Mr. Alessandro Teixeira

President

Mr. Teixeira was born in Porto Alegre (State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil), Alessandro Golombiewski Teixeira, president of Apex-Brasil, holds a master’s degree in Latin American Economics from the Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, and a PhD in Industrial and Technological Economics from the University of Sussex, England. With extensive experience in foreign trade, he took part in the creation and later presided the Brazilian Agency for Industrial Development (ABDI), he was Coordinator of the Industrial, Technological and Foreign Trade Policy of the Brazilian Federal Government, was Executive Secretary of the National Council for Industrial Development (CDNI) and Counselor of the Sectorial Funds of the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology (MCT).

Teixeira also heads the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA), an organization that gathers investment promotion agencies from 156 countries, and the Ibero-American Network of Trade Promotion Organizations (Redibero), an entity of trade promotion agencies of Latin America and the Caribbean. He is also Executive Secretary of the U.S.-Brazil CEO Forum and the Joint Economic and Trade Committee (Brazil-UK JETCO), as well as adviser to the Brazilian Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES) and the Brazilian Service of Support to Micro and Small Enterprises (Sebrae) and Commissioner General for Expo Shanghai 2010.

With extensive national and international experience, Teixeira was a consultant to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the National Health System (NHS) of the British Government, and to the Technology Development for the Academy of Sciences in Paris. He has also been Director of Foreign Affairs of the state government of Rio Grande do Sul and has also worked in the academic area, at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and the University of Sussex, England. In the private sector, he was Director of Economic and Market Survey for Division Ltd., in England, and economic consultant for the Brazilian Foundation for Economic Studies (Fipe).

Alessandro Teixeira presented over 300 lectures covering themes such as Brazilian, international and industrial economy at the World Economic Forum, The Economics Analysis, the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank.

Teixeira was awarded by the Sasakawa Foundation (Japan) with the title of "Young Leader" and named "Personality of the Year of 2008 - Latin America" by the British newspaper Financial Times. He began his career as a trainee at the Brazilian communication company Grupo RBS.