If I had to point to a moment in life that defined who I am and what my purpose was, it would be a wintery Montevideo (Uruguay) evening in 2004. That evening, during a dinner table conversation, at the age of 16, I told my parents that I wanted to begin learning Mandarin. Earlier that day, I had read about Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to Brazil and his goal to boost bilateral trade with the region to $100 billion in five years. Something told me that China was the future. While China’s potential might seem obvious now, it wasn’t then. In that moment, I realized my ambitions stretched far beyond the familiar streets of Montevideo; I yearned to be part of a global narrative that was just beginning to unfold.

After graduating from law school at Universidad de Montevideo, I earned a scholarship for an LLM at Tsinghua University in Beijing. A crucial note: I never aspired to be a lawyer—it always seemed too boring for me! But I was drawn to business and global affairs, and, in hindsight, I realized that legal education provided the logical thinking structure I was seeking.

Life as a foreign student at a top Chinese university expanded my worldview exponentially. I found myself attending events with global business leaders and renowned professors, meeting brilliant minds from across the globe. From U.S. Supreme Court Justices to eccentric billionaires, I was exposed to a diverse array of influential figures. I felt at home among those with grand ambitions and a drive to make a significant impact.

As often happens, love entered the picture. Weeks into my LLM program, I began dating an American classmate on a Georgetown/Tsinghua exchange. Spoiler alert: she’s now my wife and the mother of our children, Lorenzo and Emilia.

During my LLM at Tsinghua, I connected with students from elite American universities. One of them suggested I spend a year as a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School’s East Asian Legal Studies Department (EALS). With my girlfriend returning to DC and my LLM nearing its end, I found myself at a crossroads. Although I wanted to remain in China a bit longer, the opportunity to live in the U.S. for the first time became increasingly compelling.

I applied to EALS and was fortunate to be accepted—perhaps helped by a recommendation from Jerome A. Cohen, the founder of the program and one of my early mentors. I had met him in Montevideo when he was teaching a three-day course on China at my alma mater. After completing my program in China, I moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. If Tsinghua had expanded my world 100-fold, Harvard magnified it by 1,000. The campus diversity and the caliber of people I encountered were unparalleled. Commuting between Cambridge and DC to visit my girlfriend on weekends, and spending time around The White House and the Capitol, felt surreal.

My Harvard affiliation opened doors, allowing me to meet influential figures, including presidents and billionaires like Chinese business legend Zong Qinghou, founder of Wahaha, who at the time was the richest man in China. I even helped the MBA students organizing the Harvard Asia Business Conference to bring Zong’s daughter and only heir, Kelly Zong, as a speaker at the conference.

I absolutely loved life between Cambridge and DC—the runs around the National Mall, even the overnight, extra uncomfortable bus rides from Boston to Union Station. But despite this, an inner voice persistently urged me to return to China.

Finding the right opportunity proved challenging, until one day, while reading China Daily, I stumbled upon an intriguing advertisement: the government of Foshan, a Southern Chinese city I had never heard of, was seeking foreign professionals to assist with trade and investment attraction. I had seen foreigners working for Chinese companies before, but never for a Chinese government unit. The potential seemed immense.

I contacted the Foshan team for an introductory chat and decided to apply.

After months of visa-related paperwork that felt like years, I finally arrived in Foshan. I’ll be candid: initially, trading the beauty of DC for an industrial Chinese city was jarring, and the uncertainty of how my girlfriend and I would maintain our relationship over such a distance was daunting. However, within weeks, I realized I was in the right place at the right time. From there, everything else fell into place.

Stephen Schwarzman, founder and CEO of Blackstone, says that in the 21st century China is no longer an elective course, it’s core curriculum. True, when you hear the name Foshan for the first time, you don’t necessarily think of a modern, livable city.

After being there for over half a year, however, I realized that the prejudice was indeed misleading. What’s more, I discovered unimaginable perspectives of a phenomenon that had caught the attention of global businesses: the rise of China’s so-called second-tier cities.

The Economist, for example, identified Foshan as the city that “best represents China’s emerging economic frontier”. McKinsey Global Institute and Foreign Policy Magazine ranked Foshan as the 13th most dynamic city in the world in terms of projected GDP growth by 2025.

Having a front-row seat to the economic and technological changes that were transforming a country that was transforming the world, was an immense privilege.

I got to see the robotics revolution in action, visiting ultra modern factories from companies like Volkwswagen and Midea learning directly from their corporate leaders. And most importantly, the team I led drove the attention of global investors and media to this corner of China.

Companies like Tesla came to take a look at the city because of the work we did — thanks Mailchimp for letting me track who read our newsletter. And media outlets from the Financial Times to the China Daily and The Wall Street Journal came to our office to witness in person how this team of international and Chinese investment specialists was working back to back to better connect Foshan with the world.

While I was pursuing my dreams in Foshan, my girlfriend was making a bold move of her own. To the surprise of her boss at the prestigious law firm Skadden Arps in Washington DC, she requested a transfer to their Hong Kong office. While this move perhaps wasn’t the best for her own career trajectory, I’ll be forever grateful for her support. She made a significant sacrifice, allowing me to chase my ambitions while she navigated her own professional challenges across the Pacific.

For two years, we managed the complexities of commuting between Foshan and Hong Kong. After five adventurous years together, I decided it was time to propose. If you want a good laugh, picture this: I popped the question on a gondola at The Venetian in Macao. Boom!

On February 14, 2016, we tied the knot in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, surrounded by the love of friends and family. We chose this location as the midpoint between the US, Korea, and Uruguay, making it easier for our loved ones to join us. It was truly one of the most unforgettable weeks of my life.

Our subsequent honeymoon in Fiji, however, took an unexpected turn. What was meant to be an idyllic island getaway was nearly ruined by a cyclone that threatened to destroy both the island and us along with it. The eye of the storm passed directly over our beach bungalow. It felt as if an evil hand was violently shaking our cabin. Then it stopped. Then it started again. The stuff of nightmares!

With marriage came an important decision: I left my role in the Foshan government and moved to Hong Kong full-time to be with Angela. And I must admit, having a Hong Kong ID to breeze through customs was a nice perk!

How does a guy from Uruguay end up partnering with Italian soccer superstars in a venture in China? It all started with an unexpected twist in my high school education.

In Uruguay, aspiring lawyers must study Italian for their final two years of high school. The reason? Our legal system is rooted in Roman Law. While there’s no practical connection between learning Italian and studying law, those years immersed in the language had an outsized impact on my life.

First, it allowed me to reconnect with my Italian roots. My great-grandfather had left Genova in 1913, seeking new opportunities in Uruguay. But more importantly, speaking Italian would later enable me to forge a deeper connection with a fellow Tsinghua alumnus from Italy, whom I recruited to join our team in Foshan, China.

Together, we launched Champions International Camps (CIC Asia), a company that organized soccer camps led by Italian soccer legends for Chinese children. We also managed the Chinese social media presence for various athletes. Partnering with world-class education groups like Bright Scholar and top sponsors such as Monalisa Tiles, Golden Gate Global, and Florentia Village, we brought AC Milan legends Alessandro Costacurta and Massimo Ambrosini to China. These camps brought joy to hundreds of kids and their families.

As our network in the sports world grew, we collaborated with teams from Sina Weibo, Tencent, and Huayi Brothers. We developed social media content for several footballers, including Uruguay’s Edinson Cavani, France’s Patrice Evra, and Italy’s Manuel El Shaarawy.

The experience taught me countless lessons. Yes, footballers can be divas. Yes, they’ll invariably order the most expensive dish on the menu without even a pretense of reaching for the bill. But it was fun, challenging, and incredibly rewarding.

Little did I know then that this experience organizing camps would prepare me for an even more important role: being a better dad. The skills I honed – patience, adaptability, and the ability to bring joy to children – would prove invaluable in my journey as a father.

Zonamerica, IDB consulting

TEDx Talk.

Un Tango con el Dragon

China Business Academy

China Notes

By 2017, the pace of life in Hong Kong working for a big law firm got to my wife. She was ready for a change. I, however, was not. She wanted to go back to the US but I was not even started with my China adventures. So I had to make a decision: do I prioritize my relationship with my wife and move to America or continue to pursue dreams that could affect our relationship?

To be honest, choosing what to do was not difficult at all. I ALWAYS put and will put family first. So, we headed to the US. Don’t get me wrong, coming to America was a privilege, not a sacrifice. But it meant that all the China ventures (soccer camps, consulting) I was working on were going to become unsustainable because they required my presence there to actually work. I tried going back and forth for a few months, spending two weeks in each country, but it was simply unsustainable.

My very smart wife got a job with Google in San Francisco. I was now living on the West Coast, eating my savings quickly, and not entirely sure about what the future held for me. Then, one day, I was reading Bloomberg Businessweek and an article open my eyes. I did not know it at the time, but it was also going to open the doors to a new world.

The Bloomberg article was titled: Engineers Are Leaving Trump’s America for the Canadian Dream. As you probably suspect, the article talked about how talented engineers were leaving the US and heading to Canada due to the problems caused by the backward thinking US immigration system. The article also highlighted how the Canadian government was intensifying its efforts to attract companies and talent from the Bay Area to relocate to the US.

A few days later, a friend told me that Global Affairs Canada was looking for a Foreign Direct Investment Specialist to help with their investment attraction efforts in San Francisco. And I immediately knew that was the right role for me.

I could put my economic development knowledge to work and use the role as a platform to build my network in San Francisco/Silicon Valley and prepare the terrain for my next project. The timing seemed perfect as the interest in Canada was peaking due to the concerns Donald Trump’s victory created in certain groups.

Things worked out well and I joined Global Affairs Canada. The experience allowed me to discover an incredible country like Canada. I always was curious about Canada, but getting to visit almost every major Canadian city and intercacting with Canadian officials and business leaders on a daily basis gave me another perspective of what the country had to offer.

During this tour of duty, I had the chance to partner with world-class media organizations such as The Wall Street Journal and The Information, and to drive millions of dollars in foreign investment into Canada from notable Bay Area companies.

Everything was going great in San Francisco. And then the pandemic hit…

The Bloomberg article was titled: Engineers Are Leaving Trump’s America for the Canadian Dream. As you probably suspect, the article talked about how talented engineers were leaving the US and heading to Canada due to the problems caused by the backward thinking US immigration system. The article also highlighted how the Canadian government was intensifying its efforts to attract companies and talent from the Bay Area to relocate to the US.

A few days later, a friend told me that Global Affairs Canada was looking for a Foreign Direct Investment Specialist to help with their investment attraction efforts in San Francisco. And I immediately knew that was the right role for me.

I could put my economic development knowledge to work and use the role as a platform to build my network in San Francisco/Silicon Valley and prepare the terrain for my next project. The timing seemed perfect as the interest in Canada was peaking due to the concerns Donald Trump’s victory created in certain groups.

Things worked out well and I joined Global Affairs Canada. The experience allowed me to discover an incredible country like Canada. I always was curious about Canada, but getting to visit almost every major Canadian city and intercacting with Canadian officials and business leaders on a daily basis gave me another perspective of what the country had to offer.

During this tour of duty, I had the chance to partner with world-class media organizations such as The Wall Street Journal and The Information, and to drive millions of dollars in foreign investment into Canada from notable Bay Area companies.

Everything was going great in San Francisco. And then the pandemic hit…

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Open an existing page or post in the Gutenberg block editor. Click on any Paragraph block, then go to the Block tab on the right side of the screen.Under the Typography section, select small, medium, large, or extra large to suit your needs.

Open an existing page or post in the Gutenberg block editor. Click on any Paragraph block, then go to the Block tab on the right side of the screen.Under the Typography section, select small, medium, large, or extra large to suit your needs.