Gustavo De La Fuente

San Diego - Tijuana Smart Border Coalition

Gustavo de la Fuente was named executive director of the San Diego-Tijuana Smart Border Coalition in March, 2017. A bilingual dual national born and raised in the Mexican border city of Nogales, he was educated at Stanford University and Harvard Business School. He has more than 20 years of experience in commercial banking, start-ups, telecommunications, and media companies. Gustavo served as CEO of Omnicable, a telecommunications and media company in northwestern Mexico, from 2001 to 2010. He opened the business services company Intelligent Office of San Diego in 2011 in La Jolla, where he also resides. He is responsible for all aspects of the Coalition's program. As the organization’s name implies, he focuses on helping to create and mobilize coalitions of various partners and stakeholders. He believes that more effective coalitions on both sides of the border and reaching across the border, along with greater civil society involvement, are the key to greater success. He sees a time in the near future when our region’s achievements in innovative border management will be a model for the world.