Prior to joining the financial services industry, Alex Mesanza was with Lucent Technologies for 12 years where his first role involved providing supply chain and logistics expertise to the director of manufacturing, while establishing Lucent's manufacturing operation in Campinas, Brazil. "This was at the onset of what I'm going to call the 'telecom revolution' in Latin America, where the industry was being privatized and there were several auctions for telecom communication frequencies taking place," Alex explained. From a manufacturing perspective, the timing was right for Lucent to move into the space -- a move that would not only put Lucent closer to its customers, but would also deliver lower operating costs and an established presence with local suppliers, which could then be leveraged to eliminate taxes and expenses that add to the cost of products.
"We were responsible for setting up everything that is required to build a manufacturing site," Alex explained, "including site location, staffing, all the logistics associated with the warehouse aspect of the site, as well as all the import duties and taxes that had to be considered for bringing in the first shipments of seed stock to feed production and making the operation successful. So, it was very much a 'greenfield' type of operation."
