Georgetown Americas Institute

Featuring

Barbara Aveggio is originally from Lima, Peru, and is currently pursuing her MBA at the McDonough School of Business (MSB). She will be joining PwC in Washington, D.C. this summer as an intern in the M&A practice. At MSB, she is actively involved in the Consulting Club as part of the Career Management Team and serves as Vice President of Social of the Latin American Business Association. Before Georgetown, Barbara worked at Belcorp, a leading beauty company in Latin America, where she held roles across both commercial and corporate strategy functions. She began in commercial roles focused on product strategy, brand growth, and sales execution, working closely with field teams and driving initiatives that increased brand penetration and salespeople performance. She later transitioned into Corporate Strategy, where she partnered with C-level executives to shape and execute the company’s highest-priority initiatives, leading growth, market entry strategy, and retail channel expansion projects, conducting competitive benchmarking and M&A due diligence, and developing financial models and board-level presentations to support executive decision-making. Earlier in her career, Barbara worked at Rappi, where she focused on revenue growth and commercial strategy in high-growth business units, collaborating with partners to accelerate sales and improve category performance. She holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering, which has shaped her analytical and problem-solving approach across roles. Her experience bridges strategy, commercial execution, and data-driven decision-making across the consumer and technology sectors.

Gaelle Burkhart is director of global stakeholder relations at The AES Corporation, where she has worked since 2006. She has extensive experience in stakeholder relations, focusing on international government and public affairs, corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and corporate communications.Prior to joining AES, she worked as a Marketing Project Officer at EGTA in Brussels from 2002 to 2005, supporting marketing initiatives for a trade association representing television and radio advertising sales houses.

Andrés A. Durán is a visiting fellow at the Georgetown Americas Institute. He served as ambassador of Uruguay to the United States from 2020 to 2025, during the government of President Luis Lacalle Pou. He was dean of the Latin America diplomatic corps in Washington, DC, both under the Joe Biden and Donald Trump administrations. During his tenure, Uruguay and the United States deepened their economic partnership through trade and investments and developed a close political relationship that was reflected in new security and education agreements, initiatives to foster innovation and entrepreneurship, bipartisan bills, and fulfillment of all requirements to obtain Visa Waiver Program status (currently in implementation phase), among others. Before becoming an ambassador, he worked in private equity and real estate deals in Latin America, as well as an executive advisor of investment manager Ashmore Group; previously he worked over 20 years as a corporate lawyer in the region, particularly in mergers and acquisitions transactions and foreign direct investment projects, as a partner of law firms based in Uruguay. Ambassador Durán has an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, an LL.M. in international legal studies from Georgetown Law (as a Fulbright Scholar), and a Juris Doctor from the Catholic University of Uruguay.

Fabrizio Opertti is the manager of the productivity, trade, and innovation sector (PTI) at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). With over 15 years of leadership experience in trade, investment, and regional integration, and nearly three decades of advancing international trade across the Americas, he leads a team of more than 100 professionals dedicated to designing and implementing strategic programs. These programs promote trade facilitation, investment attraction, and export promotion, while also strengthening productivity, innovation, and competitiveness across key sectors in Latin America and the Caribbean, contributing to regional competitiveness and economic growth. He led the creation and implementation of ConnectAmericas.com, the first business social network in Latin America and the Caribbean, designed to support SMEs by providing access to global business networks. Additionally, he coordinates the Americas Business Dialogue, a private sector-led initiative facilitated by the IDB that brings together more than 400 multinational corporations and chambers of commerce and industry to foster public-private synergies, drive policy recommendations, and promote sustainable and inclusive growth. He also led the implementation of the BID for the Americas program, designed to foster business opportunities and strengthen economic ties between 26 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and key partners in Europe, North America, and Asia. Mr. Opertti has also conceived and led several flagship trade and investment forums, including the CEO Summit of the Americas, Outsource2LAC, LAC Flavors, and the Asia-LAC Forum series. These forums serve as key platforms for fostering public-private dialogue, regional collaboration, and business matchmaking across various sectors of the economy. Mr. Opertti holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Political Economy from American University’s School of International Service, a Master of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and a Master’s in Business Administration from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Business.

Calista Redmond is the vice president of global AI initiatives at NVIDIA, where she leads strategic collaborations with regions, ecosystem partners, and product groups to advance Sovereign AI and national AI programs worldwide. Her work focuses on helping nations build digital resilience, local innovation capacity, and AI ecosystems aligned with their cultural and economic priorities. Before joining NVIDIA, Calista served as CEO of RISC‑V International, driving global adoption of the open RISC‑V instruction set architecture across industry, academia, and government. Previously, she spent more than a decade at IBM in leadership roles including vice president of the IBM Z Ecosystem, where she built strategic partnerships across software vendors, system integrators, developer communities, and open‑source initiatives such as the Open Mainframe Project, OpenPOWER, and OpenDaylight. Earlier in her career, Calista was an entrepreneur in four successful technology start‑ups. She holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Northwestern University and is based in Washington, D.C.

Felipe Rincon is vice president for government affairs & policy at Mastercard. Rincon’s contributions to the PCDE focus on payments’ regulatory policy, market modernization, new business models, competition, and challenges at the intersection of electronic payments and informality. Before his current position, he led for more than seven years Mastercard’s government affairs & policy function in Latin America and the Caribbean. Before joining Mastercard, he has been engaged in a broad range of financial sector matters, including public credit, banking, securities and payments, having held leadership positions in Grupo Bancolombia, the self-regulator of the Colombian Stock Market (AMV), the Colombian Stock Exchange, and the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit. He is a lawyer from the Universidad de Los Andes, has a Specialization degree in Financial Legislation from same University, and an LL.M. from the University of Toronto. He has been a professor of economic analysis of law, securities market and payments regulation at the Universities of Los Andes and Javeriana, both in Colombia, and author of academic, policy and analysis documents, including the Stock Market Regime.

Roberto Rumbaut is originally from Monterrey, Mexico, currently pursuing his MBA at the McDonough School of Business (MSB). He will be joining JPMorgan’s Private Bank in the Asset & Wealth Management team in Miami this summer. At MSB, he is co-President of the Latin America Business Association and tech portfolio manager of the Graduate Investment Fund. Before Georgetown, he was head of  capital formation & investor relations at IGNIA Partners, where he led fundraising for Early-Stage Venture Capital & Private Equity strategies for over four years. He managed relations with limited partners, industry players, entrepreneurs, and strategic partners. Previously, he led the corporate venture capital strategy at Orange Investments, developing growth programs for proptech startups across LatAm. He co-founded the MX Proptech Association to support and promote the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Earlier in his career he worked in operations and engineering roles across multiple industries. Roberto holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Northeastern University. His experience bridges finance, investor relations, investing, capital markets, and innovation.

Alejandro Werner is the founding director of the Georgetown Americas Institute and a non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute. He recently completed almost nine years as director of the Western Hemisphere Department at the International Monetary Fund. Prior to that appointment, he was undersecretary of finance and public credit in Mexico’s Finance Ministry and held several positions in that ministry and the Central Bank. He also taught at leading universities in Mexico, Spain, and the United States. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.A. in economics from ITAM.