Juergen Keller, President South American Travel

Juergen Keller, President South American Travel

 Jürgen (Juergen) Keller, President South American Travel, was born in Southwest Germany, and has studied in his home country, as well as Spain, Portugal and Brazil. He wrote his Masters Thesis on “Strategies for Economic Development of South America as Promoted by the World Bank” at the World Bank library in Washington, D.C. During this time, Jürgen was also a tour guide in Europe. While working as Export Manager for an international company, the itch to share his love of traveling inspired him to start the company SouthAmerica.travel in 1999. 

Listen to the Talk 2 Brazil interview by Tom Reaoch with Juergen Keller PLAYor DOWNLOAD on LA Talk Radio 

About SouthAmerica.travel: SouthAmerica.travel LLC is a US-based travel agency and incoming tour operator with offices in Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, and Lima. They offer 4* & 5* luxury South America tours to Peru, Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Colombia.

Licensed and bonded in the US, the company has been sharing its love of South America travel since 1999, and is proud of its A+ rating by the Better Business Bureau. They are members of the ATSA, USTOA, SATA, and BTOA. The company stands by its commitment to offer valuable travel packages, trust-worthy sales practices, and real-world South America travel expertise

Jennifer Sikes, Marketing and Communications Professional and Sonia Gill, Marketing and Advertising Professional

Jennifer Sikes, Marketing and Communications Professional and Sonia Gill, Marketing and Advertising Professional

Jennifer Sikes and Sonia Gill, two very successful women, both trailing spouses have followed their husbands to Brazil. 

Listen to the Talk 2 Brazil interview by Tom Reaoch with Jennifer and Sonia :PLAY  or DOWNLOAD.

 Jennifer Sikes is an American and has experience encompassing strategy, operations, marketing, and communications in the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Most recently, she spent several years with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, USA. Her roles included chief of staff to the Chief Communications Officer and interim director of operations for the 80-person communications team. Prior to that, she served as manager of leadership information, overseeing the team that created and distributed information to support a wide range of external activities for the foundation¹s executives, and as a program officer on the foundation¹s U.S.  Program Advocacy and Education teams.

Jennifer began her career as a strategy consultant helping companies improve their marketing, sales, and online strategies. She has also managed internal and external communications in the consulting and software industries.

She holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and a BA in History from Yale University. She has lived in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, since 2011, and has traveled extensively in her personal and professional life across Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, and South America.

Sonia Gill, Indian National, Marketing and Advertising Professional with 15 years of work experience in the marketing and communication field.

Before going on a sabbatical Sonia was with Infosys Ltd, an Indian Multi National - Information Technology firm. She has successfully spearheaded large marketing projects in her role as marketing lead for the BPO unit of Infosys. Having grown within the company, she has enjoyed working with very learned people, from across the world.

Before Infosys, Sonia was with Visa Cards as Marketing Manager for South Asia ( India, Pakistan, Srilanka, Nepal and Bangladesh). It was by far one of her most favorite stints, as a non Banking professional, coming from a hard core advertising back ground. This role opened her horizons and made her look beyond vanilla advertising and account management. She has also worked with J.Walter Thompson and Ogilvy and Mather, some of the leading advertising firms across the globe.

Mauro (Paul) Gomes ,Director of Application Portfolio Management IBM / CIO Hortolandia, Brazil Site Executive

Mauro (Paul) Gomes ,Director of Application Portfolio Management IBM / CIO Hortolandia, Brazil Site Executive

 Mauro (Paul) Gomes is one of the key IBM executives in the global CIO organization. With more than 35 years in the IT business he currently has three major roles in the company. He is the Director of Application Portfolio Management, he is the highest CIO executive in the LA region overseeing and providing guidance to around 600 CIO professionals. And last but not least, he was appointed in 2012 as the Site Executive for IBM Brazil Hortolandia site; one of IBM’s largest Global Delivery Center.

 Listen to the Talk 2 Brazil interview by Tom Reaoch with Paul Gomes on LA Talk Radio: PLAY or DOWNLOAD 

Although Paul was born and grew up in the capital of Sao Paulo in Brazil, he spent more than 30 years in the US. He moved to that country in 1980 when he was only 19 years of age. At IBM, Paul has 29 years of service mainly in the United States when he was hired in 1983. Most recently, he converted to IBM Brazil and plans to continue his career in Latin America.  

Overall, Paul has held several executive and non-executive positions along the years at IBM. From 2009 through 2011 and while on an International Assignment in Brazil, he was the Latin America Director of around 2,500 IT professionals responsible for IBM’s internal account systems both locally and worldwide. 

Prior to this assignment in Latin America, Paul was the Director of Operations and Employee IT Advocacy atIBM in Somers, NY reporting to the Chief Information Officer at that time. He was responsible for the day to day operational cadence across all of IBM business transformation executives; including all geographies, business units and corporate functions.

Prior to that, Paul held several executive positions in the CIO, Integrated Supply Chain and Integrated Product Development organizations. He was then responsible for the application development and maintenance of many businesses and IT transformation solutions. Paul also spent a great deal of his time at IBM in the Software Group division. There he was responsible for several management and non-management positions across the different parts of the division.  

Outside his normal day to day work, Paul has always been a leader in IBM’s Global Workforce Diversity programs; with special focus on the Latino constituency across the New York, Connecticut and New Jersey Tri-state area in the US. He was the Executive Advisor of LatinNet; a local NY IBM Hispanic Diversity Network Group.  Since coming back to Brazil in 2009, he has become a member of the Rotary International Club of Campinas involved in many community services. He has also been heavily involved with his church Santa Rita de Cassia in Campinas and also a member of the Business Affairs Committee at Amcham Campinas.   

Paul holds an MBA in Technology Management from the Phoenix University in Denver, a Bachelor Degree in CIS from the Chapman University in California and an Associate’s Degree in Computer Programming from Essex Community College in New Jersey. Paul likes to volunteer in his local community and enjoys very much the game of soccer. He speaks English, Portuguese and Spanish. He has two daughters who live in the US Jennifer and Juliet. In Brazil he has a son Caio. He is married to Edilamar Barbosa.