José Ignacio González President
José Ignacio González, 55, born in Louisville, KY and raised in Barranquilla, Colombia, is the Chief Executive Officer of Hemisphere Trade Services, Inc. (HTS) and President, COO of MAPA GROUP. These companies are unique business development firms dedicated to identifying and enhancing trade and investment opportunities for its clients and partners in the fields of Renewable Energy & Environmental, Airports and Aeronautics, Logistics and Trade and Government Relations in Economic Development. Mr. González served until December 2006 as the Executive Director of Hemisphere, Inc., a non-profit, public-private partnership formed by the State of Georgia, City of Atlanta, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, the Atlanta Convention & Visitor’s Bureau and the Georgia Department of Economic Development. He was appointed in August 2003 by Governor Perdue to lead the campaign to attract the permanent Secretariat of the Free Trade Area of the Americas to the State of Georgia.
Mr. González is Past Chairman of Summit Bank Corporation and Past Vice Chairman of The Summit National Bank. He served as Chairman from April 2002 through March 2004. Mr. González served as director of the Summit Bank Corporation from 1998 to 2006. He was Chairman of the Compliance Committee and also served on the Loan, Audit, Marketing and Credit Risk Committees.
He is the Past-President and CEO of PanAmerican Logistics, LLC and Perishables Group International JV, LLC, which operates the Perishables Complex at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, and is a founding partner of PanAmerican Transport, LLC.
Mr. Gonzalez currently serves as the Executive Chairman of CIFAL Atlanta, a United Nations agency he co-founded in Atlanta in 2004 to support the nations in the Americas in meeting their Millennium Development Goals commitments. He is the Vice Chairman of the board of the Georgia Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ #26), in which board he has served since 2002. He also serves on the Boards of MAPA GROUP, Visiting Nurse Health Systems, Inc., Georgia Chamber of Commerce International Committee, Promotora Aeropuerto Bicentenario S.A.S. and Intellione Technologies Corporation.
Mr. González holds a BS-Management degree from Purdue University and an MBA from Mercer University-Atlanta. He has served on the Advisory Board of The Carter Center, on the Board of Directors of the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau, as Regional Chair on the national Board of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce as well as Chairman of the Dekalb Chamber of Commerce and the Atlanta Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. He also served on the executive committee and Board of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and is a former member of the Best Practices Committee of the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta.
In April 2004 he received the Citizen’s Diplomat award presented by the Georgia Council for International Visitors. In 1999 he received the Business Man of the Year Award presented by the Atlanta Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. He was named the 1998 International Business Person of the Year by the Clayton County Chamber of Commerce and the 1997 recipient of the State of Georgia Small and Minority Business Advocate of the Year award by the US Small Business Administration.
Our Mission
The MAPA Group mission is to build significant value for clients by providing superior, creative and strategic business development services while conducting business with irreproachable integrity at all times and under all circumstances.
