Fereydoun Firouz was appointed president of Serono Inc. in March 2003. He is responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of the U.S. affiliate of Serono SA. From 2001 until his appointment as president, he was executive vice president of Reproductive Health North America where he was responsible for re-engineering the sales and marketing organization for Serono’s U.S. reproductive health business, and increasing product sales 15 percent with an 84 percent contribution margin. From 1998 to 2001, Firouz was vice president, Latin America for Serono SA where he oversaw the successful launches of a variety of products (RebifÒ, SaizenÒ, Gonal-fÒ, and the reproductive health portfolio) and increased product sales by 43 percent. Prior to his tenure in Latin America, he held positions of increasing responsibility in Serono’s IBO region as director and ultimately vice president, where he was instrumental in creating new commercial operating entities in Greece, Turkey, Israel, Central Europe, and the Middle East. Firouz began his career at Serono in 1989 as a government affairs associate in Serono’s Washington, DC office.

Firouz received his BS in political science and business from George Washington University in Washington, DC. He has also participated in a number of executive education programs including the Executive Program on General Management at the F. W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College.

Francisco Perez Mackenna
Chief Executive Officer
Quinenco S.A.

Mr. Perez Mackenna graduated first in his class from Universidad Catolica de Chile as a Commercial Engineer with a degree in business administration. After working for the research department at forestall SA between 1978 and 1980. Mr. Perez Mackenna attended the University of Chicago where he received his masters of business administration . Upon graduation, he was honored by receiving the Henry Ford II award signifying his overall outstanding academic record as well as the Wall Street Journal Award indicating his high achievement in finance.

Directly after business school, Mr. Perez Mackenna returned to Universidad Catolica de Chile’s Business school as a full-time professor. While serving as professor, he also worked as an independent consultant to Pesquera Guanaye, Compania Cervecerias Unidas SA and Forestal SA.

In 1985, Mr. Perez Mackenna joined CITICORP-CHILE as a project manager for two years. In 1988, Bankers Trust hired Mr. Perez Mackenna as the CFO of AFP Provida SA. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed a bankers Trust Vice President and was given a seat on both Provida’s Board of Director and Cia de Seguros de Vida Consorcio Nacional de Seguros SA.

Between 1989 and 1991, Mr. Perez Mackenna has served on the following Boards of Directors: ENDESA, VTR, Transelec, ICARE, Asociacion de A>F>P> A>G> and CITICORP-CHILE. At both Asociacion de A.F.P. A.G. and CITICORP-CHILE, he has been elected Chairman of the Board.

Mr. Perez Mackenna works in Santiago, Chile as the Chief Executive Officer of Quinenco S.A., a position that he has held since July 1998. He also sits on the Boards of Directors for Entel, Banco de Chile, CCU Chile, Embotelladoras Chilenas Unidas S.A., CCU-Argentina S.A., Vina San Pedro S.A., Hoteles Carrera S.A., Inversiones y Rentas S.A., Banchile Securitizadora S.A., LQ Inversiones Financieras, Vina Totihue S.A. and Empresas Lucchetti S.A.

Gita Chari Mattes
Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer
Kitchen Etc.

Gita Chari Mattes is vice president and chief marketing officer for Kitchen Etc., a specialty retailer of cooking and dining products. Working for several years at the Kellogg Company, she lead the Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and Kellogg’s Raisin Bran divisions, managed the teams crafting the company strategy on pricing and packaging innovation, developed the market entry strategy into the Natural Foods sector, created programs targeting the Hispanic community, and leveraged the company sponsorship of NASCAR. Also during her tenure at Kellogg, Mattes took on a special assignment to create customized marketing programs for the fast-growing mass merchandiser channel, working closely with the company’s largest customers including Wal-Mart and Target. At the Timberland Company, Mattes headed up marketing for the company’s fastest-growing business division. With the challenge of moving into apparel from long-developed brand equity in boots, she developed a plan that leveraged the roots and richness of the corporate brand yet allowed the apparel sub-brand to thrive and develop in its own distribution channels and, at times, separate customer segments.

Earlier this year, Mattes made the transition to Kitchen Etc., building the brand equity in both established and newly entered markets. Moving to this entrepreneurial environment, she leverages her training at Babson College and her retail background at Filene’s, May Company, where she first started her career.

Mattes earned her BS/BA in marketing from the Boston University and her MBA from Babson College. She was a Babson scholar, working closely with Dean Thomas E. Moore.

Susan W. Nye
Founder and Principal
Kearsarge Services & Solutions Consulting

Susan Nye is an independent consultant with close to 20 years experience in international sales and marketing. She has held senior leadership positions at Hewlett-Packard Company, Microsoft Corporation and in the Swiss watch industry.

Ms. Nye has extensive international experience and lived in Europe for several years. She has led scores of projects, workshops and training sessions covering a wide variety of topics in strategy, sales and marketing in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia. She has mapped skills and capabilities requirements and created comprehensive development plans for teams and individuals. She has extensive experience coaching and mentoring managers, individual contributors and teams. She has trained hundreds of sales and marketing people.

She has held marketing positions with increasing responsibility in both headquarters and field organizations. Ms. Nye has led marketing organizations for services businesses with revenues in excess of $1.5B. Her marketing experience covers all facets of strategy, marketing and communications. She has managed market research, brand positioning, service and solution development, sales force readiness, training and channel and alliance management.

Her sales experience includes creating and managing a services sales force. She has an impressive track record with average growth of more than 30% for 7 years running and 6-fold profitability improvement. She has managed a regional sales force with order volumes of approximately $300M.

Ms. Nye is a partner of ITSMA, IT Services Marketing Association. She has been a guest lecturer in marketing at the Art Center Europe and a Research Associate at IMD, International Management Development Institute. She is a frequent speaker on technology sales and marketing and global business.

Ms. Nye received her MBA with high honors from the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College and BA from St. Lawrence University, cum laude with honors in Fine Arts.

Antonio Jose Vincentelli
Chairman of the Board and CEO
Inelectra

Graduated Magna Cum Laude in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering in 1973, and in 1974 obtained a Masters Degree in Power Engineering at the University of Michigan. He completed the Advanced Senior Management Program in Harvard in 1994.

Since 1998 he is CEO and Chairman of the Board of Inelectra. He joined the Company in 1975, and was responsible for the management and direction of projects for the oil and petrochemical industry, the power industry and the basic industries. He has worked as Director of the Projects Division, Vice-President of Operations and as Executive Vice-­President for Engineering and Construction.

Inelectra is the largest Engineering and Construction Company in Venezuela with operations also in Colombia and the Andean Region. In its oil production activities the Corporation today operates two inland and one offshore oil field, and two gas fields.

He is Vice-President of the Venezuelan Oil Chamber and has been member of the National Commission for Petroleum Research, the National Economic Advisory Council, Director of the Office for the Development of the Capital Goods Industry and Director of the Consulting Engineers Society. Today he also serves as Director in the Board of several of the group companies and alliances.

In the area of education, he worked as professor of undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the Simon Bolivar University in Caracas, Venezuela from 1975 to 1985. From 1974 to 1975 he worked as research assistant providing consulting services to the industry at the Power System Lab of the University of Michigan.

He has been awarded with the "Order of Merit at Work" by the Labor Ministry of Venezuela. He is a Fellow Member of the IEEE and member of the TAU BETA PI and ETA KAPPA NU Societies. In 2002 he received the IEEE PES Chapter Outstanding Engineering Award.

He has written several papers and publications in the technical and management fields, and has participated as speaker in more than 50 national and international congress and forums.

He was born in Caracas, Venezuela on 26 July 1950. He married to Adriana de Vincentelli 30 years ago and has two daughters, Cristina and Andreina.