Ricardo Chicas

We are a vibrant and innovative company nestled in the heart of Central America, renowned for crafting irresistibly flavorful snacks that tantalize taste buds and celebrate the rich culinary heritage of the region. With a focus on quality, authenticity, and a passion for flavor, Tronix is more than just a snack company—it's a culinary journey that invites you to savor the vibrant tastes of Central America with every bite. Join us in celebrating the rich tapestry of flavors that make our snacks truly extraordinary.

Orchestrate exports of salty snacks, waffle cookies and sugar confectionery to 9 countries, capital expenditures of $10M USD per year. Oversight of comprehensive manufacturing operations for all 10 plants located in El Salvador. Coordinate Production, Planning, Maintenance, Finance, Human Resources, Quality Assurance, Health and Environmental Safety, Research and Development and Engineering at the executive level. Manage 12 direct report supervisors responsible for 2000+ personnel. Develop strategies to fulfill tactical requests and execute the Executive Committee vision. Address complex business issues, evolve best practices, and initiate change management. Utilize reporting tools and metrics to impact production. Coordinate the daily, weekly and monthly operations activities to create the conditions and give the resources to obtain the results. As a member of the Executive Committee, we evaluate, measure and guide all strategies related to Business Growth, Sales, Operations, Financial and Information Technology, Human Resources, Business Transformation, Procurement, Logistics and Distribution.

Oversight of Procurement, Logistics, and Distribution of telephone services and cable operations in El Salvador. Purchasing spend of $200M USD. Develop and launch operational planning processes in all business units including mobile, home and B2B. Implemented sales and operations planning designed to align departmental focus with executive objectives. Coordinate strategic and tactical purchasing, calculated department budgets and materials, and controlled inventory. Leverage volume purchasing to negotiate sale and logistics contracts. Analyze supply chain and performance reports to gauge and set warehouse employee metrics. Procure to Pay (P2P) process fully automated. Migrate all procurement transactional activities to the Regional Shared Services Model. Completed the automation of Contract Management process with more than 2,000 contracts. Manage 3 direct reports which are responsible for 70 people. Measure the performance of the whole supply chain to assure the result and follow up.

Administered Food Manufacturing factories producing Wet Savory, Mayonnaise and Beans products in Belen Costa Rica and Dry Savory and Margarine products in Mirasol El Salvador with capital expenditures of €5M per year. Oversight of comprehensive manufacturing operations for the 2 plants located in Costa Rica and El Salvador. Coordinate Production, Planning, Maintenance, Finance, Human Resources, Quality Assurance, Health and Environmental Safety, Continuous Improvement and Engineering at the executive level. Manage 9 direct reports that coordinate and supervise a total of 650 employees producing food items with exports to 6 countries. Analyzed processing schedules, determine inventory and staffing requirements, and monitored performance reporting to address production issues. Conducted site inspections to ensure industrial hygiene and environmental safety compliance. Calculated annual budgets, created production forecasts, and production reports for executive stakeholders. Monitored quality control, raw material inventories and service levels. Launched the use of Total Productive Management principals to improve production and productivity. Volume combined of 70,000 tons. Reduction of conversion cost in 10%. Improvement of productivity in 15%. Implementation of automation with palletizing robots and also automation of packing lines.

Managed the production and capacity planning as well as material purchasing for Home Care products for 9 plants in 8 countries with large scale inventory control valued at €120M. Collaborated with a team of 8 direct reports which coordinated and supervised a team of 40 people to optimize and plan the Latin America sourcing strategies and network of 9 factories located in 8 countries. Managed the tools of simulation to model the capacity of the plants in process and packaging, the inventory planning and the service levels. Managed the best configuration of the supply network for powder detergents in the Latin American region. Handled the supply crisis of materials for the region and support the analysis of use of alternate materials as polymers in powder detergents. Coordinated the savings plans of each factory as well as the supplier performance. Lead the service level agenda in all factories.

Responsible for the Supply Planning area as well as Demand Planning for the HPC and Foods businesses. Implementation of the Sales and Operational Planning Process in Central America countries. Relaunch of the Demand Planning function in the area.

Responsible for the results of the Lighting business in Central America based in San Salvador. To lead the transformation of the new commercial model for the Region in the areas of Marketing and Sales. Consolidation of Customer Base (wholesalers, retail, distributors and electrical customers) in the Region. Doubling the profitability of the Company by establishing the business in a Free Trade Zone environment.

Responsible for the results of Luminaires business in Central America. Direct responsibility of Sales and Marketing of the business unit of Lumimaires in the Region. Participation in the biddings of public lighting in all Central American Countries. Partnership with Key Accounts, the main Electrical Suppliers in every Country in Central America. Lighting of 2 Municipal Stadiums in El Salvador (San Miguel and Usulutan)

Responsible for the plant that manufactured lighting bulbs for the Central American Market. Implementation of Statistical Process Control by Operators. Reduction of Costs of 20%. Improvement of efficiency to 95%. Reduction of inventories of 20%.

Responsible for the quality assurance of the Lighting bulbs plant. Implementation of ISO 9002 standards and preparation for ISO 14000.