Laura Ortega-Lamela

PRESIDENT/CEO

Laura is an EU Counsel and Former Foreign Service Officer for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs &Cooperation of Spain(MAEC) with expertise in Foreign Relations, Intl. Law, Public Policy, and Business Strategy. She combines 20-yearexperience across fields, cross-cultural proficiency, and an extensive network of national and international relationships to maximize the value of global engagement and effectively manage market and political risk for corporate clients. With knowledge of Common Law and Civil Code systems, and communication skills in English, French and Spanish, Laura focuses on Corporate Expansions, P3 Projects, International Client Management and Negotiation, and Strategic Partnerships.

In her most recent position, she served as the Executive Director of the International Business Council(IBC) at the Illinois Chamber of Commerce. In this capacity, Ms. Ortega worked with the state and federal governments, foreign agencies and business groups advocating for proactive international trade policies on issues of competition, market access, export facilitation, FTAs and FDI. She was a vital facilitator for business leads in the region helping companies to access, develop and implement international growth strategies through her branded Global Partners Program. Under her leadership, IBC was the recipient of the Governor’s Exports Award in 2016 and instrumented the creation of the Illinois Trade Policy Task Force,

Kris Bazos

PARTNER/ADVISORY BOARD

Kris is an agile leader with over 20 years of senior leadership experience, supporting MNC’s and private companies deliver on their global expansion efforts. Through the use of emerging technologies and human centered design thinking, she develops high performance teams that are targeted and effective.

Kris provides a focused entrepreneurial spirit building on her broad knowledge of large corporate, start-up and emerging market environments. She has developed extensive contacts across the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia enabling the achievement of desired organizational outcomes.

Working globally with named MNC’s, Kris balances cross cultural capabilities, delivers enhanced client value, and solves problems resulting in long-lasting relationships. Utilizing real world expertise, Kris successfully designed and led a global project for a large MNC, to expedite the build out of capabilities necessary to support expansion efforts in Africa.

Recognizing that companies need to develop a level of organizational agility that matches the increasing change and complexity in their business environment - Kris brings her enthusiasm and passion to supporting technologies and innovations that drive organizations forward.