• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Celerant Consulting Names New Head of Latin America; Predicts Pressure on Local Business to Improve Productivity and Cost Structures for Remainder of 2009

Posted on: Monday, 27 July 2009, 09:15 CDT

LEXINGTON, Mass. and BOGATA, July 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Celerant Consulting today announced the appointment of Gustavo Rojas as the company's new Vice President and Managing Director of Latin America. He assumes all accountability for existing client engagements and will lead Celerant's continued growth in the region. Based on more than 25 years of international management experience focused on South and Latin America, Mr. Rojas, predicts that:

Exports to the US will continue to drop as seen in May this year when the trade deficit of the USA decreased by $2.8B from April with American businesses and consumers reducing their spending habits. Exports to the USA fell again by 0.6% and this is bad news for overseas economies that rely on the U.S. market. Trade overall remains far below levels from before the financial crisis and signs of a recovery are mixed with some economists predicting improvements only in late 2010.

With these new challenges and after several years of continuous growth and good financial results, there is now pressure on many businesses to improve their productivity and cost structures. Businesses are expected to focus their efforts in:

• Operational Effectiveness -- Reduction in non-value added activities and implementation of lean manufacturing practices
• Supply Chain Management -- Improving the overall effectiveness of the supply chain from sourcing of raw materials to reducing transportation and logistics costs to optimizing inventory levels
• Organizational Effectiveness -- Designing and implementing the right structure and aligning job roles with effective work processes and management systems.
  

Mr. Rojas has held various executive positions with global firms. His experience in delivering sustained financial and operational improvements includes global programs in Supply Chain Management, Strategic Sourcing, Merchandise Assortment Planning, Strategic Pricing, Operational & Organizational Effectiveness, Lean, Behavior Change, and Asset Management (OEE, Maintenance, Process Control, etc.).

His professional experience encompasses advising numerous clients, many of who are industry leaders in retail, consumer electronics, energy, manufacturing, e-commerce, and construction and real estate.

Before rejoining Celerant, Mr. Rojas co-founded Vector 2 group, LLC, an operational strategy consulting firm based in Dallas, TX. Prior to that, he served as VP Retail Operations at RadioShack where he was responsible in developing RadioShack's operational strategy including divesting and closing underutilized assets, and designing and implementing RadioShack's end to end Supply Chain. Before that, he was Principal at Celerant Consulting where he led the South American Operations.

Mr. Rojas earned an MS from Stanford University as well as an MS and a BS in Engineering from the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland. He is fluent in English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian.

About Celerant Consulting

Celerant is a global management consultancy that provides international strategy and business transformation consulting and delivers operational improvement that helps the world's leading companies to achieve and sustain real gains in bottom-line performance.

Celerant's difference is simple -- we believe that once we have fixed a problem for a client, it should stay fixed.

First we spend time understanding the needs of an organization. Then we analyze the challenges faced before recommending a tailored change program designed to deliver measurable results, now and into the future. This involves our industry experienced consultants working side-by-side with people in the front line of your business -- from the Boardroom to the shop floor -- to ensure the delivery of sustainable and measurable benefits.

As a result, last year Celerant delivered over $1bn in annualized sustainable savings to its clients. For more information, please visit www.celerantconsulting.com.

SOURCE Celerant Consulting

Source: PR Newswire

More News in this Category