Jun 2023- Nov 2024. AGUNSA GSA for Air Canada, Costa Rica
Commercial Manager
- Prepare sales & commercial strategy for Air Canada services.
- Offer virtual and onsite product presentations to travel agents.
- Negotiate incentive conditions for agencies with headquarters to negotiate contracts with agencies.
- Support travel agencies with reservations, fares, and ticketing inquiries.
- In charge of local group process, starting from quotations, reservations and ticketing.
- Analyze data for country's productivity and its competition.
- Generate a revenue sales increase in the first 6 months on a 88% YOY.
Apr 2015- Dec 2022 FRUTA SANA FSL SRL, Siquirres, Costa Rica
General Manager & Business Development
- Lead processes for company legal registration, Free Zone application, opening of bank accounts, plant construction, and initial operations set-up, etc.
- Direct liaison with stakeholders internal/external.
- Oversees management of all personnel activities: hiring, training, and evaluation of team members performance to ensure equitable personnel administration.
- Free Zone coordinator.
- Legal representative of the company and direct liaison between board of directors, government institutions such as CINDE, PROCOMER, INA, ICE, Foreign affairs office, etc.
- Certifications Coordinator, such as BRC and Essential Costa Rica Certificates.
- Development and execution of annual business plan.
- Exhibitor at international trade fairs organized by Procomer, such as ANUGA in Germany, FANCY FOOD SHOW in USA, and BTM in Costa Rica.
- Managed excellent vendor and customer relationships.
- Negotiator with raw materials suppliers.
- Responsible for the development of new projects.
Sep 2004 -Jun 2013. DELTA AIR LINES, Costa Rica & Honduras
District Sales Manager
-Development and execution of the annual business plan and budget for Costa Rica and Honduras markets. Including traffic from/to Atlanta – Honduras (Tegucigalpa and San Pedro de Sula), as well as San Jose – Costa Rica (Liberia and San Jose).
- Conduct product presentations for travel agencies and corporate accounts.
- Establishment of sales goals for sales team, accordingly to the territory and niche market, to achieve country KPI’s goals.
- Achievement of KPI’s for corporate, leisure and ethnic traffic.
- Coordinator for the remodeling process for a new office site.
- Direct contact for business associations, chambers of commerce, government offices and customers.
- Established alliances with suppliers to promote the brand.
- Planned and sponsored Social Responsibility Activities.
- Coordinate the strategy with local PR agency for marketing and global communications.
- Responsible for reviewing and authorizing business expenses of team members, aligned with corporate travel policy.
- Prepared and managed budget accordingly with company regulations.
- Member of the board of directors of ALA (Costa Rica Airline Association).
- Exceeded Revenue Goal during 3 consecutive years by 30% YOY.
Dec1998-Jun 2003. UNITED AIRLINES, San Jose & Guatemala
Automation Manager, GALILEO GDS System
- Responsible of the Automation Department in Costa Rica and Guatemala, with a team of 12 people reporting. Including technical support representatives, trainers, and sales representatives.
- Prepared and managed budget for Costa Rica and Guatemala.
- Engaged prospects, users and decision makers through trade shows, seminars, and workshops in Costa Rica and Guatemala.
- Exceeded goal with a market share increase by 22% in Costa Rica and 16% for Guatemala.
- Stablished productivity goals and ensure compliance toward corporate objectives.
- Responsible for escalating customer issues to ensure satisfactory resolution.
- Participated in promotional activities in Uruguay, Argentina and Guatemala.
Mar 1992 –Dec 1998 UNITED AIRLINES INC, San José, Costa Rica
Reservations Manager
- Reservations and Ticket office department set up, during GSA startup, with 25 agents.
- Member of the implementation team of ETKT Service project for Latin America.
- Managed HR activities such as recruitment, staffing, professional staff development, control of vacations and team incentive programs implementation.
- Perform on site performance evaluations, and customer surveys, focusing in customer service experience.
- Budget preparation and management.
- Analyzed direct sales, advance bookings, loyalty program enrollments and CRM statistics.
- Implemented incentives to increase frequent flyer enrollments, achieving more than 4.000 enrollments in a very low cost of acquisition.
- Direct liaison between sales representatives and operational team members.
- Active participation to Airport Operations on weekends during high season.
- Reduced and maintain attrition rate to headquarters levels.
- Emergency Response team member.
