About Emilio Alcolea Tijuana · MX-US · Est. 2014
/about

Marketing operator. Tersefy founder.

Emilio Alcolea, portrait, Tijuana 2026.
Right. Portrait, May 2026. Tijuana coastline.

I am a marketing operator. I founded Tersefy in September 2025, a doctor-first AI Visibility firm for medical tourism doctors and practices in Tijuana.

The firm exists because I spent three years as Chief Sales & Marketing Officer at VIDA Wellness & Beauty Center, where I cut Cost Per Surgery from $1,300 to $490, a 62% reduction. The methodology behind that cut turned out to be replicable beyond a single clinic. Tersefy is what I am building on top of it.

None of this is anti-ads. I currently manage paid media across multiple client accounts, including individual accounts exceeding $172k USD monthly. Ads should be a lever, not a lifeline.

Before Tersefy, I spent twelve years operating across industries that do not usually share the same resume: medical tourism, education non-profits, municipal government, political campaigns, and global brand work. The thread connecting all of them was building revenue systems where they did not exist before.

Career

I started in 2014 as Creative Director at Agency Gallo Reyna in Veracruz, leading creative direction and campaigns for Dell, Amazon, Toyota, and Microsoft alongside regional clients. Three years later, I went independent as a consultant. That is where things got interesting.

I started running political campaigns at the federal, state, and municipal levels, directing end-to-end operations for candidates that included federal deputies, senators, mayors, and state governors. Multiple winning campaigns across cycles. The political work taught me something corporate marketing never could: how to move messaging fast, under pressure, with consequences that decide elections.

In 2017 I joined the City of Boca del Río as Deputy Director of Communication & Public Relations, reporting to the Mayor. Led the launch of Visit Boca, the city's national tourism brand, which drove +270% web traffic growth and grew annual visitation from 2.3M to over 2.7M in the first year, with brand collaborations including Aeroméxico and Hilton. Managed the full municipal account ecosystem: the Mayor's personal channels, government communications, DIF Municipal, the Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río, the Orquestando Armonía children's music program, and every operating dependency, handling 6,000+ daily messages in aggregate.

After government, I went non-profit. As Senior Digital Strategy & Communication Manager at UNETE in Mexico City, I designed cross-border digital fundraising strategies that drove +25% growth in online donations, with partnerships including Dell, Bloomberg, and Nacional Monte de Piedad.

Then VIDA in 2023. Medical tourism. P&L governance, zero-based budgeting, AI-driven lead routing roadmap, customer experience framework, ICP segmentation across MX and US markets. The Cost Per Surgery cut from $1,300 to $490 while reducing total ad spend by 20%. The lessons of that role became the foundation of Tersefy.

Writing

Every week I publish The Insider Dispatch, an English-language newsletter on marketing operations, AI search, and growth strategy for operators in Mexico. Across my career I have produced 6,000+ ghostwritten articles for clients in medical, wellness, lifestyle, marketing, and tech. At Tersefy specifically I have shipped 83+ bilingual articles, a published methodology, and documented case studies.

How I work

  • Bilingual native Spanish, professional English. Based in Tijuana.
  • Build with Astro, Cloudflare Pages, Make.com, Airtable, Anthropic, OpenAI.
  • I ship working systems, not decks.
  • Direct communication, no hedging.
  • If I tell you a number, I can prove it.