The Team
Carlos Eduardo Ruiz Villarreal
CERE's CEO. Economist, MSc in Economics from the National University of Colombia. In the Colombian government, he was General Director of the Deposit Insurance Corporation for Credit Unions, Deputy Superintendent for Financial Entities, Deputy Superintendent for Insurance Companies, and Deputy Director of the Deposit Insurance Corporation for Banks. He has 20 years of relevant international experience in consulting on prudential regulation and supervision, and 30 years of academic experience as an economics and finance lecturer in the following courses: "Economics and Law"; "Capital Frameworks"; "Risk-based supervision"; "Economic Foundation of Antitrust Law" for graduated programs; and "Monetary Theory" and "Macroeconomics" for undergraduate programs (the University of Rosario, National University of Colombia, and Externado University of Colombia).
Juan Francisco Espinosa
CERE's risk management senior consultant. An economist with a master's degree in economics and a master's degree in finance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Market and liquidity risk, asset-liability management, and securities valuation expert. He was portfolio optimization director at Porvenir pension fund. He implemented the securities valuation system on the Colombian Stock Exchange. In the Colombian Financial Superintendency, he advised the market and liquidity risk management regulations to be updated according to Basel and IOSCO international standards. As a consultant for the IDB, he undertook different consulting projects on the capital markets in LAC. He has been an economic and finance lecturer at the University of La Sabana and the University of Rosario on the following courses: "International Finance Markets"; "Risk management"; "Capital Markets" and "Corporate Finance".
Hernán Castillo Linares
CERE's Senior Insurance Consultant. He is an industrial engineer and a master’s in management and insurance technologies from the Pontifical University of Salamanca, Spain. He was an insurance and reinsurance auditor at the Colombian Financial Superintendency for life and non-life companies. Later, he performed at senior management level in several insurance companies. He was Technical VP at Positiva Insurance Company; General Manager at Life Insurance Company; National Manager of Personal Insurance at Solidaria Insurance Company; President of the Life Insurance Chamber of FASECOLDA (Colombian insurance Association); and insurance lecturer at different universities in Colombia for 25 years.
Camilo Eduardo Villada
CERE's finance senior Consultant. CPA from University Libre de Colombia. He has a finance and capital markets specialist degree from the University of La Sabana. He was head of trade at Davivienda Stock Company for two years. He was budget coordinator at Colmena AIG Pension, Administrative Manager at Panacom Productos Panasonic y Cia, Market and New Products Analyst at Santander Pension, Collective Portfolio Manager at Popular Trust Fund, and 2nd Investment VP at Investment Funds Management Company BHD, among other positions. He has advised several companies in the financial and real sectors on portfolio management and trusts. For instance, he designed and developed automatized financial analysis models to foresee balance sheets, early warning systems, portfolio optimization and market and liquidity risk models.
Mónica Salamanca Barrera
CERE's auditing senior Consultant. She is an industrial engineer, specialist degree in Finance, and MSc in Management of Social Enterprises from EAFIT University. She also has a Master Executive in Business Advisory and Consulting from EOI Business School, Spain. She has more than 15 years of professional experience at the Financial Superintendency and Cooperative Superintendency in Colombia and as an auditor for several financial institutions. In the private sector, she led the regulatory compliance program for the Colombian subsidiaries of a multinational financial company. In this position, she acquired experience implementing projects in the internal control systems area, risk management, and international standards of compliance. She has consultancy experience designing risk-based supervisory models for financial cooperatives in Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Ecuador. She also has lecturing experience in finance and risk management courses.
Germán Sánchez Sánchez
CERE's auditing senior Consultant. He is an economist with specialist degree in economic development at the Sociology and Development Institute of Ibero-America, Spain. He was bank inspector and auditor for 26 years at Colombian Financial superintendency in the banks, trust companies, pension funds and financial cooperatives departments. He performed as on-site inspection chief in many supervision procedures, in which he developed strong accounting analysis, compliance investigations and fraud investigations skills. As Superintendency special agent he participated in legal procedures to take control of supervised entities in bankruptcy risk to safeguard the assets and company critical information.