WorldCity Business Magazine

WorldCity People

by Mary Dempsey

Slamecka takes over as regional head for AT&T

AT&T Business Services appointed John Vladimir Slamecka to succeed Penny Shaffer, as vice president for Canada & Latin America. He leads a team of over 250 professionals in the sale, provisioning and management of AT&T global network services from AT&T’s Coral Gables headquarters. AT&T also appointed Javier Semerene as sales vice president for the Caribbean and Latin America.

Slamecka was previously responsible for AT&T’s global relationship with Siemens of Germany, one of the company’s larger customers worldwide. He has a wide range of experience in the global telecommunications industry. In late 2000, he co-founded Klarium Luxembourg Sarl, a privately held firm focusing on the development and deployment of mobile payment technologies in Italy, Austria, and Germany.

Before that, Slamecka spent five years at Lucent as chief operating officer of Lucent Technologies Enterprise Systems in Latin America, as managing director of Lucent Technologies Italia, as operations director for Lucent Technologies Central & Eastern Europe (Vienna) and as managing director for the Czech and Slovak Republics based in Prague.

From 1985-1995, Slamecka was at AT&T where among other roles he was director for Carrier Management / Correspondent Relations for Central and Eastern Europe (Brussels), marketing director for Puerto Rico / Virgin Islands (San Juan), and market manager for AT&T’s Business Markets for the U.S. Southern Region, based in Atlanta.

Javier Semerene, joined AT&T in 2002. Before that he was president of Digital Data Publishing, president of Cascade Systems Latin America and executive vice president of Hyphen Latin America.

BNP’s Bril elected president of FIBA

Seno Bril, general manger of BNP Paribas’s Miami subsidiary was elected president of The Florida International Bankers Association (FIBA), for a one year-term beginning July 1.

Also elected to FIBA’s executive committee were first vice president Simon Amich of American Express; vice president Alfredo Montero of Banco de Credito del Peru and Humberto Bauelos of BBVA; vice president and secretary Marco Gomez of Bank of America; treasurer Denise Gaudy of BankAtlantic; David Schwartz of Regions Bank; Guillermo Rossel of The International Bank of Miami; Eric Simon of ABN AMRO; George Crosby of HSBC Private Bank International; Peter Wallin of Standard New York Securities; Bowman Brown of Shutts & Bowen LLP; Clemente Vazquez-Bello of Gunster, Yoakley; Alcides Avila of Holland & Knight LLP; and Fernando Capablanca of BCI.

FIBA, founded in 1979 to promote the growth of international trade finance and international asset management in Florida, has over 100 members, including more than 70 banks and financial institutions from 18 countries.

Haeger wins Hispanic leader award

Lita Haeger, the President of the Association of Bi-National Chambers of Commerce in Florida (ABiCC), was named by Hispanic Business Magazine as the winner of the Civic National Leader 2005 award at the Latina Excellence Awards in New York. The annual awards ceremony recognizes Hispanic American women who are leaders in their fields and make a positive impact on the U.S. Hispanic community.

Haeger took advantage of her public appearance to make an impassioned appeal for support for the DR-CAFTA free trade agreement, currently being prepared for a vote in Congress. She reminded listeners that “democratic stability and prosperity in Central America is only possible with economic growth.”

Haeger, originally from Chile, moved to Florida in 1991 and was general manager of the Beacon Hotel in South Beach at that time. She was a founding member of ABiCC in 1997 and, since 2000, has been president of the organization, which aims to unite the international business community in the State of Florida. She was recently re-elected to another term.

Perez-Jones and Sacasa lead CCAA

Jose Perez-Jones, senior vice president of Seaboard Marine Corporation, was promoted to chairman of the Caribbean Central American Action (CCAA), a non-governmental organization that supports private sector economic development efforts in the Caribbean.

Perez-Jones is one of the founding members of Seaboard Marine Ltd., the largest ocean carrier through the Port of Miami. He is also Co-Chairman of the Business Coalition for U.S.-Central America Trade and serves on the boards of the World Trade Center Miami and the Florida Foreign Trade Association.

Meanwhile, Federico Sacasa, CCAA’s executive director since April 2002, succeeded Perez-Jones as the organization’s president, a position Perez-Jones had held since 2002. The CCAA board also approved the appointment of deputy director Anton Edmunds as the new executive director.

For Sacasa, this is his second term as president of CCAA, which is leading the lobbying effort in Washington to approve the DR CAFTA free-trade agreement. He is a past president of the Bankers Association for Finance & Trade (BAFT), the United States- Mexico Chamber of Commerce and the Pan American Society of California.

Cisco appoints Mountford head of emerging markets

Cisco Systems reorganized its sales structure by grouping Latin America with other emerging markets of the Middle East, Africa, Russia and eastern Europe. The new division will be run by senior vice president Paul Mountford. Keith Goodwin, the former head of Cisco’s Latin America and Canada division, was promoted to senior vice president of the company’s Worldwide Channels group.

Mountord joined Cisco in 1996 as managing director of the UK and Ireland division. He was later made VP in the Europe, Middle East and Africa division. Prior to joining Cisco, Mountford owned a channel development consultancy, assisting U.S. companies develop channel strategies for entering international markets.

Quintana to run U.S. Hispanic practice at Burson

Al Quintana, former head of communications at Telefonica USA, was named chairman of the U.S. Hispanic practice at global public relations firm Burson-Marsteller. Quintana will manage the U.S. Hispanic operation from Burson-Marsteller’s Latin America headquarters in Miami.

Quintana will lead a national team of PR professionals out of Burson-Marstellers offices in Austin, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, San Juan and Washington, D.C. He will focus on developing and executing Hispanic market public relations campaigns and building the company’s Hispanic practice.

Quintana was most recently the vice president of marketing communications for the Telefonica SA subsidiary in the United States. Prior to that he worked at Airspan Networks in Boca Raton, and, before that, managed all Hispanic market communications nationwide for AT&T out of its New Jersey headquarters.

Quintana, a native of Brooklyn, has a journalism degree from the University of Florida, an MS in Business Management from St. Thomas University and an MBA from the Keller Graduate School of Management at DeVry University.

Crowley* named EVP at International Bank of Miami*

The International Bank of Miami N.A. (TIBOM) appointed banking veteran A. William Crowley executive vice president to oversee the bank’s personal financial services, commercial lending, real estate lending, credit administration and correspondent banking divisions.

Crowley has over 30 years of banking and financial services experience. Prior to joining TIBOM, one of the largest independent banks in South Florida, Crowley, was president of AW Crowley Inc., a private investment and management consulting firm in Dallas, and, before that, he was executive vice president and chief credit officer of Associates First Capital Corp., also in Dallas.

But much of Crowley’s banking career has been spent in Miami, where he was executive vice president and chief credit officer with Southeast Banking Corp. During his 20 years with Southeast, Crowley’s responsibilities included the management of various commercial, consumer and real estate lending activities.

Crowley holds a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Miami and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Notre Dame. The International Bank of Miami, which is headquartered in Coral Gables, has beenb in business since 1964.

Neville to lead sales team at Terremark

Terremark Worldwide Inc., an operator of integrated Internet exchanges and network services, appointed John Neville to lead its commercial sales division. Neville will be responsible for directing Terremark’s sales and marketing strategy locally and in Latin America.

A telecom industry veteran of more than 25 years, Neville was executive vice president of sales and business development at Arsenal Digital Solutions. Former positions also included vice president of enterprise sales at Verizon.

Neville has a BBA from Southern Methodist University and attended the executive program at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.

Terremark’s Internet exchange facilities, located in Miami, Florida; Santa Clara, California; Madrid, Spain and Sao Paulo, Brazil, allow networks to interconnect and exchange Internet and telecommunications traffic. Terremark’s flagship facility, the NAP of the Americas, in Miami, Florida was built to maximum security standards to house mission-critical systems infrastructure.

FIU professor named to accounting advisory group

Leonardo Rodriguez, professor emeritus in accounting at FIU’s College of Business Administration and president of the Inter- American Accounting Association (IAA), was appointed to a special advisory group of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) to make recommendations in the development of accounting standards for small and medium size companies around the world.

Rodriguez’s research has appeared in numerous publications. He also is author and co author of four books. He has taught and consulted at universities throughout the Americas and is a member of the American Accounting Association and the Academy of Management.

Rodriguez earned his DBA in Management from Florida State University, and a BBA in Accounting from the University of Miami, where he also received his MBA in Management. He is listed in the first edition of Who’s Who Among Hispanic Americans and was a Fulbright professor at the Universidad Santiago de Chile.

Fortune International adds Belmonte to team

Fortune International hired Pietro Belmonte, a real estate broker from New York to concentrate on development sales for Fortune’s ultra-luxury residences in South Florida, primarily with the ultra-luxury Ritz Carlton Residences South Beach, which is pending zoning approval.

Belmonte has more than 10 years experience in the high-end residential market. Prior to joining Fortune International, Belmonte served as vice president of the Manhattan office for Douglas Elliman, a New York City brokerage firm. Belmonte was handpicked by management in 2004 to lead the firm’s charge into South Florida’s burgeoning real estate market, opening the firm’s Miami Beach office.