Juan Verde is a business and social entrepreneur as well as a renowned international advisor to governments and companies.
Mr. Verde is a senior partner at the US consultancy firm MAPA Group, an international business development consulting firm headquartered in Washington, DC.
In 2009, Mr. Verde was appointed by President Barack Obama as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasia at the US Department of Commerce where he served until 2011. In this capacity, he led the department’s efforts to solve trade policy and market access issues faced by US firms, seeking to grow their business operations in Europe and Eurasia. He was responsible for developing and recommending policies and programs with respect to US economic and commercial relations with 52 countries in Europe and Eurasia.
Previously, Mr. Verde founded and presided over the American Chamber of Commerce in the Canary Islands and founded PASS Inc., a strategic advisory firm providing market expansion advice to US companies entering the European market. From 1999 until 2003, he was Director for Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula for the Corporate Executive Board, Inc. (NASDAQ: CEB), a Washington, DC – based strategy consulting and research firm serving 400 of the Fortune 500 companies.
Mr. Verde has worked on 14 different national, regional and local election campaigns in the United States and Latin America, including those of President Barack Obama, President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, and Senators Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton. In 2012, he was the International Co-Chair for the Obama campaign, where he developed and implemented a strategy to mobilize over six million American citizens residing outside of the United States to vote.
Mr. Verde is also the President of the Advanced Leadership Foundation, an American 501c3 not for profit organization. The mission of the Advanced Leadership Foundation is to train the next generation of future leaders through professional skill and workforce development.
A longtime advocate for environmental causes, sustainability and the fight against climate change, Mr. Verde partnered with former Vice President Al Gore to establish and lead “The Climate Project Spain.” He also serves as president of the Fundacion Biosfera and continues to promote environmental values, sustainability and the fight against climate change.
Mr. Verde serves on a number of corporate and advisory boards including the Government of Lithuania’s International Advisory Committee; Abengoa Bioenergy S.A., a Spanish biotech ethanol company, and Andes Energy Corp., a global diversified energy corporation. He holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Harvard University, where he was also a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute fellow, and a Bachelor of Arts from Boston University. In 2012, he was elected to the Alumni Board of Directors at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
Mr. Verde currently splits his time between Washington, DC, Galicia, Spain, and NYC where he lives with his wife and two children.
