Juan Fernando Valenzuela

Juan Valenzuela is an Engineer, born and raised in Medellín, Colombia.  He works at Grupo Nutresa, Colombia's food processing leading company, which also operates in Peru, Costa Rica and Mexico. He is responsable of developing and managing strategies for agricultural innovation in rural areas as well as for the enhancement of cocoa plantations as a social and environmental sustainable alternative in Latin American countries.

His role implies working closely with Colombian postconflict affected farming communities, supporting their transit to cocoa sustainable plantations as substitution of illegal coca crops. This project focus on transferring knowledge to farmers via Nutresa's Experimental Farm and assisting them to engage the domestic and international markets as part of the company's environmental and social strategy.

Juan holds Master's Degrees in Finance and in Supply and International Negotiation from the UNCTAD / ITC. He has taken further studies on Management Development Program at the University of San Francisco, as well as in Modern Cocoa Farming at the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center - (CATIE), Costa Rica.

He lives in Medellín.