Piero Gandini

Consul of Colombia at Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

My experience and deep interests:

• Entrepreneurship

I am based in: Las Palmas

Twenty years ago, at the age of 26, I closed one cycle in my life and started my journey towards the unknown world leaving my country of origin, Colombia. At that moment I had just finished my Business Administration degree and despite of the successful work I was doing in the private sector and with my own entrepreneurship experiences, I decided to follow my passion to serve the underprivileged, the poor, the needy.

Between 1999 and 2012, I engaged myself with humanitarian work mostly with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in emergency missions in natural disasters and conflict zones in several countries in Africa, South America and Asia. I performed diverse roles in MSF like emergency logistician, project coordinator and Head of Mission in complex contexts such as Angola, Chad, Sudan-Darfur, South Sudan, Indonesia, Peru, Colombia and India.  Those were intense, challenging yet very fruitful years where I developed and nurtured many of my leadership, team management and context analysis skills. At the same time, I founded a multicultural family and my two kids were born while on a mission.

Then I understood that a change was (again) needed in my life and while I was exploring ideas and projects for the future, I got an opportunity to join Colombia´s Ministry of Foreign Affairs where I´m working since February 2013. First at the Embassy of Colombia in India where, in addition to the Consular Functions, I performed coordination and mission management tasks and also I was for four months chargé d''affaires. Then, since October 2014, as a Consul of Colombia in Canary Islands, Spain.  This has been a completely different working environment and objectives, yet I have managed to inject a more human and sensitive approach making both, the Embassy and the Consulate, a more user-oriented place while rising the quality standards of the job. At the same time, and probably the biggest reward obtained, my managerial and communication style has been polished due to the intrinsic characteristics of the diplomatic sector. I´m a better manager now!

<!-- [if gte mso 9]> /o:OfficeDocumentSettings <![endif]--> <!-- [if gte mso 9]> Normal/w:View 0/w:Zoom false/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid false/w:IgnoreMixedContent false/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText EN-US/w:LidThemeOther X-NONE/w:LidThemeAsian X-NONE/w:LidThemeComplexScript /w:Compatibility /m:mathPr/w:WordDocument <![endif]--><!-- [if gte mso 9]> /w:LatentStyles <![endif]--><!-- [if gte mso 10]> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <!--EndFragment-->

The year 2018 brings a new end of cycle, I have decided that it is time to keep moving out of the comfort zone and re-invent myself towards a new and different future but using all the experiences lived in the four sectors I have worked (entrepreneurship, private sector, non-profit, diplomacy) to build a portfolio of consultancy services centered in strategic issues and creative leadership.  The first step has been the development of my personal branding with coherence and solid roots to be able to keep the tree strong.