All Entries in the "Features" Category
CSR, Have we learned anything?
The practices of social corporate responsibility in the region are moving toward an integrated model of sustainability and viability. What corporations should do, and what they should not do, to design successful programs. The application of this broad concept has emerged not only through the imitation of practices in developed countries and imported by multinationals, [...]
Edging Towards Developed Status
Will the country make the grade by 2020, as President Piñera hopes, or will it become stuck in the dreaded middle-income trap? Sebastián Piñera, the Chilean president, made a lot of bold promises during his election campaign in 2009, but perhaps the most eye-catching was his pledge to set Chile on course to becoming a [...]
Think Global, Act Local
Latin America, long an importer of franchises, is now exporting them too. Successful brands are spreading their footprint as franchises transcend national frontiers. “Absolutely…” is the unequivocal response that Lucas Secades gave Latin Trade when asked whether Latin America has stopped importing franchises and now exports them. Secades is executive director of the Argentine association [...]
Seeing opportunities
Donald Trump is expanding his brand in Latin America. Donald Trump, the billionaire U.S. real estate developer, television personality and onetime presidential hopeful, has had a presence in Latin America for several years and now is expanding his brand in the region. Attracted by strong growth, political stability, burgeoning upper classes and a well-heeled business [...]
Players or mere spectators?
The energy world has been changed completely by the unconventional fuel revolution. Are Latin American companies ready to make the change? To be successful in the energy world, you not only need to have reserves, but also know how to develop them. With the discovery of new conventional and alternative fuel reserves, countries in the [...]
World Economic Forum: Sustainable growth
Latin America’s future is more predictable than many people believe. The world’s economic and demographic forces are inexorable drivers of the region’s major trends, which fortunately appear to point toward progress. Urbanization is one of the driving forces. The world’s cities are growing at the pace of two inhabitants per second, according to the US [...]
For Companies, 13 Is A Lucky Number
Latin Trade presents its first forecast for the performance of Latin American companies. Sales will show similar growth as in 2012. Mining will recover, and retail will maintain its profits. The expected economic growth for 2013 in Latin America will offer an opportunity to recover for some of the companies in the region that were [...]
Latin Trade’s Best of Travel
Along with religion and politics, travel is a topic that produces very strong opinions. Whether they’re raving about the best airplane seat or ranting about the worst hotel restaurant, nearly every business traveler is well equipped to launch into a list of their best and worst travel experiences. In Latin America — as in the [...]
Latin Trade’s Deals of the Year
From complex loan arrangements to large-scale initial public offerings, innovation was a hallmark of several deals in 2012. These are some of the most interesting of the year. When BNP Paribas began to put together a $390 million loan for a Colombian consortium to operate, manage and expand the airport in the capital, Bogotá, many [...]
Panama: The Challenges Ahead
Panama is one of the rising stars of Latin America’s economy. The construction of large infrastructure projects, such as the $5.2-billion Panama Canal expansion and a $1.8-billion subway in the capital city, have boosted the country’s economy to 10.5 percent growth in 2012, slightly less than the 10.6 percent in 2010, and reduced unemployment to [...]
Chinese Shadows
China’s economy is cooling, weakening demand for the raw materials that go into building its skyscrapers and laying its roads. How will Latin America fare? China’s voracious appetite for commodities has revived the growth engine in Latin America for years, turning Brazilian iron ore and Chilean copper into cold cash. But now that China’s [...]
Shopping For The Well-Heeled
The expansion of retail chains, the appearance of exclusive boutiques and consumers’ shopping habits are boosting commercial construction this year in Latin America. Investors in real estate are looking at double-digit returns. Growth of the purchasing power of the region’s middle classes has spurred commerce and an increase in opportunities for new commercial projects in [...]
Latin Trade Symposium & the 18th Annual BRAVO Business Awards
Every year Latin Trade Group gathers the Latin American and Caribbean most influential business and government leaders during the Latin Trade Symposium, a one day forum of discussion focusing on Building the New Latin America preceding the annual BRAVO Business Awards. The signature event has recognized excellence and leadership in government, business and social contributions [...]
Luis Alberto Moreno: President Inter-American Development Bank
Having learned from the lessons of the past, Latin America will confront the challenges of improving education and infrastructure and building efficient and sustainable cities “Over the last 20 years we have learned from so many errors and so many crises,” said Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank, referring to what he [...]
Enrique GarcÍa: President of CAF
Moody’s Investment Services downgraded 15 of the world’s largest banks, including Barclay’s and Citigroup, on June 15. The same day, CAF Banco de Desarrollo de America Latina, received its 16th credit upgrade. The juxtaposition of events isn’t surprising, said CAF President Enrique Garcia, who has led the Caracas-based development bank since 1991. “Non-performing loans make up [...]
Celso Amorim: Defense Minister of Brazil
Celso Amorim, the current Brazilian defense minister who served as foreign minister during the eight years of the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva government, brought innovative policies to each of the areas under his management. Now, his challenge is to bring in a national and regional security policy that’s consistent with the ideal of South [...]
Susan Segal: President and CEO, Americas Society and Council of the Americas
Susan Segal has been travelling all over Latin America since 1976, first as a banker, then as a venture capitalist, and for the past nine years as President and CEO of Americas Society and Council of the Americas, a hemispheric organization whose members include some of the most important global companies. Segal has seen the [...]
Chairman and CEO of Arcos Dorados, Woods Staton
Is it possible to innovate within the standardized parameters of a franchise? Arcos Dorados, the biggest McDonald’s restaurant operator in Latin America and the world’s biggest franchisee of the brand, offers plenty of examples of just this. Among its innovations, it opened a kosher restaurant in Buenos Aires, installed dessert centers in most of its [...]
Carlos Raúl Yepes: President, Bancolombia
A tale from recent financial history. How the financial sector has aided regional development. Bancolombia’s new strategy for creating a more humane bank. Banking has undergone a very important transformation over the last twenty years, mainly in connection with the way banks relate to their customers, says the president of Bancolombia, Carlos Raúl Yepes. Bancolombia [...]
Ricaurte Vásquez: VP of government affairs and public policy for GE Latin America
GE has been operating in Latin America for 115 years, having disembarked in the region 19 years after opening its doors in the United States, under the banner of Edison Electric Light Co. One sign of GE’s major innovative impact on the region is visible even today at the Panama Canal, said Ricaurte (Catín) Vásquez, [...]
Walter Bayly Llona: CEO Banco de Crédito del Perú
“What had made us successful in the past was clearly not what was going to make us successful in the future.” Peru was in a tough spot 20 years ago. A violent insurgency by leftist rebels was threatening to topple the government, while the economy was coming out of a long stretch of hyperinflation that [...]
Blanca Treviño: CEO Softtek
The woman has crisscrossed borders throughout the world with a technology company that boasts a worldwide staff of 7,000. But at the same time she modestly states that sharing the company was Softtek’s highest-yielding innovation. The algorithm is simple for CEO Blanca Treviño, the much-admired native of Monterrey, Mexico: “When we started the company we [...]
Claudio Muruzábal: CEO, Neoris
At Neoris, innovation means adopting an uncommon approach to IT consulting: working alongside clients in and outside their companies. Neoris’ strategy, according to company CEO Claudio Muruzábal, is to combine two elements – the practical and the visionary. “This is not just a nice marketing statement,” said Muruzábal, who has led Neoris since 2004. “The [...]
Armando Laborde: Director of Ashoka Central America and Mexico
Social entrepreneurship has seen a surge over the past decade with the rise of social networking websites like Facebook that allow people to reach wider audiences and find more funding sources. Armando Laborde understands this well. The 47-year-old has been running the Central America and Mexico operations of Ashoka since 2006 and is also co-director [...]
Hernán Rincon: President of Microsoft Latin America
“The market has exploded in Latin America,” said Hernán Rincón, president Microsoft Latin America, describing the speed with which sales are growing in the region. He told Latin Trade that of the thirteen regions into which the company divides the world, his is the one with the highest growth rate, expanding by rates of 3 [...]
Manuel Medina-Mora: CEO Global Consumer Banking and Executive Chairman of Latin America and Mexico, Citi
Carrying a Banamex-branded credit card could be considered cool in the Mexican capital. Here, Banamex card holders can cut in line for concert tickets and are even offered the opportunity to purchase seats for shows by performers like U2 and Madonna two days in advance of anyone else. “We try to lead the entertainment dimension,” [...]
Lucía Herrera: President of Pantaleón Foundation
Students at the Wilfrido Campos Poveda school, in Choluteca, Honduras, used to have no option but to have their lessons outdoors. It wasn’t until this year that they could study in classrooms with roofs, thanks to the work of the Pantaleón Foundation. The Foundation is one of the best examples of a corporate initiative aimed [...]
Alberto Alemán Zubieta
The Panama Canal’s construction was an epic that pitted the human spirit against nature. More recently, the problems haven’t been flies but internal resistance to change and the need to face competition. Alberto Alemán Zubieta is an engineer, a very feisty one. And very political too, despite his claims to the contrary. Alemán twice headed the [...]
Stephen Fenwick: CEO DHL Express Americas
DHL was started by innovators and grew by using innovation to respond to customer demand all over the world, said Stephen Fenwick, CEO of DHL Express Americas. “Conceptually, DHL was a garage start-up. We started out with a few people sitting on planes flying documents from San Francisco (California) to Hawaii,” said Fenwick, who has [...]
Rodolpho Cardenuto: President SAP Latin America and the Caribbean
“What has changed in our industry in recent decades? Everything!” exclaimed Miami-based Rodolpho Cardenuto, an electronics engineer and president of business software giant SAP for Latin America and the Caribbean. “We were still programming with mainframes and using languages like COBOL. The IT user then had to be an IT expert,” said Cardenuto, a Brazilian [...]
