Carlo Perez-Arizti is a Partner at Baker McKenzie's Mexico City office, focusing on large national and international mergers and acquisitions, and on scaling up start-ups in Mexico and Latin America. He has worked at the firm for over 17 years in Mexico and New York City, and was promoted to partner at age 32. He is Mexico and Latin America’s head for innovation for the North America transactional practice Group. For his legal work, he has been recognized by Chambers & Partners, Legal 500 and Latin Lawyer. Perez-Arizti co-founded Fundacion Participacion y Accion Ciudadana, an education and health NGO, and abogadoemprendedor.com, a free legal advice for startups. He has also been a mentor at a number of organizations, including Endeavor Mexico, SUM, MassChallange, AbogadasMX and Centro Mexicano Pro Bono. Perez-Arizti is regularly published by Tier 1 publications for his views on Mexico and Latin America’s entrepreneurial growth, including Reforma, Forbes, el Heraldo de Mexico, and Pro Magazine. He is a Member of the Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem and of the Confrerie des Chevaliers du Tastevin. Perez-Arizti graduated from Universidad Iberoamericana. He also has a master's in Public Management from the London School of Economics, where he was a Chevening and CONACYT scholar.

Before becoming a partner/Director, Marta was head of business development, leading a team focused on innovation, management and transformation of XP Inc. businesses. Previous to XP Inc, Marta worked worked in strategy and management consulting. She holds a degree in public administration. She is the leader of the MLHR3 group, which was responsible for XP Inc. commitment to reach 50% women in all hierarchical levels by 2025.

Economist and Lawyer, tech entrepreneur focused on smart cities, urban analytics, mobility and urban development. Co-Founder and CEO of Vikua. Co-Founder of La Wawa.

Vikua is a Govtech Startup recognized by Forbes Magazine as one of the Top 30 Most Promising Companies of Latin America and among the Top 100 Govtech Startups of the Iberoamerican region. We transform emerging cities into smart cities by harnessing the power of 4IR technologies such as internet of things, big data, and artificial intelligence. Its URBO® platform (urbo.vikua.com) allows cities to automate and remotely operate urban services in the areas of traffic, public transportation, waste management, public works, public lighting and environmental risks.

La Wawa is a private transportation and mobility app that is transforming the way people commute daily to and from work.

He is a Member of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Entrepreneurship; Young Global Leaders 2018 cohort; Global Shaper Alumni of the Caracas Hub. Venezuelan representative to the White House Emerging Entrepreneurs Initiative and the 2018 Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Hyderabad, India. Member of the Board of Directors of the Young Entrepreneurs Association of Venezuela (AJE).

Luisa Ribeiro is the CEO and co-founder of Regenativ, funder and manager of regenerative ventures on natural sanctuaries. From 2018 to 2020 she acted as the CEO of Recode/ CDI Global, a social organization focused on digital empowerment of underprivileged youth. She founded and led two of Brazil’s most prominent start-up accelerators, Papaya Ventures and Gema Ventures, and supported large corporations on implementing innovation strategies and corporate start-up accelerator programs in the last decade.

BEng, MBA from INSEAD, Luisa currently lives in Rio de Janeiro.

Viridiana Rios is an expert in Mexico’s sub-national economy, citizen security and rule of law. Her career has taken her from positions as a public officer and applied researcher, to entrepreneur and journalist. She has served as an adviser to Mexico’s Minister of Finance and to the Mexican President’s spokeswoman. She was awarded the 2014 American Political Science Award to the best doctoral dissertation written in the last two years. She also received Harvard’s Merit Fellowship for Outstanding Research in 2011, was selected as one of the top-12 young experts by NBER’s Working Group of the Economics of Crime in 2012 and profiled at Harvard Gazette as one of the 15 Harvard’s stellar graduates of 2013.

Maria Nelly Rivas is Cargill's Government Relations Vice President in Latina America. Former Assistant Resident Representative, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Previously she was the Central American coordinator for the United Nations World Tourism Organization. In the past she was a partner at Crea Comunicaciones. Prior to Crea, she was Minister of Tourism of Nicaragua. As Minister, she was in charge of promoting, developing and expanding tourism in Nicaragua. Under her leadership, tourism became the top revenue generator for the country. Previously, she was associate director of PRONicaragua, Nicaragua's investment promotion agency. Before joining PRONicaragua, Maria served as senior strategic media planner at multi-national advertising agency McCann-Erickson in New York City and Buenos Aires. While at McCann-Erickson, she managed accounts such as Coca-Cola and Starmedia. In New York, she was responsible for overseeing the agency's network in Latin America while managing quality standards and service for its international clientele. During her post in Buenos Aires, she was responsible for more than US$40 million in media investment. She holds a BA in communications from Queens College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She was born in Granada, Nicaragua and resides in Managua with her family. She is a Fellow of the second class of the Central America Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Lawyer, Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, Caracas, MA, Georgetown University; LLM, London School of Economics. Partner, Himiob Romero Law Firm.President of the NGO Foro Penal, pro bono NGO that represent victims of human rights abuses in Venezuela. Foro Penal has received many awards, including the 2014 Human Rights Defender award of the US State Department and the 2023 Defender Award of the Swedish NGO Civil Rights Defender. Registered cases of political persecution and filed actions for violations of human rights and crimes against humanity before UN human rights entities and the International Criminal Court. Professor of Law at the Universidad Central de Venezuela and the University of Navarra, Spain. He has been a fellow at the Kennedy School at Harvard University and at The Wilson Center in Washington, DC. Author of articles and coordinator of books about public and constitutional law, human rights and crimes against humanity. Recipient of many national and international awards including the Chevening Award of the British Embassy and the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Award in 2017. Interests: musician and runner.

Guillermo Romo entered the business world at the age of 17 and has since achieved several business successes, including the sale of Tequila Herradura, his family's original business, to Brown-Forman Corporation - a transaction valued US$ 876 million. In 2003, Romo created Grupo Mega, a holding company that integrates financial services, with assets over US$ 750 million.
Grupo Mega is ranked as the 2nd largest independent leasing & equipment finance company in Mexico and has an investment rating by Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings. Other investments include Agricultural & food-Bloomfarms-(agave, blueberries & avocados) bio compostable disposables & packaging, security and real estate, RFO Family Office and private equity.
Romo is Executive Chairman of the Board at Grupo Mega and has seats on different boards. He is active in social and environmental responsibility projects such as Teleton and Endeavor, reforestation US-Mexico Foundation. He’s also a VP of COMCE, the foreign trade chamber of commerce in Mexico. As well as honorary consul of the kingdom of Thailand in Mexico.

Diego Ignacio Schalper Sepúlveda is a Chilean politician currently serving as a member of the Chamber of Deputies, representing District 15 of the O'Higgins Region since 2018. He is a member of centre-right party National Renewal. Vice President of the International Democratic Union (IDU). Legislative coordinator of the Union of Latin American Parties (UPLA). Doctor of Law, University of Marburg (Germany), with the topic ?Constitutional protection of social rights in Chile and Germany. ?A comparative study.? Magister Legum ? LLM from the Free University of Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany), approved with maximum distinction. Lawyer from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, graduated with maximum distinction. Professor at the San Sebastián University.

Leo Schlesinger has an MBA from London Business School and additional courses at LBS, Yale, Harvard and Michigan University. He began his professional career in 1992 at Sun Chemical in New York and then joined Citigroup´s Global Leadership Program which took him to Santiago, Sao Paulo and London where he stayed until 2002 when he moved to Cigna International Europe and then Cigna USA. In 2005 he joined Gruponueva, a USD 1.4BN Swiss Private Equity fund as Corporate Vice President and he sat at the boards of the controlled companies (Masisa, Amanco, Plycem) where he restructured, merged and sold several of them. In 2007 Leo moved to Mexico as the CEO of Masisa.

In 2015 he became the CEO of Aliat Universidades (a PE company from Tresalia Capital); one of the major higher education private-for profit groups with presence in 15 Mexican states, +50 campus and 54,000 students. Aliat it’s the fastest growing Private for profit University group in Mexico and it includes 16 higher education institutions/ brands that teach from High School, Bachelors, Master and post graduate degrees both in traditional classrooms and online.

Leo in 2010 he was recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, also he has been awarded the Global SEN award as the CEO of the year by the Young Presidents Organization, was named Chairman of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Natural Capital, and currently is the president of the Young Presidents Organization Mexico City Chapter.
He also is a board member of KIO Networks, Subastas Ventura, a mentor at Endeavor and Ashoka and the Vice President of the Board of Trustees at the American School Foundation. He is the writer of “Mi mejor yo” (“my best self”) published by Pearson which has sold over 40,000 copies.

Engineer

Nathan Shabot is an accomplished entrepreneur with a diverse range of professional achievements. With a background in civil engineering and finance, his entrepreneurial journey began in 2010. Since then he has founded or collaborated in the establishment of 13 companies in various sectors, such as venture capital, innovation and technology, construction and engineering, arts, culture, education and ethics. Shabot is Co-founder and Managing Partner of LIP Ventures Boutique, which provides specialized venture capital and business development services to multi-regional technology start-ups. LIP aims to leapfrog Mexico and Latin America’s access to leading technology and innovation projects, accelerating adoption and generating a positive impact. One of Shabot’s social entrepreneurship endeavours is LUAN, a platform to spread globally the value of art in human development. LUAN’s philosophy is that art, creativity and culture are the best ways to ignite change. Shabot’s passion for music and commitment to social impact led him to serve on the Executive Committee of the Orchestra of the Americas Group and to organize concerts to support young musicians.