JC

Juan Cruz Valdez Rojas

General Partner at iThink VC

Greater Buenos Aires

Overview

Work Experience

  • Founder & General Partner

    2021 - Current

  • Board Member

    2024

  • Member

    2019

  • Paraguay & Bolivia Country Lead

    2019 - 2020

  • Women Network Leader LAS (Inclusion and Diversity)

    2017 - 2020

    Lead a cross-functional diverse team to promote an inclusive and diverse culture within our workplace in Latin America South, with focus on gender diversity (women)

  • Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay Lead

    2016 - 2019

    Responsible for Monsanto’s businesses in Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay. Team of 80 people. • Increased EBT 3x in 2 ½ years • Led the team that consolidated Soybean Biotech (Intacta) business, achieving 76% GP growth while increasing model integrity through effective stakeholder management. • Recovered profitability and increased MS in Corn and CP businesses, within complex distribution contract restrictions • Developed mid-management line strengthening succession plan, increasing women leaders from 0% to 30%. Received award #2 GPTW in Paraguay for 5 consecutive years

  • Latin America South Crop Protection Manufacturing Lead

    2014 - 2016

    Responsible for chemical manufacturing plant in Zarate, Bs As, Argentina, leading a team of 250 people (union and non-union employees). • Led operations within an extremely tough union conflict, interacting with Government, media, other companies’ leaders and union leaders • Led operations throughout a severe business downturn, including organizational structure reduction.

  • Latin America South Procurement Lead

    2012 - 2014

    Responsible for all Procurement and Global Trade operations in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay (1+ billion USD spend), group of approx. 50 people. • Launched Procurement transformation in LAS, implementing Strategic Sourcing and Category Management model • Built new team • Achieved 15M$+ savings within highly inflationary context.

  • Global MRO Category Manager

    2007 - 2012

    Responsible for global negotiation of production tools, 200 MUSD spend. -Developed category purchasing strategy -Sourced Asia to develop low-cost countries -Developed Strategic Alliances within key categories.

  • Procurement coordinator

    2004 - 2007

    -Responsible for a group of 7 buyers

  • Buyer

    2002 - 2004

  • Trade Marketing Analyst

    2002 - 2002

    Chocolate Category Low price segment strategy improvement Retail strategy improvement

  • Operations Engineer

    1999 - 2001

    -ISO 9000 implementation. -Balanced Scorecard implementation

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