Manuel de la Guardia joins the Stratence Partners team as Senior Vice President for EMEA, effective January 2024.
Manuel is renowned for his expertise in strategy definition for growth, leading organizations to achieve maximum performance, and adeptly restructuring distribution networks. His career at Ford, Mazda, and Nissan has been marked by ambitious goal-setting and achieving record results, demonstrating his capability in sales planning and execution, as well as developing comprehensive marketing strategies.
His involvement in crisis management and organizational restructuring has been pivotal in enhancing competitiveness and ensuring survival. Manuel's experience extends beyond the automotive industry, showcasing his versatility across multiple industries. His ability to manage large cross-cultural teams, with a focus on structured governance and hands-on involvement, sets him apart. His leadership style emphasizes empowerment and development, which he has applied in commercial team management, objective setting, and incentive definition.
Manuel's skills in product value optimization, CRM tools including Salesforce and SaaS environments, as well as his expertise in both digital and physical UX, are testament to his diverse industry knowledge. He has significantly contributed to customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention programs and has developed distributor evaluation tools based on performance in key metrics.
His background is diverse, encompassing roles in mature companies and in setting up new ventures, such as local national sales companies. Manuel's global work experience spans seven countries, where he has integrated with local cultures and teams, often working in the local language. Fluent in seven languages, including English, French, Italian, and Portuguese, his language skills have been a key asset in his global roles.
An active member of trade events, Manuel is passionate about the transformation of the automotive industry and beyond, focusing on decarbonization with Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) and the implications of legislative changes in the new distribution model under the Agency Contract gradually deployed by OEMs.
Manuel holds a Civil Engineering degree from Politécnica Barcelona, a MS'c from IIT Chicago, and an INSEAD MBA from Fontainebleau. He has also completed a Corporate Finance program at IE, further highlighting his extensive educational background.
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manueldelaguardiavillal%C3%B3n/