Juan has intensely and passionately contributed to large and small organizations for 30 years as a finance executive across multiple industries, including: Pharmaceuticals, Medical Devices, Consumer Goods, Retail, Software Technology, and Property Management. This rich experience has taken place in the United States and in six countries across Latin America and Europe.
Juan mastered financial excellence while working at Blue Chip Fortune 100 companies Abbott Laboratories, Pfizer and PepsiCo. Many times, and because he was directly involved in nine major M&A transactions, he was responsible for leading the financial aspects of those deals, driving the due diligence teams on short timeframes, integrating those targets into the acquiring businesses, and thereafter being accountable for running the businesses post-acquisition.
Most recently, Juan was the CFO for the Florida-based Laboratory Information Systems Unit at Abbott, and over a 6-year span was instrumental in executing the turnaround and successful carve-out of the business to Francisco Partners, a Bay area technology Private Equity firm.
Prior to this role, Juan and his family lived in Moscow for four years, where Juan lead the Finance function for Abbott in Russia. In a country where public health is still not a priority, this assignment included the integration of Solvay Pharma, the aggressive scale-up and business development with sales growing 25 % per year, and the successful acquisition of Veropharm, with its three manufacturing sites.
Earlier in his career, Juan was part of PepsiCo-FritoLay, whereas as a subsidiary finance leader, he was actively involved in the acquisition and integration of numerous small-scale, family-owned snacks producers. These companies lacked basic systems and processes, and due to regulatory aspects had to operate as independent manufacturers for a while. Juan led those efforts and ultimately drove the actions required to bring them on board as part of a unified business.
Juan is well versed in ERP related matters, and his strong leadership has allowed him to implement multiple systems in his career, often under difficult circumstances. One of his most important contributions while at Abbott, was to be the leader of the remediation of a failed mission critical SAP project, which triggered a crisis management approach, as the business risked becoming black-listed by the government. Juan was awarded with the CFO’s recognition award for saving millions in sales and profits, once the situation was stabilized, working against a tight deadline.
Juan is a skilled problem solver and believes in active professional volunteering, where his expertise can be valuable. For seven years he has been serving as a Board Member, President & Treasurer of a 450+ unit Condominium Association in Miami, Florida, with an $8.0 MM budget. This activity has brought him closer to the hurdles from the increasing costs and challenges in Florida’s housing environment, impacted by aging properties, engineering fees, and skyrocketing insurance costs.
Juan has also contributed as a board Strategy Advisor to VIC, a water management startup. This venture has successfully partnered with governments to close the loop in the creation of efficient use of water resources at mass low-income Real Estate development projects. This activity is in line with his interests, since he believes there is lot of room for one’s skills to contribute to the common good.
Juan is fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese, with a basic knowledge of Russian. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and a Postgraduate degree in Finance from Universidad de Los Andes. He has gone through the Directors Development Program at INALDE university. Recently, Juan attended the CFO Executive Development program at Columbia Business School in NY.
