Luis Javier Castro
Since founding Mesoamerica in 1996, Mr. Castro has played an integral role in the transformation of Central American businesses, creating value for shareholders, stakeholders and society in general. Mesoamerica focuses on strategic management consulting, mergers and acquisitions with more than $7 billion in completed ransactions, and private equity investments with over US$200 million currently under management. In 1996, he was one of the founders of the first private equity funds in Central America, Mesoamerica Fund I, L.P. From 1998 to 2003, he was CEO of Mesoamerica Telecom LTD. (Partner of Telefónica de España for Central America and Caribbean), where he organized, raised, and supervised the largest private equity
initiative in the region. Earlier in his career, Mr. Castro was as an associate with Bain & Co, working on strategy assignments for several of the largest companies in Central America. Luis Javier devotes significant time to pro bono activities through various foundations, educational institutions and associations. He is founder of the Mesoamerica Foundation, president of the Asociación de Empresarios para el Desarrollo (AED) and President of Integrarse (Central American Network for CSR). AED is a nonprofit organization that fosters the public-private coalition, bringing together companies, institutions, individuals, and non-governmental organizations to improve the community’s capacity to educate its new generations. Mr. Castro has transformed the organization by implementing a global strategy thatspans all the key areas and leads to complementary initiatives that generate a nationwide impact. He also led the development of a new model to address the principal challenges of Costa Rica’s public education system. In 2008, Mr. Castro established a public-private alliance between the Ministry of Education, the National Teachers Association and AED. Project PIIAD was launched under this alliance and involves a software application that helps maximize the effectiveness of administration and faculty in educational centers. This application is provided to the schools free of charge and is being distributed nationally. He has a Masters in Business Administration, Georgetown University (1994) and a Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Economics, Texas A&M University(1987).