Miembros del
Consejo
Rafael Sámano
President
Joan Mitchell
Vice-President
Daniel Wiley
Treasurer
Lic. Luisa Suarez
Vocal
Mstro. Ragnar Conde
Artistic Advisor
Dra. Luz María Tamés Peña
Legal Advisor
Ricardo González Escobar
Vocal
Rafael Sámano Is a Mexican Attorney at Law, and the main Partner of Sámano Abogados, S.C. he is also a huge sponsor of the operatic arts, therefore he is the founder of Fundación Viva, which main areas of interest are education, health, culture and arts, through the Foundation Rafael has support the young tenor Octavio Rivas career.He is also with Joan Mitchell, the founders of San Miguel Metopera Trust, A.C.
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Administrative, financial and business development law. Litigation in administrative, commercial and amparo courts.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
He was Legal Director of the Economic Deregulation Unit (now COFEMER) of the Ministry of Economy, where he participated in the design and implementation of the Federal Competition Law and the reforms to the Regulatory Law of the Public Service of Electricity, to the National Water Law and to the Federal Consumer Protection Law, among forty other laws and regulations. Afterwards he was Adviser of the Executive Secretary of the Federal Antitrust Commission. Subsequently he was adviser to the Executive Secretary of the Federal Competition Commission. He lived in New York for several years during which time he worked as an Associate in the mergers and acquisitions area in the investment banks Bear Stearns & Co., and Merrill Lynch.
He participated in the IPO of TV Azteca, bond issuance of Unefon, design of Azteca Holdings, IPO of Banco Río (Argentina), and sale of Banco BHIF (Chile), among other operations. Since 2001, he has been Managing Partner of Sámano Abogados, S.C., where he has been dedicated to legally maintaining and supporting the corporate development of the business models of different companies in the fields of health, information technology, telecommunications, construction, toys and manufacturing, among others.
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Law Degree. Escuela Libre de Derecho, 1992, Mexico City, Honorary Mention in Professional Exam.
Master of International Affairs, 1997, New York, Concentration in International Finance and Financial Institutions. School of International Public Affairs (SIPA) and Business School (CBS) – Columbia University (CU).
Master of Public Policy and Administration, 1996, New York, Concentration in Economics. SIPA and CBS. CU.
ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES AND PARTICIPATION IN ORGANIZATIONS
Lead Professor of the Foreign Trade and Insurance and Bonds courses. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM (2003-2006). Mexico City.
Assistant to Prof. Kenneth Kuttner, Columbia Business School, 1996. New York.
Adjunct Professor of Economic Law. Universidad Iberoamericana, 1994. Mexico City.
Adjunct Professor of Constitutional Law. Escuela Libre de Derecho, 1992. Mexico City.
Member of the National Association of Corporate Lawyers (Asociación Nacional de Abogados de Empresa, Colegio de Abogados, A.C.) (ANADE) since 2013.
Member of the International Bar Association (IBA) since 2012.
Member of the Mexican American Bar Association (MABA) since 2012.
PUBLICATIONS
“The Mexican Financial Crisis: a Case Study”, Columbia Business School, Monetary Theory Case Study B8351, by Keneth Kuttner and Rafael Sámano.
“La Nueva Legislación Económica en México”, in “El Derecho Económico en México”, Mexico: Porrúa, 1993.
Joan Mitchell retired to San Miguel de Allende, GTO, seven years ago after a distinguished professional career as a language professor, higher education administrator and fundraising executive. She holds a B.A. degree in French from Wilson College, Chambersburg, PA and graduate degrees in French, education, and information science from Harvard University and the University of Pittsburgh.
Her teaching career ranged from positions at Duquesne and Carnegie-Mellon Universities to an assignment at St. Edmund’s Academy in Pittsburgh, PA, where her French students ranged from 5-13 years of age, and which, she says, was by far the most challenging work.
After 17 years as a university library administrator she began her fund-raising career at Georgetown University, where she held the position of Director of Development Midwest USA Region, and then Director of Development for Student Affairs. After 7 years at Georgetown she was made VP for University Advancement at Marymount University of Virginia, a post that she also held later at her alma mater, Wilson College.
After retiring from higher education, Ms. Mitchell focused her fund-raising and management skills on the not-for-profit sector and the arts, serving for eight years as a board member, four of those as board chair, of the historic Capitol Theatre in Pennsylvania, then as fund-raising consultant to Jovenes Adelante, Feed the Hungry, and the San Miguel Instituto de Bel Canto, all NGO’s based in San Miguel de Allende, GTO.
A music student since childhood, Ms. Mitchell has been an opera lover since the age of 10, when a doting uncle began to teach her and then took her to the Metropolitan Opera for the first time when she was 14. In September 2017, she accepted the responsibility of bringing the MetOpera National Council (MONC) auditions to Mexico for the very first time. This required that she lead a fund-raising campaign which exceeded its goals and provide leadership for the planning and execution of the auditions, which brought 34 singers from all parts of Mexico to San Miguel de Allende on November 8, 2018. In June, 2019 she became president of the San Miguel MetOpera Trust, A.C., formed to ensure the future of the MetOpera auditions as an annual event in Mexico and to celebrate them as a milestone in the history of opera in Mexico.
Mr. Wiley received his BSChE from the University of Kansas in 1957, where he was elected to Alpha Chi Sigma, Sigma Tau and Tau Beta Pi. His first career of 31 years was with the chemical division of PPG Industries, and encompassed process development, R&D administration, and plant technical management. His second career of 11 years was with the U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Office of Industrial Technologies. Here he originated the concept of the Industries of the Future program, which facilitated the development of industry-owned visions and technology roadmaps (i.e., chemicals, petroleum refining, glass, aluminum, steel, metal casting, paper, agriculture). While at DOE Mr. Wiley undertook a 1-year detail with the Electric Power Research Institute in 1998 to work on their Technology Roadmap Initiative.
Mr. Wiley has held membership and served in a number of professional organizations, including the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the American Chemical Society. He was Chair of the National Capital Section, AIChE from 1998-1999, and was elected Fellow of AIChE in 2001.
Michael Sylvester: Master Teacher and TenorTenor Michael Sylvester, widely considered one of the finest lyric spinto tenors of his generation, holds a B.M. from Westminster Choir College and a M.M. from Indiana University. Mr. Sylvester has sung leading roles in the major opera houses of the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, London’s Covent Garden, Milan’s La Scala, Vienna Staatsoper, Opera Australia’s Sydney Opera House, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dallas Opera, Paris Opera, Buenos Aires’ Teatro Colon, Houston Grand Opera, Venice’s Teatro La Fenice, Staatsoper Berlin, Grand Theater de Geneva, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Florence’s Maggio Musicale, Hamburg Staatsoper, Bonn Staatsoper, Frankfurt Staatsoper, Opera de Toulouse, the New Israeli Opera and many others. During the 1990s, Mr. Sylvester sang more performances at the Metropolitan Opera of Radames in Verdi’s opera AIDA than any other tenor. A 1989 article in USA Today named Mr. Sylvester as one of the two most important tenors of his generation. Among others his opera repertoire includes Radames in AIDA (which he has sung over 150 times), the title role Don Carlo in DON CARLO, Adorno in SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Cavaradossi in TOSCA, Pinkerton in MADAMA BUTTERFLY, Calaf in TURANDOT, Rodolfo in LA BOHEME, Bacchus in ARIADNE AUF NAXOS, Der Kaiser in DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN, Samson in SAMSON ET DALILA, Don Jose in CARMEN and Pollione in NORMA. All in all, he has performed close to fifty leading roles. The many works he has performed in concert include Verdi’s REQUIEM, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde and Symphony #8 and Beethoven’s Symphony #9 with orchestras worldwide. Among his recordings are the title role in DON CARLO with James Levine (Sony Classics), Adorno in SIMON BOCCANEGRA with Sir George Solti (Decca), Calaf in TURANDOT (EMI video), Mahler’s Symphony #8 with Robert Shaw (Telarc) and Mendelssohn’s Die ertse Walpurgisnacht (Arabesque). Additionally, he has been featured in numerous Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera and in other broadcast and televised performances around the world.
Currently, Mr. Sylvester serves on the faculty of Wichita State University. Before that he was on the faculty at DePaul University, and Indiana University. He is Co-Director and Founder of the San Miguel Institute of Bel Canto, a summer training program for select singers with career potential. In 2018 he founded the first ever Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in Mexico. Commonly referred to as the Met Auditions, this historic Mexico District Met Opera Auditions is the first Met District outside of the USA in many decades, and only the second international district. He served as the Master Teacher and Artist-in-Residence for the Concurso San Miguel opera competition, the largest for Mexican opera singers. Mr. Sylvester teaches annually at the iSing! Festival in China and at Chicago Summer Opera. In 2013 he was invited to be the Artist-in- Residence at the Art Song Festival at the University of Toledo. He has students performing in North America and Europe and several that have been successful in national competitions. In recent years, Mr. Sylvester has turned his performing talents toward recital and concert work, having given recitals in Chicago, Rochester (NY), Atlanta, Toledo (OH), Indianapolis, Ridgefield (CT), Wichita (KS), and San Miguel de Allende (Mexico). Concerts have included Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde and Beethoven’s Symphony #9. He has just finished his first book, English Diction and Enunciation for North American Singers, and is finalizing its publication and eventual interactive e-book publication. Currently he is working on a project called A Survey of Historically Important Classical Singers of the 20th Century, an audio project aimed at introducing young singers to the singers that came before them.
Grupo Vitalmex, S.A. de C.V. Mexico City Administrative and Corporate Governance Director September 2018 to date Led the Human Resources Department in order to align the talent strategy to the objectives set out in the five-year Business Plan of the organization.
Continued with the consolidation of the internal control system and the compliance plan, as well as its replication in the subsidiaries in Germany, the United States and Chile, implementing best corporate practices in risk management, compliance, social responsibility and quality.
Continued leading the Legal and Corporate Governance Departments to implement adjustments in the corporate governance model derived from the capital investment made by Australis Partners and to assure compliance in the new commercial projects in the private sector, as well as M&A targets. Led the General Services Area to achieve the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization’s infrastructure in a major effort to reduce capex and opex. Derived from her leadership, Luisa Suárez, in addition to being an active member of Abogadas MX, A.C., a group in which the inclusion and labor recognition of executive women is sought, was invited to participate as an advisor in the mentoring program of said Association.
A native of Mexico, Ragnar Conde studied Graphic Design at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana- Azcapotzalco and Performing Arts at Casa del Teatro. Since 1992, he has served as teacher, coach and stage director in both the educational and professional sectors. These institutions and companies include SIVAM, ARGOS, Artepost Productions, San Benito Abad Theater, Universidad del Valle de México, Alas y Raíces para los niños, Nickelodeon, Artescenica, ITESM-CEM, National Fine Arts Opera Company, Zacatecas Opera Company, the Madrigalistas Choir, Solists Ensemble, Pro Opera, FIGAROSY, the Centro Histórico Children’s Choir, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, West Bay Opera, Golden Ceiba Productions., Mobile Productions, Morelos Opera Company, Xcaret Archeological Park, Skylight Music Theatre and Pro-Musica.
Mr. Conde has participated in over 70 Performing Arts projects in Mexico, United States, France, Switzerland, Italy and Columbia.. This projects include Theatre, Opera, Musicals, Concerts and Films, sharing credits as Stage Director, Producer, Writer, Acting Coach or Scenic, Lighting and Costume Designer.
His opera productions include L’Enfant et le Sortiléges, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Sour Angélica, Il Segreto di Susana, Bastien und Bastienne, The Telephone, Amahl and the Night Visitors, Don Pasquale, La Bohéme, El Rey Poeta, Agamenón, Leoncio y Lena, Le nozze di Figaro, I Pagliacci, Hänsel und Gretel, Carmen, La Scala di Seta, L’occasione fa il ladro, Dido and Aeneas, Samson et Dalila, Il Trovatore, Traviata, Elisir d’amore, Despertar al Sueño, Rigoletto, Madama Butterfly, La Creciente and La Voix Humaine. He served as Associate Stage Director for Peter Webster`s production of Little Women, the international première of this most popular opera by Mark Adamo (Mexico City). Conductors and Musical Directors he has worked with include Teresa Rodríguez, James Demster, Enrique Batiz, Luis Fernando Luna, Rodrigo Macías, Gabriela Díaz-Alatriste, Juan Carlos Lomónaco, Roberto Kalb, Benjamín Juárez Echenique, José Luis Moscovich, Andrés Dos Santos, Johannes Debus, Marco Parisotto and Edoardo Muller.
In film, he is the co-writer of No Turning Back, an international feature film (Mexico-Columbia), where he worked also as Acting Coach and Second Assistant. He also worked as Acting Coach in Balls, a Columbian feature film Mr. Conde also adapted the script for the film Seven Years of Marriage, to be feature in Mexico in 2012, and wrote the script for Enamorándome de Abril, to be filmed in the next few months.
Mr. Conde has taught classes in acting, dance, corporal expression and arts. He has extensive experience working with children in professional staging for theatre, opera and concerts, and in coaching acting with opera singers. He has also worked in design, production management and stage management in several national and international projects.
In December 2012 he worked as stage director in the world premier of Viva Verdi, the 200 years celebration of the birth of Giuseppe Verdi, in the Hallenstadion, Zürich, under the artistic advice of Mr. Lotfi Mansouri.
He is the General Director of Escenia Ensemble, A. C., a performing arts company in Mexico City
LUZ MARIA TAMES PEÑA PhD
Luz María is the Legal Advisor of San Miguel Metopera Trust, A.C. She has a PhD in Law from the Universidad Panamericana, an academic institution where she also studied Law and from which she graduated in both studies with Honors.
Along with her corporate practice, with more than 30 years of experience that have led her to represent Mexico in countries such as Taiwan, Singapore and China, as well as to be a speaker for Mexico at APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum).
Since 1993, Luz María has also been an adviser to what we know today as Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Therefore, she has an extensive experience in the sector. Also she has supported in its origins the integration of the office in charge of granting the deductibility of donations by the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP).
She was President of Fundación para la Promoción del Altruismo, I.A.P., institution with which she created the newspaper "Somos Hermanos", she has been a member of the Board of YMCA Patronage, as well as of Comité Ciudadano de Apoyo al Hospital Psiquiátrico Fray Bernardino Álvarez, I.A.P.
In recognition of her work for more than 25 years supporting and advising NGOs, she was awarded by Fundación Appleseed México, A.C. with the 2019 PRO BONO ROBERT HERZSTEIN LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT award.
Luz María is also a Professor at the Universidad Panamericana and participates in SparkUP advising new entrepreneurs.
Likewise, she is the Mexican representative before the International Lawyers Group (ILG).
She currently collaborates with Sámano Abogados, S.C. as the lawyer in charge of the Social Responsibility and Entrepreneurship area.
RICARDO GONZÁLEZ ESCOBAR
Expert in leadership and development of high performance teams nationally and internationally. Business Strategist. International speaker.
His training and coaching has been done in Mexico, Canada, the United States and Australia.
He currently runs his own training company, as well as being the LATAM President of the Australian Institute of Neuroscience “About my Brain”.
He has been interviewed for programs on Televisa, TV Azteca, Radio Formula, El Heraldo, Canal 11, among many others.
He was the Director of the Banking and Commercial School for 20 years. Additionally, he conducted his own program “Dejando Huellas” where he interviewed leaders with great experience.
Red de Negocios magazine named him Coach of the Year 2021.