Raul Rodriguez serves as the Chairman of the Board of Advisors of the North American Center for Transborder Studies at Arizona State University. He is also the Benson Chair in Banking and Finance and Distinguished Professor at the HEB School of Business and Administration at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas and the President of RMI, an investment and trade consulting firm in Mexico. He served as CEO and Managing Director of the North American Development Bank (NADBank) until October 2005. Prior to joining the NADBank, he was Executive Director of the Mexican Foreign Trade Bank; the Bank’s Director for Asia; Mexico’s Trade Commissioner in Canada during the NAFTA negotiation; and Secretary of Economic Development for the Mexican border State of Tamaulipas. He was also a business consultant and the chairman of his market research and information systems firm.

Mr. Rodriguez participates actively in community affairs at home in San Antonio, Texas, as Chairman of the World Affairs Council; Chairman Elect of The Free Trade Alliance; Mayoral appointee to the Board of Directors of the Port Authority of San Antonio; Chairman Elect and Vice President of the San Antonio - Mexico Friendship Council; member of the boards of the San Antonio Symphony, the San Antonio Public Library Foundation, and the Mexican Business Association; member of the City Council’s Finance San Antonio Ad Hoc Committee and the San Antonio Business Forum. He is also a founding member of the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Advisory Council of the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M University, the North American Forum, the U.S. - Mexico Futures Forum and the Border Trade Advisory Committee of the Texas Transportation Commission, among others. He participated in the Foreign Affairs task force with President Calderon’s transition team in Mexico in October and November 2006.

Born in Tampico, Mexico, he holds a degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Monterrey Tech. and a Master’s Degree from Harvard University, where he was recognized as a Littauer Fellow for his “commitment to excellence, to academic achievement, and to public service”. He has pursued other studies in the U.S., Mexico, Canada and Austria. He has participated as a speaker and lecturer in 30 countries on business, financial, managerial and economic development topics. He was an Assistant Professor and Research Fellow at the Engineering Division of Monterrey Tech. (ITESM) in Monterrey, Mexico. He also taught at the Nuevo Leon State University in Monterrey.

Mr. Rodriguez has authored and co-authored technical and business essays in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, the U.K. and the Netherlands. Some of his most recent publications are:

“Mexico in North America: The Relegated Neighbor?”; in Voices of Mexico, #76, UNAM - CISAN, July - September 2006; 
 “The Economic Development of the U.S.- Mexico Border”, chapter in “Mexico in the World: Mexico’s International Agenda 2006 - 2012”, published in Spanish in April 2006 by Editorial Planeta; 
 “Water Quality Management: the NADBank Experience”, with Suzanne Gallagher O’Neal; chapter in “Water Quality Management of the Americas”; Springer; The Netherlands, 2006;
“North America: A future of integration and no convergence?”, chapter in “Regional Integration and Social Cohesion”, published in Spanish in October 2005 by UN - ECLAC;
“The China - U.S. Relations and their Impact in Mexico”; published in Spanish in Economía Informa, # 335, UNAM, July - August 2005;

He has been recognized as an Honorary Citizen of the State of Texas and inducted to the Philosophical Society of Texas.  Mr. Rodriguez also received the first Annual International Award of the Mexican Business Association of San Antonio.