Board of Directors
External Counselor and Assistant Secretary
Biographies
Eduardo Elejalde, Chair
Founding Partner, Latin America Enterprise Fund Managers
Eduardo Elejalde, a native of Peru, is a founding partner of The Latin America Enterprise Funds. He is a member of their respective Investment Committees and of the Board of Directors of their management company. Mr. Elejalde is also a board member of companies in which the Funds have invested in Mexico, Colombia and Peru. He is also President& CEO of LAEFM Colombia S.A., the fund manager for the Colombian Investment in Hydrocarbons Fund, which recently had a first closing with US$ 62 million under management.
Prior to his current position, he was a managing director of Samuel Montagu, a British merchant bank. Based in New York, he was responsible for the bank's corporate finance activities in Latin America from 1992 to 1994.
Prior to that, Mr. Elejalde was a vice-president and senior merchant banker of Bankers Trust and senior vice-president of Shearson Lehman Brothers. He began his career on Wall Street as a vice-president of Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette/ Becker Paribas in 1982. His investment banking experience includes transactions in Asia, Latin American and the United States.
Before that, Mr. Elejalde spent 11 years at the World Bank in Washington, DC, where he served as division chief of the Bank's Petroleum Projects Division for Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean in his last posting.
Mr. Elejalde received his BS degree in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his MBA from Columbia University.
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Cate Ambrose, President
Executive Director, Latin American Venture Capital Association
Cate Ambrose joined the Latin American Venture Capital Association as Executive Director in August 2007. Her background with venture capital and private equity investment in the region dates back to the late 1990s. She is currently a member of the US-Brazil Venture Capital Task Force hosted by the Commerce Department and the Kauffman Foundation, and speaks and writes regularly on a range of topics related to public policy and private investment in Latin America.
Prior to joining LAVCA, Cate was Chief of Advocacy for the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, a United Nations initiative co-chaired by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto and former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, where she directed research projects on business regulation and property rights in Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, India, Kenya and Tanzania. Until 2005, Ms Ambrose was Executive Director of Programs at The Economist,where she founded the first industry gathering on private equity investment in Latin America, and chaired annual roundtables with the Presidents of Mexico and Colombia. She also chaired a range of meetings on finance, economic policy and business strategy in the US and Latin America, and founded The Global Agenda, a high-level panel of economists, policymakers and business leaders.
Cate began her career as a journalist in Spain. She holds an MPA in International Economic Policy from Columbia University, and received her BA in Latin American studies from St Lawrence University and the University of Madrid.
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Ernest Bachrach
Chief Executive, Latin America, Advent International
Ernest Bachrach is a dual Argentine-U.S. national with 25 years of experience in international private equity investing. He joined Advent’s London office in 1990 and since 1995 has managed the firm’s Latin American investment program. He is also a member of Advent’s Executive Committee. In his 17 years with the firm, Mr. Bachrach has led or co-led investments in 10 companies and acted as a sponsor for over 20 deals.
Previously, he worked with private equity firms Granville & Co. Ltd., Wharf (Holdings) Ltd. and Morningside Group.
Mr. Bachrach received a BS in chemical engineering from Lehigh University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
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Enrique Bascur
Managing Director and Latin American Department Head, Citigroup Venture Capital International
Mr. Bascur leads CVC International's Latin American effort since January 2006. Over the past 7 years he has focused on investments in Latin America, principally in the Southern Cone and the Andean Region, and more recently in Brazil and Mexico.
Prior to his current role, Mr. Bascur was Citigroup's Corporate Finance Head in Santiago, Chile, where he also managed the local equity investment unit. Prior to rejoining Citicorp, Mr. Bascur worked for five years at Bankers Trust in New York, focused on capital markets and M&A transactions across the Latin American region. In 1990 and 1991, he was Citicorp's Corporate Finance Head in Venezuela and an investment banker at Citicorp Chile.
Mr. Bascur earned a Civil Engineering degree from Universidad Católica de Chile and an M.B.A. degree from Wharton.
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Julio Lastres, Secretary
Senior Managing Director- Americas, Darby Overseas Investments, Ltd.
Mr. Lastres joined Darby in 1998 as the Managing Director of the firm's Private Equity Group. Today he is directly involved in the management of Darby's two private equity funds, the Darby Emerging Markets Fund and the Darby-BBVA Latin American Private Equity Fund, targeting a broad number of sectors in Latin America. Mr. Lastres was made Senior Managing Director - Americas in March of 2006.
Prior to joining Darby, he spent nine years with the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Most recently, Mr. Lastres was Director of the Central Capital Markets Department where he coordinated IFC's global capital markets strategy and played an integral role in the management of its global financial institutions investment portfolio, representing over 25% (or roughly $2.5 billion) of IFC's total investments. He was also directly responsible for IFC's family of emerging stock market indexes and database products, which covered more than 2,000 individual stocks in 45 emerging markets. From 1992 to 1997, Mr. Lastres managed IFC's principal investing activities focused on Latin America and Caribbean financial institutions, doubling the size of this portfolio to around $700 million.
From 1981 until he joined IFC in 1989, Mr. Lastres was at Banco Latinoamericano de Exportaciones S.A. (BLADEX) where he served as Chief Financial Officer, managing a three-fold increase in resources to $1 billion during a period that coincided with the Latin American Debt Crisis of the 1980s.
A native of Cuba, Mr. Lastres holds a BA in Business Administration from the University of South Florida, attended post-graduate business courses at the University of Miami, and completed the World Bank Group's Executive Development Program structured by the Harvard Business School.
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Philip T. von Mehren, External Counselor and Assistant Secretary
Partner, Baker & McKenzie LLP
Mr. von Mehren is a Partner at Baker & McKenzie in the global private equity practice in the New York office. His practice is focused on cross-border acquisitions and dispositions, often for financial buyers, including private equity and venture capital funds. In addition to Mr. von Mehren’s domestic private equity work, he has represented various Latin American focused funds in private equity transactions throughout Latin America.
Mr. von Mehren writes and lectures extensively on issues relating to foreign investment and cross-border legal representation. He has lectured at Harvard Law School, New York University School of Law and Fordham Law School. His publications include “Transnational Legal Practice Developments,” International Lawyer, Summer 2005 and Cross Border Trade and Investment with Mexico: NAFTA’s New Rules of the Game (Transnational Publishers, Inc.). Mr. von Mehren was also an editor of several editions of Doing Business in Mexico (Transnational Publishers, Inc.).
Mr. von Mehren is a member of the American Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and the District of Columbia Bar Association. Mr. von Mehren serves as a member of the ABA’s Task Force on Cross Border Legal Services.
Mr. von Mehren received his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School, his M. Phil. from Cambridge University and his B.A. from Reed College. He is admitted to practice in the State of New York and in the District of Columbia.
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Claudia Fan Munce
Managing Director, IBM Venture Capital Group
Claudia Fan Munce is the Managing Director of the IBM Venture Capital Group since March 2004. She has been a key business and technical leader since IBM began its outreach to the venture community in 2000.
Ms. Fan Munce joined the IBM Research Division in 1985 and has held many technical and business leadership positions. Prior to assuming her current position, Claudia was the functional manager in IBM Research overseeing technology transfer and licensing activities as well as defining new business opportunities with top IBM partners.
Ms. Fan Munce was born in Taiwan, grew up in Brazil, and came to U.S. for graduate studies. She holds a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Santa Clara University, and an MBA from Stanford University. Claudia is mother of two daughters and is an activist in the Silicon Valley Community for children and education.
IBM Venture Capital Group seeks to proactively build mutually beneficial strategic relationships with venture capital firms and their portfolio companies within the global community focusing on growth markets and emerging technologies. Venture Capital Group's mission is to promote an innovation ecosystem engaging the full range of IBM resources and capabilities with that of its VC partners and other key innovation drivers to maximize growth opportunities.
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Erik Peterson
Managing Partner, Aureos Capital
Erik manages the Aureos-managed Aureos Central America Fund and the Central America Investment Facility and is a member of the Investment Committee of the Aureos Central America Fund. Erik has over ten years of experience in private equity and investment banking with the Provident Group Ltd., Bank America Robertson Stephens and Bank of America.
Prior to joining Aureos, Mr. Peterson was responsible for US $150 million of Bank of America's equity portfolio in South America, primarily in the financial services, forest products and energy industries. He also advised clients in the first power privatizations in Peru and Colombia, as well as clients in the oil and gas and telecom sectors in Latin America.
Mr. Peterson holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in International Studies (LatAm) from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in Economics from University of California at Berkeley. Erik grew up in Panama.
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Marcus Regueira
Managing Director and Founding Partner, FIR Capital
Marcus Regueira has over 20 years of international capital markets experience.
In 1977, after earning his MBA from the Wharton Graduate School of Business, Mr. Regueira served as an officer of Unibanco, one of the largest commercial banks in Brazil. At Unibanco, he was responsible for the largest project finance portfolio in Latin America.
Later, Mr. Regueira moved to New York where he served as a Director and Vice President of the investment banking, underwriting and capital markets groups of the Bank of America and First Chicago.
During the Brazilian external debt moratorium, he was a member of the negotiating committee.
Over the course of his career, Mr. Regueira was the lead manager on over $1 billion in syndicated transactions, and represented various multinational and Brazilian corporations in M&A transactions, and technology joint-ventures in Brazil.
Mr. Regueira is a Founding Partner at FIR Capital, and serves as a board member at C.E.S.A.R. (www.cesar.org.br), a center of excellence in IT development.
He is founder and board member of Instituto Hartmann Regueira (www.institutohr.org.br), a not-for-profit organization which mission is the co-enterpreneurship of social investments with small and medium companies, and the development of its best management practices.
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Arturo Saval
Managing Director, Nexxus Capital
Arturo J. Saval Pérez has more than 25 years of experience in investment and commercial banking.
Mr. Saval has participated in numerous debt, private and public equity transactions, as well as multiple advisories.
Prior to joining Nexxus Capital, he served as Deputy Managing Director at Santander Investment Mexico. Previously, he held senior positions at Grupo Financiero GBM-Atlántico, Interacciones and Grupo Serfin, where he served as member of the boards and investment committees of several financial entities and investment funds.
Mr. Saval earned a BS degree in industrial engineering from the Universidad Iberoamericana, a degree in financial analysis from the University of Michigan and a diploma from the Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey.
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J. Scott Swensen
Chairman, Conduit Capital
Scott Swensen is the Chairman of Conduit Capital Partners, having formed the company in 2003. He has amassed a long career in private equity investing and global finance and most specifically, has spent the last 14 years as Lead Investment Manager of the Latin Power Funds.
Mr. Swensen joined Scudder, Stevens & Clark (a predecessor company to Zurich Scudder Investments), in 1993 as Lead Investment Manager for Latin Power I. Prior to the acquisition of Scudder by Deutsche Bank in 2002, Mr. Swensen headed Scudder's Special Investments Group that included Private Equity, Private Debt, Closed-End Funds and Hedge Funds.
Before joining Scudder, he spent eleven years in corporate and project finance at the Chase Manhattan Bank and subsequently nine years at Banque Paribas. His final position at Banque Paribas was as a Managing Director supervising a number of groups, including energy and project finance in North and South America, energy futures brokerage and commodity derivatives worldwide. While at BNP Paribas, Mr. Swensen made a number of private equity investments and was the CEO of a $40 million company for five years.
Mr. Swensen holds a B.E. degree in Mechanical Engineering (Heat and Power) with High Honors from Stevens Institute of Technology (Tau Beta Pi) and an M.B.A. (ABD) degree from New York University. He speaks Spanish and Portuguese and is a member of the Board of the Latin American Venture Capital Association and the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association’s Advisory Council.
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David E. Thomas, Chair Emeritus
Managing Director, Intel Capital Latin America
David Thomas is the Managing Director of Intel Capital Latin America. He is responsible for overseeing all of Intel Capital's investment activities in the region. Mr. Thomas has over 10 years of investment experience in both the private equity and venture capital arenas. Dave joined Intel in early 2000.
Prior to joining Intel, Mr. Thomas spent four years as Director at a private equity firm specializing in middle market buyouts on the East Coast. He also worked at HP for 5 years and has experience both as a CFO and institutional money manager. He has closed over 50 private equity and venture capital transactions in a wide range of sectors.
Mr. Thomas received his BBA from St. Bonaventure University and an MBA from The University of Rochester. He, his wife and daughters live in São Paulo, Brasil.
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