Jose Alberto Sanchis is the Executive Chairman of El Pilar Foundation, an executive and entrepreneur with more than 40 years’ experience launching successful global business ventures. He is also de CEO and Founder of GON International, an international consulting firm who helps a variety of organization to establish in United States, here in Washington DC. In 2012 was elected Counselor of the Spanish Consulate by the Spanish residents in the Washington Jurisdiction who include Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and North Caroline States.
Before of this position, Mr. Sanchis was Senior International Consultant at M K Consulting, where since 2009 he has advised governments and corporations on a large variety of issues, such as financial and organizational structuring, engineering and energy. Prior to this post, after having successfully raised the initial capital, he launched a variety of retail stores in Spain for Vodafone, the largest mobile telephone company in the world. He worked in this capacity from 1999 to 2009 as an independent distributor and simultaneously launched a commercial consulting team for small and medium businesses to sell and increase the commercial use of cell phones and other mobility services. Before this experience, Mr. Sanchis worked as a consultant for various businesses in Spain, such as Vidrieros de Levante in Valencia, Spain. During this period he also worked as a visiting professor at ESTEMA Business School in Valencia, where he taught courses on New Information Technologies, as part of the university´s MBA Program, from 2000 to 2002. For several years prior to this experience Mr. Sanchis worked as a consultant and executive manager at Associates Consultants Corp, based in Miami, Florida, where he advised a number of high-profile Spanish and French companies seeking to establish a presence in the U.S. market. His clients there included Grand Chef Corp, the first trading company of the French group Carrefour.
From 1983 to 1987 he worked for the group Viuda de Biosca Riera, owners of the Escorpión brand, as the President of Pour Madame Corp, a post which entailed among its duties spearheading the opening of its first U.S. store in Miami, Florida. This opening transformed the company into the first Spanish firm to have a retail outlet in the United States. Prior to this experience, Mr. Sanchis was recruited by Sáez Merino in Valencia, a manufacturer of LOIS jeans and other brands, to manage and create an international division from which he oversaw the exportation of textiles to Europe, the United States and South Africa.
Mr. Sanchis began his career as an executive at Carmen Industries, in Valencia, at the time one of Spain´s leading producers of household goods. Over the years he rose within the company, eventually to become its Managing Director and CEO, where he managed more than 400 employees and oversaw the production of 200-plus products that were exported to over 30,000 clients throughout Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
Mr. Sanchis has a Law degree from the University of Navarra, Spain, graduate degrees from IESE Business School in Barcelona and IPADE Business School in Mexico, an MBA from the University of Miami and a Master´s in Mobility Studies from the Polytechnic University of Madrid. He also holds a Certificate in New Technologies from UNED (National Open University) in Spain, and a Degree in Methodology and Didactics from the University of Valencia. He also holds an LNV Executive Education program at the Harvard Business School. Mr. Sanchis is fluent in Spanish, French and English, and resides in Washington, DC.