Company Created To Tap Into Latino Market

 MIAMI  -- Members of several Fortune 500 boards and other Latino leaders have formed Garcia Trujillo Holdings LLC, a management consulting, merchant bank, and venture capital firm to focus on the global Hispanic market.  "Too many Fortune 500 companies are chasing opportunities in emerging markets all over the world and missing the fastest growing and most profitable emerging market that already exists right here in America," said Nina Vaca, who is chairman of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, member of two Fortune 500 boards, Comerica Bank (CMA) and Kohl's (KSS), and founder of a $200 million Dallas based IT Solutions company.  With Hispanic purchasing power at $1 trillion and growing at $100 billion per year and the Latino population expected to grow by 83 million people by 2050, Vaca believes Corporate America simply can no longer afford to ignore this booming demographic.

After being CEO of three $45 billion market cap companies on three different continents, Sol Trujillo who serves on the board of directors of Target (TGT) and WPP Group (WPP) says that companies have a "domestic emerging market" with just as great a potential as other international markets. Trujillo joined forces with Charles P. Garcia, a member of the Board of Directors ofWinn-Dixie Stores (WINN) as well as Nina Vaca, Gary Trujillo who sits on Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona and Wells Fargo Bank Desert Region, Alejandro Silva, who sits on the Board of Directors of Walgreens (WAG), and other Hispanic business leaders in this new venture.  

Garcia Trujillo is already working with management teams to help them design winning strategies for this booming demographic.  The firm's business model is based on leveraging the founders' business expertise, the management team's Hispanic market insights, and access to resources and capital to help clients in the U.S. and around the world develop effective entry and growth market strategies in the Hispanic market.

The U.S. Census estimates that the Hispanic population will surpass 50 million next year and that Hispanic purchasing power is estimated to top $1.5 trillion by 2015. "In four years the Hispanic market, if it were a nation in and of itself, would be one of the ten largest economies in the world," said Trujillo who is the firm's chairman. Trujillo also served on the boards of PepsiCo, Bank of America and Gannett.  The firm also will release next week an unprecedented study on Latinos' perception of Corporate America, which will shed light on how companies can succeed in this market.

"The growth of the Hispanic population is one of the stories that will be written out of the 2010 census," said Census Bureau Director Robert Groves.  The U.S. Census estimates that the U.S. Hispanic population will grow to 133 million by 2050. "This is equivalent to adding a city one third larger than Phoenix, our nation's fifth largest city, populated only with Hispanics every year all over the country for the next forty years," said co-founder and the firm's senior managing director Gary Trujillo, who led as CEO a $55 million IPO for the first bilingual internet portal focused on the U.S. Hispanic market.

Charles Garcia, who was CEO of the fastest growing Hispanic business in the U.S. and is a recognized Hispanic market expert, says that making a decision to build a Hispanic business in any company starts at the top. Since only 3% of board seats on Fortune 500 companies have Hispanic directors, Garcia Trujillo recommends establishing an independent Hispanic brain-trust which reports directly to a company's CEO.  Garcia, the firm's chief executive officer, chaired a Hispanic business advisory council for Aetna, a Fortune 100 diversified healthcare company, reporting to the CEO and other members of the senior management team. "The council helped drive the business strategy targeting the Latino marketplace in our Southeast region, and its success has caused Aetna this year to expand our effort across the entire U.S.," said Raymond Arroyo, Aetna's chief diversity officer.

Based in Miami, with representative offices across the Americas, Garcia Trujillo's merchant bank and venture capital operations assist Hispanic-owned companies by connecting them with sources of capital in Latin America.  The firm also may invest in these businesses. "Latin American companies want to expand into the U.S. Hispanic market too and also want to invest in Hispanic-owned businesses here," said Silva, one of the firm's founders and CEO of Chicago based Evans Food Group, one of the world's largest specialty food companies.  

About Garcia Trujillo Holdings, LLC

Garcia Trujillo, LLC helps Fortune 500 and multinational companies and their management teams to significantly grow their market share in the global Hispanic market by focusing on strategy, execution, organization, and mergers and acquisitions.  Founded by top Hispanic business leaders, the firm also operates a merchant bank and venture capital firm.  Garcia Trujillo makes available to its clients data-rich online systems and full-service analytics and primary Hispanic market research to enable a company to link strategy with execution at many levels of operations.  In addition, the firm applies a robust approach and designs a customized independent Hispanic business steering committee to work with management teams and report directly to the company's CEO to drive their Hispanic strategy.