Walther Morales

WaltherMorales Rios Board of Directors, Guatemalan Association of Entrepreneurs -ASEGUA- Guatemalan Association of Entrepreneurs -ASEGUA- Guatemala
Pioneer in promoting an entrepreneurial mentality and culture throughout Central America from an integral and interinstitutional perspective. Founded his first company at age 21.

In his first incursion as a government intrapreneur, his goal is to impact entrepreneurial thinking within the public sector. For that reason, during his five years of public administration, he contributed as National Advisor for the Promotion of Entrepreneurship and Director of Business Development Services in the Ministry of Economy of Guatemala contributing from that front to the economic development of the entire business process with the objective of promoting the competitive capacity of Guatemalan entrepreneurs and businessmen.

As National Advisor for the Promotion of Entrepreneurship in Guatemala, he has been responsible for accompanying, designing and implementing the Regional Entrepreneurship Strategy for Central America (SICA-EMPRENDE), the construction and authorship of the National Entrepreneurship Policy: "Guatemala Emprende" (Approved by the President of the Republic of Guatemala on June 22, 2015), planning and execution of the First Seed Capital Fund in Guatemala (EMPRENDEGT) for the implementation of entrepreneurial projects with national and international market potential and the structuring and drafting of the Law for the Promotion of Entrepreneurship wich will serve as a basis for promoting legislation in favor of entrepreneurship for all Central America.

Being Director of Business Development Services in the Ministry of Economy, he led, in collaboration with his team, the Strategic Planning (2015-2019) for the next five years under four main axes: Entrepreneurship, SME, Competitiveness and Financing. In addition to structuring the Entrepreneurship Centers and Small Business Development Centers under the model of public-private alliances.

He has been Regional Director at Visioneer Group where he built the Rural Business Incubation Program (PIER for its acronym in spanish), whose main objective is the development of new business models taking into account the economic and social particularities of a rural environment. He also, has been Political Consultant in Entrepreneurship and SMEs topics for different institutions in Guatemala and Central America since he considers that the economic and social growth is the way to the development of any country for which Guatemala and Central America is not the exception.

Walther has more than 10 years of experience in the Business Development Process, specializing in the Promotion of Entrepreneurship, promotion of Microenterprise, Small and Medium Enterprise and Local Economic Development. He has accompanied entrepreneurs and their different business ideas by supporting them to reduce potential risks and thus achieve a better success rate during the first life cycles of business development.

Studies in Law and International Relations allow him to have a clearer and more rounded vision about business development. In addition to obtaining the Certification as Regional Consultant for the Promotion of the Entrepreneurship granted by the Regional Center for the Promotion of the SME -CENPROMYPE for its acronym in spanish- and of the Secretariat of the Central American Integration -SICA-.

A Certified Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Professional in Latin America by the National University of General Sarmiento (Argentina) and has been invited as a Speaker of the Entrepreneurship Development Program -PRODEM-, a pioneering program in research, dissemination, transfer and application of knowledge on entrepreneurship and innovation in Latin America.

Finalist in the first edition of the StartUp Nations Awards in the category of National Leadership in the Promotion of Entrepreneurship granted by the StartUp Nations Network in the framework of the StartUp Nations Summit, celebrated in 2015 in the City of Monterrey, Mexico.

Recently, he has embarked on the world of letters as a novel writer in a bibliographical project on Entrepreneurship in Guatemala and Central America (2017), but the most important thing is that he has been an entrepreneur since the age of 21 and for that reason, he knows what an Entrepreneur goes thru when starting a business.