meet our team
Where passion meets experience
SYON has a small team of passionate individuals who bring together their collective experience to work as one cohesive team. The team has had extensive work experience in North America, Europe and the Middle East. Their academic and professional backgrounds are comprised of finance, legal, commercial, operational and business administration. The team share a common mission to work with trust and transparency with our partners across the board.
Francisco Yong / President, investment committee member
Francisco brings over 18 years of investment and operational experience in the food and consumer products sector to the Syon Capital team. At Syon Capital Francisco’s main responsibilities are deal sourcing, execution and monitoring of the consumer goods and food and agribusiness investments, operational oversights, and exit of investments.
Prior to joining Syon Capital, Francisco joined a global food product company where he worked in the American and European divisions for 18 years holding different executive positions including CEO for the European operations. During his tenure as European CEO, he led several acquisitions in the United Kingdom, Rusia, the Netherlands, Ukraine and Turkey worth over US$ 200 millions.
jose rodriguez cesenas / vp, investment committee member
Jose has over 16 years of experience in private equity and financial services. Jose co-leads Sovereign Capital’s education sector team and has been responsible for the platform investments in Lifetime, Paragon Education, GSM London, BIMM and Astrum Education Group. He worked on delivering the growth strategies and subsequent exits of Alpha Plus Education and SENAD and acts as a non-executive of several companies in the education sector. Jose also led the acquisition of World Class Learning and was Sovereign’s representative on the board until exit in 2013. Jose serves as a member of the investment committee at Syon Capital.
Jose has a BA in economics from the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) and an MBA from London Business School.
salvador elias / vp, investment committee member
Salvador brings 23 years of experience during which time he has collaborated on over 40 acquisitions worldwide worth more than US$ 500 million and negotiated over US$ 250 million in loans for working capital, growth and purchase of new enterprises.
Salvador has been instrumental in identifying risk areas to minimize issues that may become a problem from a risk management, labor, antitrust, legal and employment standpoint and successfully set strategies to defend and win several major class action cases. In the US food industry, Salvador championed a filing motion with the FDA to add Folic Acid to corn products as a preventive measure for spina bifida babies born to Hispanic women. He currently serves as a non-executive Director for several Syon Capital companies and Director for a multi state franchise. Salvador has a BA from University of Mexico, Juris Doctor and University of Notre Dame.
rafael cob / vp, cfo
diana arenas / analyst
Diana is well-versed in market research both qualitative and quantitative in nature, providing strategic and actionable consultative support to the team. Diana has extensive experience in the design and execution of high-visibility market research studies that span a variety of industries. In her previous position Diana was instrumental in developing and launching the branding and marketing of a food supplement beverage in the Mexican market.
Diana has a BA in marketing from the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) and a Masters in Marketing from EGADE Business School.