Puerto Rico Governor-Elect Ricardo Rossell- appointed financial professionals to two key positions within his government.
On Thursday he appointed Raul Maldonado as Secretary of the Treasury and Gerardo Portela Franco as executive director of the commonwealth's Financial Advisory Authority and Fiscal Agency.
Rossell- has been slowed in filling these key positions as qualified people have been wary of taking on the jobs with the commonwealth facing a financial crisis, according to a Puerto Rico finance professional who is familiar with the process.
As Secretary of the Treasury Maldonado will oversee all revenue collection for Puerto Rico's central government.
Maldonado has 35 years of experience in the private and public sectors. He is a certified public accountant who has worked for the accounting firms Ernst & Young and Price Waterhouse.
He holds a bachelor's degree in accounting and a juris doctor degree, both from the University of Puerto Rico.
In the 1990s Maldonado worked as assistant secretary of internal revenue for the Treasury Department.
Portela Franco will lead the agency that has increasingly replaced the Government Development Bank for Puerto Rico as leading the commonwealth's actions and policies on debt. Over the last year people inside and outside the government have talked about closing down the GDB.
Portela Franco has worked in the public finance division at Santander Securities and has professional experience with financing public-private partnerships.
Portela Franco has a bachelor's degree in business administration with a concentration in finance from the University of Puerto Rico. He also holds a master's degree in business administration from the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia.
Rossell- will be sworn into office on Jan. 2 and the transition team should be in its final stages by now, the financial professional said. Yet, the governor-elect is only now naming the Secretary of the Treasury and the executive director of the agency overseeing debt. He hasn't yet named a director of the Office of Management and Budget, which oversees spending, or a president of the GDB. Making things more difficult for Rossell- is that the commonwealth effectively shuts down in the week around Christmas.
Juan Zaragoza G-mez is the current Secretary of the Treasury and Victor Suárez Melendez is the current executive director of Financial Advisory Authority and Fiscal Agency.
