GE has announced that Rogerio Mendonça will be the President and CEO of GE Oil & Gas Latin America. Effective May 1, he will be responsible for driving business results in the region, deepening the relationship with customers, advancing local capabilities and leading the 4,500 employees.

Rogerio joined GE in 2000 and held different positions in commercial, sales, services and business operations. In 2013 he was appointed President of GE Transportation in Latin America with responsibilities for all the operation, leading the team to record levels of operational excellence and financial results; through a solid growth plan including product localization, new product development and introduction, long term alliances and strategic service deals.

Prior to GE, Rogerio worked for AB-Inbev leading the commercial operations of the food and beverages company in Brazil. He holds a bachelor degree in economics and international trade, from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, also a postgrad in Marketing from Berkeley, California University – USA

“With the discovery of the pre-salt reservoirs in Brazil, the opening of the Mexican market to new players as part of the Energy Reform, the largest oil reserves in the world in Venezuela, the new deep water discoveries in Colombia and some of the largest unconventional resources in the world in Argentina, Latin America is a region with growing importance to GE as our customers are looking for the best minds and machines to optimize their operations, and we are leveraging our diverse offering and digital expertise; which we believe is the key to unlocking that opportunity,” said Rogerio Mendonça.

This article first appeared on Penn Energy.

MIAMI, April 26, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — The number of billionaires in the region dropped dramatically to 69 in April, from the 100 names in the previous year. The fall is a testament to the magnitude of the Latin American economic slowdown, brought about by lower commodity prices, slower growth in China, and by localized issues such as Brazil’s political crisis.

The biggest fortunes were hit hard. Case in point is Mexico’s Carlos Slim, with an estimated fortune of $50 billion, down 35%, from the $77.1 billion last year.

Another example from Mexico is Ricardo Salinas Pliego, founder and chairman of Grupo Salinas (TV Azteca, Elektra, Banco Azteca) who saw his wealth fall almost by half from $8.2 billion last year, down to $4.3 billion this year.

In Brazil, one of the biggest drops was for the Marinho family (Rede Globo) -Joao Roberto Marinho, Jose Roberto Marinho and Roberto Irineu Marinho- with a 47.5 percent plummet in their fortune, from $8.2 billion in 2015 to $4.3 billion this year.

But there were others who, despite the difficulties in the region, managed to increase their fortunes. For example, the fortune of Jorge Moll Filho, the founder of the biggest hospital chain in Brazil, shot up 88%. Joining him with one of the top growth rates is Mexico’s David Peñaloza Alanis, chairman and CEO of infrastructure construction company Pinfra, with a 25% growth in his fortune.

The total fortune of the 69 magnates on the list reached $299.2 billion, that’s $4.3 billion per head, a dash more than the $4.2 billion per head from 2015.

To view the whole list and see how each billionaire’s fortune changed, visit: http://latintrade.com/top-billionaires-in-latin-america-down-to-69-names-from-100/

About Latin Trade

Latin Trade is a leading provider of information and business services to companies operating in Latin America. It publishes award-winning content in Spanish and English for distribution throughout Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States through print and online media. Latin Trade publishes Latin Trade magazine and Latintrade.com.

This article first appeared on PR Newswire.

 “Every country gets the leaders it deserves,” the French counter-revolutionary Joseph de Maistre quipped. He was wrong. The countries of Latin America did not deserve the blustering demagogues and iron-fisted generals who, until recently, often occupied the seats of government.

A look at Venezuela or Nicaragua reminds us that the demagogues and the populists are not yet gone. But a new kind of leader – moderate, intellectually humble, and prone to gradualism – has been in ascendance since the 1990s. This is the kind of leadership Latin America does indeed deserve.

Read the full opinion by Andrés Velasco on Project Syndicate.

Spanish bank BBVA sees the Pacific Alliance gaining ground while Mercosur slipped into reverse.

Latin America’s economy is moving at two speeds, according to the Spanish bank BBVA, as the Pacific Alliance gaining ground as Mercosur, the Common Market of the South, slipped into reverse in 2015 and on into 2016.

In its first-quarter 2016 outlook, BBVA lowered its forecast for global GDP growth in 2016 to 3.2 percent, foreseeing a more robust recovery only towards the end of 2017. Following on the depressed global outlook, BBVA’s 2016 growth projections for all Latin American countries except Peru (where the impact of El Niño is less than anticipated) received downward revisions.

BBVA projects the Pacific Alliance—Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru—will achieve somewhere between two percent and 2.5 percent growth in 2016. This is less than in 2015, and still below the trade bloc’s potential, which the bank puts at 3.8 percent. But the growth rate should improve as 2016 ends and 2017 begins.

Read the full article here.