Jesus Blanco
Founder & CEO

Jesus is a seasoned Private Equity entrepreneur and Blockchain investor, with over 20 years’ of an international career in Digital Media Services, Tech and Investment Management.

As a founder of Linktia he has led a number of its acquisitions, focused on opportunities within the small and medium enterprise (SME) range.

He has co-funded a patented tech platform for seamless routing communication, established JV’s with former Bill Gates’ Corbis Corporation and IBM Digital Agency in MENA, while building a diversified portfolio of tech-driven, scalable and matured-SME entities within MENA, India, UK and US

Areas of Expertise:
Private Equity & VC | Blockchain Investment | Strategy | M&A | Entrepreneurship

Education:
University of Oxford Business School:
Master in Business Administration & Strategy
Harvard Business School:
PLDA

Peter Baltussen
Co-Founder & Managing Partner

Peter is a banking sector veteran with over 30 years’ of experience. He is a transformational global leader and pioneer in the digital banking sector within the GCC, coupled with extensive expertise in running publicly listed companies.

Peter was Managing Director and CEO of former Saudi Hollandi Bank and more recently CEO of Commercial Bank of Dubai before taking a role as a co-founder of Linktia Group.

In his tenure as CEO of Commercial Bank of Dubai, Peter launched “CBD Now”, which became the first digital-only bank in the MENA region.

Areas of Expertise:
Strategy | JV’s | M&A | Digital Banking | IPO’s | Corporate Finance

Education;
Erasmus University, Rotterdam:
Master of Business Economics

Gustavo de Hostos
Co-Founder & Executive Director

Gustavo is an entrepreneur for the past 10 years with expertise in the consulting field for hospitality strategy, management, design and operations. He has set up a few businesses in this sector and rapidly grown them to become reputable leaders in their fields, competing and collaborating with the established and international players.

One of his focuses in the past few years has been to create Intellectual Property for clients and his own companies, allowing them to introduce and profit from recurring and scalable streams within their business models. To complement this, Gustavo has played a crucial role in implementing technology and data mining/usage to the benefits of these businesses.

These businesses are go-to and add value to some of the Big Three, Big Four, and largest investment funds in the region.As one of the co-founders of Linktia, he has supported with a number of its acquisitions, focused on the opportunities within the small and medium enterprises (SME range).

Areas of Expertise
Entrepreneurship | Strategy | Project Management | Innovation | Business Model Optimization | Business Development

Education:
Hotelschool The Hague
B.A., Management and Hospitality

Dr. Diego Comin
Co-Founder & Managing Partner

Diego is a world class renowned macro-economist and a global authority of technology diffusion.

Diego has published multiple articles in top economic journals on the topics of business cycles, technology diffusion, competitiveness, economic growth and firm volatility. His research has been supported by the Gates foundation, the National Science Foundation.

He has developed macroeconomic models of technology and business cycles for the design of policies at the World Bank, IMF, European Central Bank (ECB), the European Commission (EU) and Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Recently, Microsoft has used Diego’s models of technology diffusion developed to forecast the diffusion of their cloud services.

He has been professor in Dartmouth, Harvard Business School, NYU and MIT.

Areas of Expertise:
Dr. Comin is a world class authority in;
Macroeconomics | Innovation | Technology Diffusion | Economic Models

Education:
Harvard University:
Ph.D., Economics
M.A., Economics
University Pompeu Fabra:
B.A., Economics

Sunil Kataria
CFO

Jesus is a Dominican entrepreneur with over 17 years’ experience in Investment Management and Digital Media
Services.

He co-founded Linktia Group eight years ago as an Investment holding focused on SME acquisitions and market
consolidation in the GCC region. Within this period he established JV’s with Bill Gates’ Corbis Corporation and IBM wholly
owned Digital Agency Aperto in MENA.

Prior to that he was in executive roles at Corbis as Managing Director of North America, Director of Benelux and Managing
Director of EMEA & LATAM Emerging Markets.

Jesus has co-founded two tech startups that were granted International Patent, winning the case vs Nokia and Skype.
He has been based in 7 countries across Europe, Latin America, the US and the Middle East.

Areas of Expertise:
Strategy | Investment Management | JV’s | M&As | Digital | Startups | Entrepreneurship

Education:
University of Oxford Business School:
Master Degree in Business Administration & Strategy
Harvard Business School: PLDA