Listen to the Talk 2 Brazil interview by Tom Reaoch with Gisela Lokpez and Donna Kelley Monday March 31, 2014
Gisela Lokpez is Director Business Development at Babson Executive Education, a strategist and entrepreneur, she is founder of Techinvest International, a boutique-consulting firm focused originally on the Latin American energy, financial & techno-industrial sectors since the early 90’s growing later internationally, in the It and Wealth Management areas.
Donna J. Kelley, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at Babson College, and holds the Frederic C. Hamilton Chair of Free Enterprise. She teaches courses at Babson in entrepreneurship, corporate entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship in Asia. She has made speeches for executives and taught at top universities in China and Korea, and worked in Indonesia as a Fulbright Specialist.
Gisela Lokpez began her career at Petroleos de Venezuela in the finance area, where she managed the company Trust, Pension, and Savings funds, budgeting and later as one of the key team members instrumental in the design and implementation of the internationalization and privatization of the Venezuelan National Petroleum, Petrochemical and Gas Industry.
For nine years Ms. Lokpez served as Corporate Vice-president and Head of Trust Division of Banco Provincial’s (Credit Lyonnais-later BBVA/), and later Vice-president of Union Bank in Venezuela. She has served as National Coordinator for the Venezuelan Public Financial Sector. A Financial advisor, consultant and a negotiator for international corporations as well as for governments in the areas of Strategic Alliances, Planning, Energy, Finance in the US
First woman elected member of the National Economic Council, Gisela has been Vice-President, Treasurer and Director of the National Council of chambers of commerce “Consecomercio”, Director and Treasurer of Petroleum National Chamber, in Venezuela, and International participant of the Energy Council the US
A believer of the social responsibility between the private and public sectors and has participated in numerous social projects; member of Soroptimist International, served as Director and Treasurer for the Girl Scouts, Boy Scout Associations and the Boy Scout’s Foundation. Gisela is member and mentor of the International Solidarity for Human Rights (USA), volunteer of the Florida Junior Achievements program (USA).
Gisela is an Economist, holds an MBA from Babson College in Finance and Entrepreneurship; she is also an International Negotiator from Harvard University. Speak English, Spanish and some Portuguese.
Donna J. Kelley has conducted research on innovation in startups and established corporations in the U.S. and Korea, and on entrepreneurship education in China. Her research has been published in the Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice, Journal of Product Innovation Management, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Human Resource Management, and others.
Prof. Kelley is a board member of the Global Entrepreneurship Research Association (GERA), the oversight board of the GEM project and leader of the GEM U.S. team. She co-authored ten GEM reports: the 2008 GEM Korea Report, the 2008 GEM Education and Training Report, the 2010, 2011, 2012 GEM Global Executive Reports, the 2010 and 2012 GEM Global Women’s Reports, the 2012 Sub-Saharan Africa report and the 2011 and 2012 GEM U.S. Reports.
Donna received her Ph.D. in Management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Her early career involved work as a chemist in the graphics and industrial and consumer cleaning products industries. Her entrepreneurship experience includes businesses in the health/fitness, computer hardware and education fields.
