Juan Reffreger is a Consulting Partner at Tactical Growth Advisors. He founded TGA in 2014 with the objective to aid and support US companies to grow their business in Latin America. Reffreger brings to his role at TGA a proven record of success in sales and business development, with a strong network of key players and top executives in Latin America.
He is also the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Blue Equity. He led the growth of Blue Equity’s Enlace Spanish Yellow Pages business into the largest independent Spanish Yellow page directory in the United States. In October 2006 Teléfonos de México (Telmex - NYSE: TMX) took control of the company. At Telmex’s request, Reffreger stayed on as Chief Executive Officer of Sección Amarilla USA from October 2006 through October 2011.
Before founding TGA and his role in Blue Equity, Reffreger worked at First Omni, a portfolio company of Blue Equity engaged in the residential mortgage lending business where he quickly rose to top producer status. Prior to joining First Omni, Reffreger was the Sales Manager of Cementos Moctezuma, S.A. de C.V., the 2nd largest cement company in Mexico. In this position, Reffreger oversaw the central-east territory out of Puebla, Mexico, and led the team to 20% growth annually. Reffreger also owned and managed Publicidad E Ideas, SA. De CV, an advertising company based in the Mexican Caribbean. There he initiated sales of advertising spaces in shopping centers. Reffreger was also the sales manager for Progress Rail Services de Mexico, S.A. de C.V. He began his career as a sales executive for Ferromex.
Reffreger earned his B.A. in Economics and M.B.A. in International Management from Universidad Anahuac in Mexico City. He served on the board of the Hispanic Business Association of Louisville for the 2004 term.
Ignacio Tejedor, Consulting partner, has a vast background in international business development, having the experience of expanding businesses in various continents from Asia, to Europe and the Americas, and a deep knowledge in development of startups.
Tejedor has led the business development of large and small companies, and participates as a speaker for innovation and startup companies.
He is the Program Leader of The Startup Challenge at The Idea Center of Miami Dade College. A program to incubate the creation of more than 100 startups a year. Miami Dade College is the largest institution of higher education in the United States with more than 170,000 students.
He started working as an International Strategy Analyst in Telefonica. He then represented the Chamber of Commerce of Madrid at the Trade Commission of the Embassy of Spain in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where he was able to manage Spanish companies to reach the Asian economies. After that, he moved to the United States, to create the subsidiary and lead the business expansion of Airzone, a manufacturer of HVAC and intelligent homes systems. He then he joined Mitsubishi Corporation, where he led the development of large power plants projects in Latin America and Africa, and the Smart City Zem2all, the only such project in the world.
Tejedor has a Bachelor´s degree in Economics and Business Administration from Carlos III University. He has a Master in International Business from the ICEX-CECO, and graduated with an Executive M.B.A from the IE Business School, ranked in the top 10 Business Schools by the Financial Times.
Tejedor is passionate about startups, technologies, business and politics.
John Madalon is the founder and CEO of Aperity, a business intelligence software company.
Madalon has over 20 years of experience in brand analytics across the verticals of tobacco, wine, distilled spirits, pet foods, pharmaceutical, and other consumer goods. Before the concept of Big Data, Madalon was building consumer and retail models for British American Tobacco since 1995. In that role, he launched one of the first models to segment retail stores based on purchase behaviors.
Madalon earned his bachelor’s degree in Decision Sciences from the Kelly School of Business at Indiana University and his MBA from the Owen School of Business at Vanderbilt University. He has spoken on the power of analytics to drive brand growth at events for companies such as IBM Netezza and Microstrategy.
As the leader of Aperity, Madalon formulated the product strategy that gave Aperity the prestigious award of “Analytical Innovator” by IBM.
Lorenzo Reffreger is a Consulting Partner and the Managing Director of the Mexico office. He has more than 35 years experience as Director in industrial sectors such as chemicals, plastics, and rail transport. Reffreger has held General Director positions of large groups in Mexico for more than 25 years.
Reffreger has a Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.Sc.) and Chemical Engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Over the years he has developed a network of contacts. His position will be key to open the doors to senior management of large Mexican companies and his influential lobbying, negotiating and closing contracts skills will be an asset to our clients. He has participated in Board positions at the AMTI ( Mexican Intermodal Association ) among others .
John Shumate is Chief Executive Officer of Venture First and has focused his career on working closely with venture-backed companies. He has worked with hundreds of early- and growth-stage companies across many industries, many of them dealing with highly-technical products or business models. He believes strongly in the use of carefully-applied rigor to rationalize financial models, business plans, valuations, and other quantification tools. He has over a decade of financial experience, including buy-side and sell-side mergers and acquisitions; debt and equity capital raises; strategic consulting; complex financial modeling; business plan development; equity and derivative valuation; and venture incubation.
Shumate recently served as Vice President at Blue Equity, a growth-stage private equity firm, and Chief Financial Officer at BellaNovus, an early-stage medical device development company. He was an Associate at bCatalyst, a business incubator and financial services provider to early-stage companies. He has also held analytical roles for Ethicon-Endo Surgery, a division of Johnson & Johnson, and Hilliard-Lyons, a regional brokerage house.
Shumate attended the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a B.S. in Economics and dual concentrations in Finance and Management.
