cameras or around a conference table, Karla Berman’s through‑line is clear: she loves turning good ideas into measurable results—and she insists on data every step of the way.
