Board of Directors
Dominican based in New York. Business travel and entertainment management strategist,for the past 25 years at a global level. Networking with companies and tour managers of international figures such as Beyonce Knowles, Frank Ocean, Joe Thomas, The Mavericks, Ismael Cala, Raul Di Blasio, Benicio del Toro, among others, in large-scale events such as the SuperBowl (USA) and World Youth Day (Brazil). She has organized audiences with renowned personalities such as Pope Francis.
She has been trained in renowned schools with different mentors in topics such as leadership and influence, assertive communication, interpersonal relationships, conscious tribe building, neurolinguistic programming, business development and tourism, as well as in Sustainable Project Management with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Founder of Vacation Is a Human Right, a private non-profit foundation, committed to human wellbeing by attending to several of the most pressing human needs. United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Her volunteer service is dedicated to SOMOS Community Care, a network of over 2,500 physicians, which has been formed to ensure better health care for vulnerable populations in New York City.
Maria Mendez
President and Founder
Irma Gianni
Secretary
Irma Gianni has over 20 years of hospitality experience. She graduated from New York City Technical College with a degree in Hospitality Management. During her college experience, she worked as a reservation agent at the St. Moritz on the Park Hotel and completed an internship abroad at the five-star Forte Village Hotel & Resort in Sardinia, Italy. Irma has over 12 years of hotel sales and marketing experience at Hotel Michelangelo, owned by the Italian hotel chain Starhotels S.P.A. She is currently a high school culinary instructor for the New York City Department of Education, while teaching hotel sales and marketing management and food and beverage management at ICE, the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. She is now pursuing a master's degree in Executive Leadership in Hospitality Management at Monroe College, located in New Rochelle, New York.
Mr. Gonzales is Managing Partner of GCG Advisors, an investment banking firm specializing in corporate finance with presence in New York, Caracas, Lima and Panama.
A graduate of Colegio de La Salle in Arequipa and in Communication Sciences from the University of Lima in Peru, he obtained a Master's degree in International Affairs from Columbia University in New York City. D. in Sociology from the University of California at Berkeley and was awarded a scholarship by the World Press Institute at Macalester College in St. Paul Minnesota as a fellow at its North American Studies Program .
He has been President and Director of LifeInvest Asset Management Panama, a financial advisory, asset management and brokerage firm specializing in global developed and emerging markets. He was Director of the Econoinvest Group of Companies and Vice President of the Corporate Finance Division of Econoinvest Casa de Bolsa C.A. in Venezuela. He has also been Director of EMC Managers a Multi-Family Office in New York City.
He has served as an Independent Capital Markets Advisor and consultant for Global Macroeconomics and Sovereign Debt issues in New York and has been Managing Director at LW Asset Management (LWAM) in New York.
At Credit Lyonnais Securities, New York he held several positions including: Director in the Corporate Finance Department, Director of the Market Research Department and Investment Strategist for Latin America, Vice President and Senior Analyst in charge of the Andean Region and Director, Head of Research of Asia - Global Emerging Markets (CLSA), the emerging markets division of Credit Lyonnais.
He was Vice President and Senior Analyst for ING-Barings (INGBs) in New York. At INGBs he was in charge of Investment Banking activities in Venezuela and Market Analysis in Colombia and Central America. He was Vice President and Senior Analyst for Latin America at Nomura Research Institute America in New York in charge of designing investment strategies for the Andean Community markets. Previously, he was an analyst for Latin America at Baring Securities in New York.
As an investment banker specializing in Corporate Finance, Mr. Gonzales has spent nearly thirty years as an investment banker based in New York in Global Developed and Emerging Markets. Gonzales has developed his entire professional practice from New York over nearly thirty years in Global Developed and Emerging Markets doing transactions along the entire value creation chain, including seed capital, angel investment, institutional financing, IPOs, DCM, ECM, private lending and investment, investment fund structuring, refinancing, restructuring, distress, bankruptcy, sovereigns, privatization and advisory in sectors of the real economy including real estate, retail, hospitality, logistics, transportation, mining, energy, oil and gas, EPC, banking, fishing, agribusiness, packaging, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, steel, retail, hospitality, logistics, transportation, mining, energy, oil and gas, EPC, banking, fishing, agribusiness, packaging, steel, automotive, industrial, media and sovereign lending and in technology including telecommunications, software and hardware, fintech, social media, web development, media and content production as well as NGO projects and faith-based initiatives in financing ranges from $3 million to $7.5 billion.
Between 1982 and 1990, Mr. Gonzales was a journalist, foreign correspondent, columnist and political analyst for various publications in Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, the United States, Spain and Italy and has been a human rights activist in Latin America.
Between 1997 and 2001 he was a member of the Advisory Board of the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) of Columbia University in the City of New York; between 1999 and 2004 he was Founder and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Institute of Latin American Studies of Columbia University (ILAS) and between 2001 and 2005 he was a member of the Dean's Council of SIPA. He has been a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies of the City University of New York and is currently a member of the Advisory Board of ILAS and founder of the Center for Wider Caribbean Studies at Columbia University; member of the Board of the World Press Institute at Saint Thomas University in Saint Paul, Minnesota; member of the Development Committee of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington DC and member of the Board of Directors of the Peruvian-American Association, founded in 1939, in New York. He has also been a member of the Executive Committee, the Parish Council and the Parish Planning Committee of The Church of the Blessed Sacrament on the Upper West Side in Manhattan and a founding member of the Catholic Association of Latino Leaders in the United States.
Program Mr. Gonzales has been an anchor on Actualización de Mercados Financieros (AMF), a weekly financial, economic and political newscast from New York, and produces and hosts a segment on the global metals and minerals market from New York on Rumbo Minero on Willax and is a commentator on Tierra Adentro on ATV and Cara & Sello, a podcast on national and international news, in Peru. He has produced and hosted a weekly television column from the New York Stock Exchange for DesdeWallStreet.TV and had a weekly segment on Capital Radio in Madrid and Globovisión in Caracas on stock market and global economic issues and has been a columnist for El Financiero in Panama, Prodavinci in Venezuela, ViceVersa in New York and La Corriente in Peru and is a columnist for Cambio Colombia. He also serves as a board member of REDD Intelligence, an on-line publication on Distressed Debt in Emerging Markets and of Sanchez + Coleman Studio, a Miami-based fashion and interior design company. He is a frequent commentator on economic and stock market analysis on Fox Latino; Univision; Telemundo, CNN, NY1, En Conexion in the United States, Circuito Exitos in Venezuela and ATV+ and Willax de Peru from New York. He has participated in numerous conferences as a presenter, panelist and commentator on political, economic and financial topics in the United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America.
He has been recognized by Institutional Investor; Reuters Survey; Greenwich Survey; Global Investor; Latin Finance; Universidad de Lima, Columbia University; The Ford Foundation; University of California at Berkeley and Inter American Press Association and has published books on the military industry in Latin America, the press and the Shining Path phenomenon and drug trafficking in Peru.
José E. Gonzales
Treasurer
