McCombs Alumni Network News

From McCombs TODAY

For Armando Rios, MBA ’09, agility and adaptability are the hallmarks of his international business experience. The Motorola executive has worked in general management, sales and marketing in five different Latin American countries during his career, a reality that he expects will become more common throughout the business world in the coming years.

“In my view, my globalized experience set has allowed me to be more prepared to work in Mexico and to know how to adapt to the fast changes in the technology industry.”

As channel sales manager for the Networks and Enterprise Division of Motorola in Mexico City, Rios, a native of Peru, led sales, marketing and service teams that delivered double-digit growth in the last five years and a turnaround in the sales trend for radio accessories and wireless broadband devices. Beginning in 2009, Rios’ responsibilities expanded across Latin America in his new position as regional sales director for Motorola’s Company Products Group.

Rios received an undergraduate degree in industrial engineering with a concentration in business administration from the University of Lima in Peru. In 1990, he went to work for BASF, a German-based chemical company with operations on five continents, as a sales representative for the Lima metropolitan region. He later managed the public health and consumer product portfolios for the company and eventually became chief marketing manager for the Automotive Paints Division in Argentina.

He went on to earn two post-graduate certifications—one in marketing from the University of the Pacific in Peru and one in negotiation from the University of Católica in Argentina. In 1998, he joined Motorola in Peru to lead commercial business deployment strategies in the two-way radio market across Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay. Two years ago he looked to the Texas Executive MBA in Mexico City as a strategic step in his ongoing international business education.

“From an academic point of view, the courses and the teachers are great; I have definitely updated and improved my knowledge and my professional skills,” Rios says. “But, what I appreciate the most is the friends I have made in the MBA program and the great experience of learning from a group of younger professionals with different experiences and points of view.”

Rios, who has raised three children with his wife, says he did not intentionally seek out so much international business experience, but he was open to change as professional assignments took him across the world. The fact that his youngest son was born in Mexico has made him particularly fond of that country, he says, and he hopes to eventually settle down there.

“The fact that we have lived abroad almost all of our family life has made us a very unified clan,” he says.

By Behnaz Abolmaali