Gisela Sánchez CABEI’s Executive President, new leadership to drive transformation and positive change

Tegucigalpa, December 1, 2023. Today, Friday, December 1, Mrs. Gisela Sánchez Maroto arrived at the headquarters of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, to assume her mandate as Executive President for a five-year term.

The Executive Vice President, Mr. Jaime Roberto Díaz, together with the Bank's Secretary, Mr. Héctor Javier Guzmán, welcomed the first woman president of the Institution in its 63 years of existence. Under the strategic guidance of the Board of Governors and the Board of Directors, Mrs. Gisela Sánchez will lead, with high performance, leadership and teamwork, the implementation of a profound reform process to resume the path of strengthening governance, financial consolidation and reorientation of credit policy, with high administrative and ethical performance.

Mrs. Sánchez Maroto was elected by the Board of Governors on November 17 after an exhaustive and transparent selection process conducted by the prestigious firm of Heidrick & Struggles, New York office, in which some 250 applicants participated.

The new Executive President, a Costa Rican national, has held important positions in companies such as BAC Credomatic, Citibank, Florida Ice & Farm Company and Global Endeavors. She has received recognition for her outstanding leadership, such as Intrapreneur of the Year 2022 by the Schwab Foundation and the World Economic Forum. In 2023 she was selected as a Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center Milestone Maker.

Mrs. Sánchez Maroto expressed her pleasure and excitement at arriving in Honduras, a country she is particularly fond of and knows well thanks to the strategic regional positions she previously held. She expressed that under her management, with ethics and transparency, the Bank will return to its original mission as a financier of the main regional integration projects and to increase the competitiveness of its member countries, as well as to the financial, administrative and credit discipline that enabled it to achieve the risk rating it currently holds. Likewise, its main objective is to promote a solid capitalization policy that will contribute to strengthening the Institution and the incorporation of new extra-regional members. The last member country to join CABEI was the Republic of Korea more than five years ago, during the administration of former President Mr. Nick Rischbieth.

Mrs. Sánchez's new administration seeks to generate confidence through the sustainable use of resources to increase CABEI's development impact through a financial framework that harmonizes short, medium and long-term objectives. "From this point forward, development effectiveness and efficiency will guide CABEI's institutional Management, with ethics, transparency, accountability and greater access to information," stated the new CABEI President.