Gonzalo Pertile

Gonzalo Pertile is a social entrepreneur and public sector consultant. He holds a BS degree in Business Management from the University of Montevideo (Uruguay) and a certificate in Crime Prevention at the Local Level from the Institute of Public Affairs from the University of Chile. Originally from Uruguay, Gonzalo has extensive international work experience, both in the private and public sector. During his initial professional career he worked for a multinational corporation in the oil and gas industry, focusing on the supply chain division and as a business process redesign consultant in the Scotland branch of the company. Later, he moved to Guatemala where he worked at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) as an international consultant in the bank’s Reform/Modernization of the State Division. During this time he contributed to developing an intervention model named Coaching for Results, which is an innovative approach to strengthening public institutional performance. This model was introduced as a new IDB initiative that seeks to address institutional management weaknesses in the public sector in a short time frame, with minimal investment and with measurable impacts within public institutions. Under this project Gonzalo worked closely with the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare, Ministry of Public Finance and the Ministry of Interior of Guatemala. He continued his consultancy experience in Guatemala with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), in a project aimed at reviewing and updating the structure and processes of the Departmental Offices of the Ministry of Education of Guatemala.

Gonzalo has always had a social orientation and interest in development, and this is how – after living in Guatemala for a while – he decided to embark on a personal endeavor and co-founded The Mayan Store, a social enterprise that provides sustainable job opportunities for more than 550 artisans around Guatemala. The organization was awarded the 2013 Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise( SME) Exporter of the Year and implements social projects to foster better livelihoods for artisans in Guatemala in collaboration with the Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund, Ministry of Economy of Guatemala, Feed the Future, Save the Children and Guatemala’s Exporters Association.