Meet Basilio
Basilio Velasco Barros is the founder and CEO of gogolf, a Mexico-based digital platform simplifying how golfers discover and book tee times across the country. With a background spanning public service, consulting, and corporate strategy, his work sits at the intersection of systems thinking, access, and execution.
There’s a quiet consistency to how Basilio Velasco Barros talks about his work. He doesn’t frame it as disruption or reinvention. Instead, he returns, again and again, to a simpler idea: things should work better for the people using them. That belief steady, unglamorous, and deeply human has guided him from the halls of government to the fairways of Mexico’s golf courses.
Learning How Big Systems Breathe
Basilio’s professional life began in public service, inside some of Mexico’s most complex institutions. From the Ministry of Finance to IMSS and Pemex, he spent years observing how decisions ripple outward sometimes improving lives, sometimes constrained by friction and outdated processes. His final government role, as Chief of Staff to the Minister of Finance, placed him close to the weight of those choices.
“Being close to high-level decisions gave me a first-hand view of how policy choices can directly and immediately affect people’s lives,”
That immediacy left its mark, shaping how he understands responsibility, scale, and consequence. It’s also what drew him to economics and later to a master’s degree in public policy: a desire to understand not just what decisions are made, but how they translate into real outcomes.
From Advising to Owning the Outcome
After government, Basilio moved into consulting and corporate strategy, becoming a partner at Principia Económica and later leading analysis and strategic projects at izzi, part of Grupo Televisa. The work was analytical and rigorous, but something else was forming quietly in the background.
Advising startups gave him a front-row seat to the messiness of building. Over time, that proximity sparked a different kind of motivation.
“I’ve always been drawn to understanding how systems work and, more importantly, how they can work better,”
But advising had limits. Recommendations could be made and left behind.
The real shift came with entrepreneurship.
“In advisory roles, you can step back once the recommendation is made; as a founder, there’s nowhere to hide,”
Basilio admits. Building meant living with imperfect decisions, trade-offs, and accountability every single day. It required learning when to analyze deeply and when to move forward anyway.
A Personal Friction, Clearly Felt
The idea for gogolf didn’t come from a market report. It came from experience. As a golfer himself, Basilio felt how unnecessarily complicated the sport could be to access in Mexico opaque booking processes, limited visibility, quiet barriers that made the game feel closed.
“With gogolf, the inspiration was very personal,” he says.
“Choosing this path was less about changing industries and more about taking everything I had learned and using it to simplify something people genuinely enjoy.”
That framing matters. gogolf isn’t positioned as a technological leap, but as a practical tool one that removes friction for players while creating value for golf courses. Trust, Basilio believes, is the real currency. The platform only works if players feel confident booking online and courses feel supported, not displaced.
Building Something That Reaches People
In just a few months, gogolf has expanded to courses across multiple states in Mexico, with more already committed. For Basilio, the most meaningful part isn’t growth metrics it’s tangibility.
“What I value most is that the impact is already tangible, Lowering barriers is one of the most effective ways to help the sport grow.”
His leadership style mirrors that thinking. Honesty and accountability guide his decisions, especially when things don’t go as planned. “I believe in being transparent about decisions, expectations, and trade-offs,” he explains. It’s a quiet philosophy, focused less on visibility and more on follow-through.
Looking Ahead, Thoughtfully
The future Basilio envisions for gogolf isn’t rushed. It’s deliberate. Expansion matters, but so does staying simple, reliable, and human. The long-term goal is not just a larger platform, but a healthier golf ecosystem one where access feels natural rather than earned.
“I define success as creating lasting impact while doing work I genuinely enjoy,” he says. For now, that means staying close to execution, making space for family and the game itself, and remembering why the work began in the first place.
Staying Grounded
Basilio doesn’t point to a single hero or archetype when asked about inspiration. He looks instead to approaches people who build quietly, think long-term, and measure success by impact rather than recognition. It’s a fitting reflection of his own path.
In the end, his story isn’t about leaving one world for another. It’s about continuity. About taking lessons from public service, consulting, and strategy and applying them to something personal, accessible, and real. In making access the point, Basilio Velasco Barros has found a way to align responsibility with enjoyment, and systems with the people they’re meant to serve.
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