Your advisors
We have a longstanding experience in advising companies in Latin America and have deep knowledge of the international markets and the players in the different industries.
Julián Arias
FOUNDING PARTNER
Founding partner of Compass Advisors S.A., an investment banking and consulting boutique firm in Panama. In 2004, he founded and managed, until 2015, the Latin America Corporate Advisory Group within UBS’s Wealth Management Division, initially in New York and in the last 3 years in Panama. This unit specialized on providing strategic and corporate finance advice to shareholders of private/family owned companies in the region with a particular focus on providing advice on all matters relating to succession, such as the valuation of the company, the partner search, the merger with another company, the sale of the company and on corporate and family governance issues. Prior to that, he was for 10 years head of the Andean Region in the investment banking department of UBS Investment Bank in New York, where he advised large Latin American and international companies on a number of different transactions, specially on company sales, mergers and acquisitions, and equity and debt offerings in the international markets. He is a member of the board of Naviera Transoceánica S.A., Peru’s leading maritime transportation company.
He received a diploma in Banking and Finance from the Commercial School of the Canton Zurich and a Business and Finance Degree from the London Metropolitan University. He fluently speaks Spanish, English, German, French and Italian.
Giovanna Caccialanza
PARTNER
Giovanna has over 20 years of experience in Latin America in the fields of investment banking, private equity, capital markets and credit ratings. From 2013 to 2016, she was Head of Private Equity for Latin America at Developing World Markets (DWM), a social impact investment fund based in Stamford, Connecticut. In this capacity, she led the origination, structuring, execution and monitoring of the fund’s private equity investments in Latin America. Prior to that, Giovanna was an Investment Officer at Citi Venture Capital International (CVCI), a global private equity fund targeted to emerging markets based in New York, where she was responsible for originating, structuring and executing private equity investments in Latin America as well as monitoring the portfolio through board participation. Before CVCI, Giovanna was Senior Director and Corporate Head at Fitch Ratings in New York, where she supervised a credit rating portfolio for companies in a broad range of industries in Latin America. In this position, she was directly responsible for the issuance and monitoring of credit risk ratings for over 20 corporations in Latin America. Before joining Fitch Ratings, Giovanna worked at Bankers Trust Alex Brown in New York as senior corporate bond analyst and as investment banker covering Latin America, originating and executing transactions in debt (bond offerings and loan syndications), equity, and mergers and acquisitions.
Giovanna received a B.A. in Economics from Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas, Venezuela, and completed an MBA at New York University with a concentration in Finance and International Business. Giovanna also completed the “Chartered Financial Analyst” (CFA) program and her native language is Spanish.
María de la Rocha
DIRECTOR
María has over fifteen years of experience in Latin America, in the areas of investment banking, private banking, and credit analysis. During the past 10 years, she has been executing varied transactions throughout the region. Between 2010 and 2015 Maria worked in the corporate finance department of SinoLatin Capital, a boutique focused on channeling investments from Asia towards Latina America. From 2006 to 2008, she worked at UBS Securities, Latin America Investment Banking, in New York City. In these positions, she marketed and executed transactions throughout the region. These include mergers and acquisitions, and capital markets transactions, such as bond issues and initial public offerings. Her experience spans various sectors including Industrials, Equipment, Consumer Products, and Financial Services, among others.
Prior experience includes positions at Guggenheim Partners, Citibank and Corporacion Andina de Fomento (CAF).
Maria has an MBA from Columbia University Business School in New York and a BS in Business Management from North Carolina State University. She is fluent in English and Spanish.
