Global Index founder and principal John Fleming said a need for “highly specialised expertise on a wide range of subjects” was behind the new operation, which he envisions as providing a layer of technical support to provide the company’s advisory team with knowledge on myriad areas that might not be their particular strength.
“For example, we have Latin American expatriates living in the Middle East who need advice on succession planning and international wills, and expatriate Scandinavians in Brazil who have worked in the UK and need help with QROPS,” Fleming said.
The new hires include Thiago Gonçalves, a Brazilian national with an MBA from the University of Rio de Janeiro, who most recently had been analysing Brazil for Squadra Investimentos, a Brazilian investment company.
He is joined by Laetitia Talavera, a French national with an MBA from the Institut Supérieur de Gestion in Paris, who previously was involved in the fund distribution operations of Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management in Paris.
Both Gonçalves, who speaks Portuguese and English, and Talavera, who speaks French, English, Spanish and Portuguese, will be based at Global Index’s Rio headquarters.
Fleming is a self-described “farmer’s son from Sussex” who went to South America for adventure in 1991, after some three years in the City of London, and stayed on, founding Global Index in 2004. The company now has seven offices in Latin America, including three in Brazil as well as one each in Mexico, Columbia, Peru and Uruguay, and according to Fleming, it is expanding into Africa.
A former president of the British Chamber of Commerce in Ecuador, Fleming is also a former president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. He is currently vice chairman of the Royal British Legion in Brazil and a long-time member of the British Chamber of Commerce in Brazil.
For more on Global Index, see the November issue of International Adviser magazine.
