Jose Suarez
Jose Suarez is an investor and social entrepreneur.
He is the founder of 3VC, a venture capital and business start-up organization for third world micro-entrepreneurs. Currently at a prototype stage in El Salvador, 3VC helps micro-entrepreneurs by either funding their businesses or matching them with one of 3VC’s microfranchises. 3VC is a for-profit business with the altruistic goal of creating successful micro-entrepreneurs who can in turn provide employment to others and bring economic growth to the communities they serve.
As a nonprofit affiliate of 3VC, Mr. Suarez is forming Entrepreneurs For the World, an organization that brings together top university graduates and successful entrepreneurs (known as "eLeaders") with poor entrepreneurs in the third world. Typically, eLeaders dedicate, on a full-time basis, up to a year of their professional careers to help 3VC entrepreneurs succeed in their micro-businesses.
Mr. Suarez is the founder of Suarez & Associates, LLC, an investment and advisory firm in Connecticut. Suarez & Associates seeks to make investments where its knowledge, advice and contact network can add value. Investments are usually pre-Series A, under $500,000, and involve start-ups with the potential for rapid scalability. Recent investments include yappr.com, an international, language-learning social community, and MediaBids.com, a marketplace for print media advertising.
Mr. Suarez is an advisor and partner and (and former President & COO) of Walker Digital, a privately-held, innovation laboratory based in Stamford, Connecticut, founded by Jay Walker.
During his seven years as President and COO of Walker Digital, Mr. Suarez helped create a portfolio of more than 1,000 issued and pending U.S. and international patents across a wide range of industries, including gaming, retail, vending, travel, credit card, telecom and ecommerce. These innovations get to market through a variety of vehicles including licensing, strategic partnerships, and by funding and launching companies that leverage the IP. While the company is best known for having created priceline.com, the Internet-based “name-your-own-price” company, its innovations and businesses are much broader. Mr. Suarez has recently secured over $250 million in royalty advances and investments from non-Internet industry leaders seeking to partner with Walker Digital or license its technology. He also restructured over $350 million of debt and equity during the burst of the Internet bubble.
Prior to Walker Digital, Mr. Suarez was the start-up COO and General Manager of Priceline WebHouse Club, a titanic $400-million venture to extend the priceline.com model into groceries and gasoline. Mr. Suarez has started, operated and sold numerous businesses, including an electronic payment processing company and manufacturing plants employing thousands of people throughout Central America.
A former real estate developer, Mr. Suarez started his professional career at GE, where he created computer simulation models of manufacturing processes and of entire factories. Mr. Suarez was born and reared in El Salvador through high school and emigrated to the United States during his country's civil war to attend college. He graduated valedictorian with a 4.00 grade-point-average from Virginia Tech holding a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. He also holds a Masters in Business Administration from The Wharton School.
Mr. Suarez enjoys traveling (he has visited both the Arctic and the Antarctic), is forty-five and an avid runner, who recently completed the 2007 Western States'100 Mile Endurance Run across the Sierra Nevada in 27 hours. Jose and his wife Trish have one son and live in Fairfield County, Connecticut.
Jose E. Siman
Mr. Jose Eduardo Siman is the Chief Financial Officer of Milady Associates Ltd.
Born in San Salvador, El Salvador in 1946, Mr. Siman received an MBA from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business in 1969. Mr. Siman began his professional career with Procter and Gamble and The Caltrav Corporation, in Toronto, Canada, before joining his family’s business in 1979.
Since then, the family business has grown from one department store in San Salvador, El Salvador to a multinational business group employing over 15,000 people in retailing, consumer finance, apparel manufacturing and real estate in eighteen countries throughout the Caribbean, Central America and the United States.
Mr. Siman is President of the Salvadoran American Humanitarian Foundation (SAHF) in Miami, Florida, a 501(c)(3), not-for-profit, non-sectarian, tax-exempt organization that channels aid to El Salvador. SAHF and its in-country sister organization FUSAL, support programs in Human Development, Health, Education, Housing, Nutrition and Disaster Relief Assistance. Since its inception in 1983, SAHF has distributed nearly $350 million in aid to more than 550 health-related programs and institutions throughout El Salvador at less than 1% overhead expense.
Mr. Siman is also a Member of the University of Miami International Advisory Board. Mr. Siman is married and has four adult children currently living in the United States and Paraguay.
He is the founder of 3VC, a venture capital and business start-up organization for third world micro-entrepreneurs. Currently at a prototype stage in El Salvador, 3VC helps micro-entrepreneurs by either funding their businesses or matching them with one of 3VC’s microfranchises. 3VC is a for-profit business with the altruistic goal of creating successful micro-entrepreneurs who can in turn provide employment to others and bring economic growth to the communities they serve.
As a nonprofit affiliate of 3VC, Mr. Suarez is forming Entrepreneurs For the World, an organization that brings together top university graduates and successful entrepreneurs (known as "eLeaders") with poor entrepreneurs in the third world. Typically, eLeaders dedicate, on a full-time basis, up to a year of their professional careers to help 3VC entrepreneurs succeed in their micro-businesses.
Mr. Suarez is the founder of Suarez & Associates, LLC, an investment and advisory firm in Connecticut. Suarez & Associates seeks to make investments where its knowledge, advice and contact network can add value. Investments are usually pre-Series A, under $500,000, and involve start-ups with the potential for rapid scalability. Recent investments include yappr.com, an international, language-learning social community, and MediaBids.com, a marketplace for print media advertising.
Mr. Suarez is an advisor and partner and (and former President & COO) of Walker Digital, a privately-held, innovation laboratory based in Stamford, Connecticut, founded by Jay Walker.
During his seven years as President and COO of Walker Digital, Mr. Suarez helped create a portfolio of more than 1,000 issued and pending U.S. and international patents across a wide range of industries, including gaming, retail, vending, travel, credit card, telecom and ecommerce. These innovations get to market through a variety of vehicles including licensing, strategic partnerships, and by funding and launching companies that leverage the IP. While the company is best known for having created priceline.com, the Internet-based “name-your-own-price” company, its innovations and businesses are much broader. Mr. Suarez has recently secured over $250 million in royalty advances and investments from non-Internet industry leaders seeking to partner with Walker Digital or license its technology. He also restructured over $350 million of debt and equity during the burst of the Internet bubble.
Prior to Walker Digital, Mr. Suarez was the start-up COO and General Manager of Priceline WebHouse Club, a titanic $400-million venture to extend the priceline.com model into groceries and gasoline. Mr. Suarez has started, operated and sold numerous businesses, including an electronic payment processing company and manufacturing plants employing thousands of people throughout Central America.
A former real estate developer, Mr. Suarez started his professional career at GE, where he created computer simulation models of manufacturing processes and of entire factories. Mr. Suarez was born and reared in El Salvador through high school and emigrated to the United States during his country's civil war to attend college. He graduated valedictorian with a 4.00 grade-point-average from Virginia Tech holding a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. He also holds a Masters in Business Administration from The Wharton School.
Mr. Suarez enjoys traveling (he has visited both the Arctic and the Antarctic), is forty-five and an avid runner, who recently completed the 2007 Western States'100 Mile Endurance Run across the Sierra Nevada in 27 hours. Jose and his wife Trish have one son and live in Fairfield County, Connecticut.
Jose E. Siman
Mr. Jose Eduardo Siman is the Chief Financial Officer of Milady Associates Ltd.
Born in San Salvador, El Salvador in 1946, Mr. Siman received an MBA from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business in 1969. Mr. Siman began his professional career with Procter and Gamble and The Caltrav Corporation, in Toronto, Canada, before joining his family’s business in 1979.
Since then, the family business has grown from one department store in San Salvador, El Salvador to a multinational business group employing over 15,000 people in retailing, consumer finance, apparel manufacturing and real estate in eighteen countries throughout the Caribbean, Central America and the United States.
Mr. Siman is President of the Salvadoran American Humanitarian Foundation (SAHF) in Miami, Florida, a 501(c)(3), not-for-profit, non-sectarian, tax-exempt organization that channels aid to El Salvador. SAHF and its in-country sister organization FUSAL, support programs in Human Development, Health, Education, Housing, Nutrition and Disaster Relief Assistance. Since its inception in 1983, SAHF has distributed nearly $350 million in aid to more than 550 health-related programs and institutions throughout El Salvador at less than 1% overhead expense.
Mr. Siman is also a Member of the University of Miami International Advisory Board. Mr. Siman is married and has four adult children currently living in the United States and Paraguay.
Zulma Gamero
Zulma Gamero was born in San Salvador, El Salvador and studied through high school at a local catholic school. She graduated from La Universidad Centroamericana “José Simeón Cañas“ with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. She also holds a Masters in Business Administration from the same university.
Zulma’s professional career has developed mostly around manufacturing plants, beginning at ADOC, one of the biggest factories of footwear in the country. While at ADOC, she gained important skills in the areas of maintenance, raw materials purchasing, warehouses management and general manufacturing.
After ADOC, seeking a more entrepreneurial challenge, Zulma started working at a very small apparel manufacturing plant, Qualitymaq, S.A. de C.V., as Chief Administrative Officer. At the time, the company had recently started operations and had fewer than 125 employees. During the ensuing 12 years, this plant, now owned by Intradesa, S.A. de C.V., has grown to approximately 4,000 employees. Zulma has been an integral part of this growth, managing the functions of human resources, exports, accounting, purchasing, maintenance, payroll and others. She has also managed the social compliance department, ensuring that the factory and all its vendors adhered to strict labor practices and all applicable employment laws and regulations.
Zulma is now initiating a new career, combining her administrative skills, entrepreneurial spirit, and desire to help and serve the poor. Along with Mr. Jose Suarez, the founder of QualityMaq, she has started and is the general manager of 3VC, a venture capital company seeking to establish microfranchises throughout Central America and the Caribbean.
Zulma is 45 years old, married, has a 16-year-old daughter and lives in El Salvador.
Gustavo Siman
Gustavo Siman is an investment banker at New York based Financo, Inc, where he specializes in mergers and acquisitions, restructurings and private placements for retail, fashion and consumer products companies. Over the past two years, Mr. Siman has also sourced and developed banking relationships for Financo throughout Latin America. Previously, Mr. Siman worked at private equity firm GB Merchant Partners where he evaluated potential investment opportunities, performed business due diligence and participated in portfolio company boards.
Prior to joining GB Merchant Partners, Mr. Siman was Commercial Director of St. Jack’s Apparel, a leading vertical branded apparel manufacturer and retailer in Latin America, where he started the company’s retail operation and expanded it throughout Central America. He designed and implemented the division’s commercial strategy and annual business plans. His functions included P&L responsibility for the retail division and distribution operations, as well as the establishment of the global sourcing unit. He also negotiated and secured major licensing contracts with Disney, Mattel, Nickelodeon and other leading entertainment & media companies.
Mr. Siman earned a Masters in Business Administration from the Harvard Business School. He graduated with a B.A. summa cum laude in Business Administration from North Carolina State University. Mr. Siman is a former Director of the Children’s Museum of El Salvador. He has done personal real estate projects and investments and enjoys architectural design. He resides in New Jersey with his wife and three children.
Anne Kallish
Anne has spent her career within both the corporate and the entrepreneurial worlds. She spent 10 years with Hewlett-Packard’s Medical Product Group before it was sold to Philips Medical. She introduced, positioned and trained US, Latin American and Western European sales forces on HP's patient monitoring product portfolio.
Ms. Kallish also spent a number of years as an entrepreneur. Most notably she founded, funded and started Contact Communications, one of the first internet access and web page business in the San Carlos region of Costa Rica making internet accessible to locals, tourists and small businesses.
Anne has worked with several high tech start ups specializing in applications specific to mobile devices. At one of them, Sona Mobile, she partnered with Alcatel-Lucent to create a substantially lower cost method of making international phone calls from mobile device while maintaining call quality.
Anne has recently joined Suarez & Associates. She holds an undergraduate degree in economics from Brandeis University as well as an MBA from the Haas School of Business -- UC Berkeley. She is fluent in Spanish and French.
Evan Walker
Evan Walker is a recent graduate of Cornell University with a BA in History. Rather than pursuing traditional employment opportunities, Evan seeks to learn from fascinating people and delve into intriguing projects and problems. While at Cornell, Evan interned at Walker Digital labs, developing economic platforms for global cellular networks and at Allen & Co, performing financial analyses for the M&A department.
His first project after Cornell has been a marketing role at the World Science Festival Foundation, where he is helping to develop, organize, and promote a four-day celebration of science that will draw 200,000 spectators and host some of the leading scientists, business leaders, and policy makers in the world.
Evan has also been working with 3VC, researching microfranchise business models in general and appropriate franchise models for the Caribbean and Central America.
