Executive Biographies
Richard Burns
Burns is chairman of Editora Latin Trade since 2016 and of Latin Trade Group since 2008. Burns is also general partner at Isis Venture Partners, a private equity firm he co-founded in 2002. Isis Venture Partners’ holdings include Miami Media and Manhattan Media, publisher of Avenue magazine and specialty publications in New York City and the Hamptons. Burns previously served as president and CEO of Thomson Financial Media, a division of Thomson Corporation. Before joining Thomson, he was president and CEO of Euromoney Publications America, where he served as CEO and publisher of Institutional Investor as well as president and editor-in-chief of Latin Finance.
He has served as a director on several corporate boards, including 24/7 Real Media and Interaudi Bank, and since 2007 has been an ex-officio member of the Board of Trustees of the American Museum of Natural History. He is a member of the Board of the Carnegie Hall in New York. Burns was educated at St. John’s College, Oxford, the Ludwig-Maximilians Institute at the University of Munich, and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Santiago Gutiérrez
Santiago Gutiérrez is the Executive Editor of Latin Trade Group, responsible for both the print and digital editions of Latin Trade. He is an award-winning journalist, having received eight journalist prizes, including Colombia’s prestigious Premio Nacional de Periodismo Simón Bolívar, a Citigroup Journalistic Excellence Award, and three-time winner of the Premio Anif de Periodismo Económico. Prior to joining Latin Trade, Gutiérrez covered the Andean region for Debtwire, a new and information service of the Financial Times Group, and was Director of Dinero.com from 2008 to 2011.
Gutiérrez completed his PhD studies in Economics at the University of Minnesota, and took courses in Management and in Journalism at MIT and Columbia. He has worked extensively in economic research, and was vice president of the Colombian Bankers Association, in addition to serving on more than a dozen boards.
Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz
Ricardo is a strategic advisor at Latin Trade.
His background includes being an International trade, digital economy and environmental governance expert, policy analyst, and sustainable development advocate. Former diplomat. Experienced international negotiator, trained facilitator, and convener and designer of multi- stakeholder dialogues, complex problem-solving and conflict management processes. Public speaker. Policy entrepreneur. Author, editor, research initiator and curator.
Lead writer, editor and/or publisher of hundreds of top-tier policy and academic
material conceived, tailored and packaged for delivery to decision-makers or general public. In 1997, I created, and was until 2018, the publisher of a highly successful specialised electronic and in-print suite of reviews, BRIDGES and its sister publications: BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest; PONTES (Portuguese, Brazilian contributions), PUENTES (in Spanish, with Latin American contributors), PASSARELLES (focused on Francophone Africa), QIAO (Chinese), MOSTI (In Russian, focused on CIS, and later the Euroasian Economic Union), TRADE NEGOTIATIONS INSIGHTS (following EPA negotiations between EU and the former ACP countries), and BioRes (on linkages between international trade and environment).
I initiated, led and managed complex collaborative purposeful networks, including the World Economic Forum- ICTSD E15Initiative (400 top experts on the future of the global trade system); the Sustainable Energy Trade Agreement and SETI Alliance in partnership with the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE, Washington, DC) and the Global Green Growth Institute (Seoul) and major manufacturers (Vestas, GE, Trina Solar, Suzlon); and the Trade and Environment Group of the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN).
