About

Serial Entrepreneur

Santiago is 37 and has been a serial entrepreneur since he can remember.

After a couple of years working at Procter & Gamble, he co-founded Officenet, a company that revolutionized the office supplies industry in South America. Initially backed by local angel investors, Officenet raised capital from some of the best private equity funds, such as Goldman Sachs, GE Capital, George Soros, JP Morgan Chase, Warburg Pincus, KKR, THLee, Fleet-Boston Bank, GP Investimentos and Banco Santander Central Hispano.

Santiago managed Officenet from a small start up in Buenos Aires to a company operating in Argentina and Brazil, with over USD 100M in revenues and close to 1.000 employees.

Harvard Business School wrote two cases called “Officenet: how to make entrepreneurship work in Argentina” and “After the merge” that are taught in several Business Schools.

Officenet is now a part of Staples, the largest Office Supplies company in the World, present in over 20 countries. Officenet’s service levels are a benchmark for the industry.

Santiago was also a co-founder of Wanako Games, today a division of Vivendi, and Senstand, a recent start up. He is also a Board Member of Otro Mundo, a top quality beer manufacturing company, and Latin 3, an exponential marketing agency.

Firm believer in giving back to society, Santiago tries to help and inspire young students and entrepreneurs by giving speeches and thru mentoring. In the last few years, he made presentations at schools such as MIT Sloan School of Management, HBS and many Universities in Latin America.

He was also a panelist in several conferences, an advisor to the “Karel Steuer Entrepreneurship Chair” and a member of the Board of Advisors of the UdeSA Postgraduate Department.

He has been a judge at many business plan competitions, including NAVES, organized by the Centro de Entrepreneurship del IAE, and a selector for the INICIA award.

Beyond his business endeavors, Santiago is involved in many NGOs.

At age 24 he was President of Fundación Iniciativa, a Foundation that promoted democratic leadership among the young. Over 20.000 youngsters attended Iniciativa’s events.

He is also a Board Member of Endeavor Argentina and is a Former President of CIPPEC, a public policy organization that that strives to create a just, democratic, and efficient State in Argentina to improve the quality of life for all Argentine citizens.

His passion for Social Entrepreneurship also brought him close to Ashoka to work closely with social entrepreneurs as a changemaker.

Santiago is an Private Sector Advisory Board Member for the Agencia Nacional de Inversiones (Prosperar).

He has a BS in Economics from Universidad de San Andrés, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude, winning the San Andrés Award 1993 (Baccalaureate).