Managing Partner, Francisco Uriarte, CVA, CMAA

Mr. Uriarte has practiced in several business arenas and has over 30 years of combined experience in the areas of Corporate and Entrepreneurial Finance, Strategy, Marketing, Operations and Mergers & Acquisitions. 

He's been directly involved in over twenty-three transactions with accumulated value over $270MM in Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands and the United States and has also been involved, as a Principal, in two entrepreneurial activities which subsequently have been sold, and as a Private Investor, Board Member or Adviser in many more.

As Managing Partner of ESP Group, Mr. Uriarte has advised companies in industries such as: car rental, recycling, venture capital, entrepreneurial development, software, amusement parks, remote monitoring services, real estate, building & facilities services, behavioral health care, genomics, proteonomics, food retail, food manufacturing, financial services, medical malpractice insurance, commercial landscaping and renewable energy, among others.

Mr. Uriarte was until 2017 Partner and President of the Capital & Shared Services Group of Aireko Companies, a 55-year-old, locally owned construction and construction services firm with operations in Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and the East Coast of the United States. In this role, Francisco oversaw Aireko’s M&A strategy in the Middle Atlantic States executing four transactions with combined values of $20 million. Francisco also launched Aireko’s ability to develop and asset manage Solar PV projects—structuring the transactions and selling them to take out funders as well as acquiring a minority interest in a Solar PV Asset Portfolio with properties in MA, PR and DC.

Mr. Uriarte started his career in 1990 as an engineer at Eli Lilly Industries, Inc., and worked in Mexico and in Puerto Rico in several private companies and in the PR Government between 1992 and 2002. In 1998, he co-founded with his wife a Cheese Manufacturing operation, and subsequently sold it in 2002. In 2002, he co-founded together with a group of local investors SuperMax, and served as its President and CEO. SuperMax, is a local supermarket chain that initially acquired six stores from Wal-Mart as part of an FTC mandated divestiture. Mr. Uriarte structured the transaction, negotiated with Wal-Mart and the FTC and closed it.  In 2006, he sold his participation. 

Between 2006 and 2014, Mr. Uriarte has advised local companies through  ESP Group. 

In 2014, he was invited to join as a Partner in Aireko Companies to execute the US M&A expansion strategy.

Mr. Uriarte serves in the Board of Resolve Holding Corp. and is the Vice Chairman of the Board of Grupo Guayacán, Inc., a nonprofit charted with developing entrepreneurial capacity in Puerto Rico.   He also serves in the Advisory Board of Better Ideas Holdings, LLC; Dame un Bite; and La Hacienda Foods.

Mr. Uriarte has been a member of the Young Presidents Organization since 2004.

Mr. Uriarte has a Bachelor Degree in Industrial Engineering with a minor in Finance from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Master’s Degree in Finance from the Inter American University in Puerto Rico. He’s a graduate of executive programs from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Entrepreneurial Development), Northwestern University (Equity Valuation and Credit Analysis), the National Venture Capital Institute and the National Business Incubation Association.

Mr. Uriarte is a Certified Mergers and Acquisitions Advisor (CM&AA) certified by the Alliance of Merger and Acquisition Advisors, an Accredited Valuation Analyst (CVA) certified by the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts and a Governance Fellow from The National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD).