Cesar Lara

While studying in the Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA program, Cesar Lara (EMBA ’15) incorporated his own company – taking it from $3M to $57.5M in revenue in five years with operations in Canada, USA, Mexico, China and Colombia.

Valia Trading Corp. is a company of professionals in the commerce and worldwide distribution of animal protein such as beef, chicken, pork and seafood. Valia supplies strategic information to keep their clients aware of cost variations and guarantee the highest quality products at the best price, supervising every stage of the process, from the raw material purchase to the final product delivery while providing liquidity and certainty to suppliers.

“Many of the learnings I acquired from the EMBA have been very useful in my life as an entrepreneur,” said Lara, who is also Valia’s Managing Director. “For instance, topics like accounting, competitive strategy, financial reporting systems and financial management have been really useful to grow the company with a solid foundation.”

Lara credits great professors, international exposure such as Global Electives week at Kellogg’s Miami campus and the school mates in his cohort for assisting Valia’s progression and success.

“We have many plans for Valia in the next 5-10 years,” Lara said. “We want to expand to other markets and do what we do best, which is to facilitate the movement of food across countries while contributing back to communities in need.”