Alejandro (Alex) Contreras

Alex is responsible of the vision of Mustard Seed Capital as a Transformational Private Equity Fund for Latin America.

Alex started Mustard Seed Capital while living in Chicago, Illinois, United States of America and now is establishing operations for Latin America in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Prior to Mustard Seed, he was part of Lebonfante International Investors Group, an investment and development company based in the US, where he acted as Vice President and CFO.

During his tenure at Lebonfante, he oversaw the development of one of the fastest growing Mortgage Companies in the Chicago Area, with 16 branches covering Illinois, Wisconsin and Florida. Being part of the same core strategy, the group developed a Title Company, a Real Estate and an International Home Services Corp.

Prior to that Alex was Founder, President & C.E.O of Latinlex International, the first web portal focuses in Law and Government for Latin America. The company was based in Buenos Aires, and had operations in several cities of Latin America.

Prior to that he was Partner and Member of the Board of Directors of Microtel Inns (U.S Corporation) for Argentina & Uruguay where he was part of the group that initiated the development of the Master Franchise, and developed several Hospitality projects in Argentina. Also part of the same group he was Partner and Member of the Board of Directors of Hoteles del Sol S.A, and helped for the fundraising of the first Microtel Inn Hotel in Argentina, Microtel Inn Costa Salguero. Alex is still a Partner in that group.
http://www.microtelinn.com.ar/

In his earliest times as an entrepreneur and executive, he was associated with the Manfio Group, and took several positions from being the Legal Counselor to be a Director for several companies and part of several ventures including: Best Fly S.A (aviation); PYE S.A, (Hospitality, a company that formerly owns the first's Holiday Inn Express in Argentina); IMN SA (Construction and Services); Solsima S.A; Continental Traffic Corp (Panama) and Sima S.A, (all in Oil & Gas).

In his beginnings as an Attorney he had a Law Firm with two associates and focused in Corporate Law, Banking and International Law.

Alex holds a LLB (Juris Doctor) from Universidad Nacional del Comahue, (Patagonia) and a PhD from Universidad Católica de Argentina (Santa Fe). He also attended Notarial Argentina University majoring in International Private Law (LLM-Buenos Aires), and Palermo University majoring in Business Administration. (MBA-Buenos Aires).

While living in the US he received a Graduate Certificate in Finance and Accounting from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and also Graduate Certificate in Project Management, from the University of Villanova (VU) at Pennsylvania.

Alex is involved in many corporate social responsibility projects, and is part of several non profit organizations.

Alex is a Founding Member and Director of the Argentine American Midwest Chamber of Commerce. He was in charge of the Finance and also the Polo Committee. Alex was the creator of the “Argentine American Chamber Polo Cup”. Now back in Buenos Aires, he remains as Director and is responsible for the operations for Argentina.
http://www.argentinechamber.com/

Alex is member of several Hispanic Organizations including the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).
Alex now is living in Buenos Aires, he is married to Carolina, and father of Montserrat (8), Juan Bautista (5) , and Tadeo (8 months).