From Cuba: Voices from the Private Sector

Marta Deus, is an entrepreneur from Havana, Cuba. After studying Business Administration in Madrid, Marta returned to Havana to open her first business – Deus Expertos Contables – a business accounting firm. Deus focuses on Cuban private sector clients and entrepreneurs, helping primarily with tax and accounting and creating mipymes. 

Marta co-founded a digital magazine in Cuba – ‘Negolution’. Its vision is to inspire and promote Cuban entrepreneurs and their businesses, and develop the emerging concepts in Cuba of business incubation and mentorship. The magazine now provides a leading contribution to a start-up culture in Havana. The project is not just the magazine – Deus has developed a program of start-up and tech-entrepreneurship events – like ‘The Week of Innovation’ and ‘The Hour of Code’, Ellas Hablan, Caribbean Creative Lab. She co-directs Jazzemprende, a festival that explores connections between jazz and entrepreneurship. Thirdly, she co-founded Cuba’s first delivery company. This ground-breaking start-up is now in the process of scaling up, having more than 200.000 app users and operating in 8 cities in Cuba.

Marta is driven by a desire to see young people in Cuba, especially women, achieve their potential. She recognizes the considerable challenges that Cuban entrepreneurs face but believes that many of these challenges can be overcome with creativity and innovation. This approach, and Marta’s business success to date, has meant that she is also now a leading commentator on the Cuban private sector and economy.

Oniel Diaz, is a co-founder and partner of AUGE, a private Cuban consulting and corporate services company. Advisor to more than 300 private enterprises in Cuba for strategic, regulatory and marketing issues and communication. Professional with 15 years of experience in politics and business development in Cuba. In the Cuban biotechnology industry, he held executives’ positions in both production and execution of international business. He was Managing Partner for Cuba during 5 years at Kreab, a Swedish multinational consultancy, where he advised international companies and governments on Cuba-related matters. He has published articles in media such as OnCuba, El Confidencial and Cinco Días. Panelist and speaker at national and international workshops, seminars and conferences. Masters in international political relations (ISRI) and Diploma in Commerce Foreign (INCOMEX). Alumni of the European Union Visitor Program (EUVP) in 2022.

Oscar Fernández, Co-founder and CEO of Deshidratados Habana SURL.

Deshidratados Habana SURL is a small private Cuban company specialized in dehydrated foods production. Ms. Fernandez has a PhD in Economics. He served for several years as Professor and Researcher at the School of Economics School, University of Havana. He founded Deshidratados Habana in 2021. Looking for opportunities on food production they started drying fruits at a domestic oven at home. One year later, Deshidratados Habana SURL became the first Cuban company to export dehydrated fruits. The company currently has a catalog of more than 50 products, including snacks, spices, infusions and alternative flours. It has distribution contracts with more than 30 companies in Cuba and exports to several European countries.

Recently, Oscar Fernández became the first Cuban national to obtain an Eisenhower Fellowship in its seventy years of existence. The Fellowship program took him to nine cities across the United States, and he participated in more than 60 meetings with high-level stakeholders from multiple sectors. Over the course of his Fellowship, Oscar learned about what it would be required for a private Cuban company to sell its products in the United States successfully.

Andrea Gallina, is an Italian-born development specialist and former senior staff member at the World Bank, where he worked on social development, governance and policy in Latin America and the Caribbean. Gallina holds a Ph.D. in Social Sciences from Roskilde University in Denmark and an MA in Political Sciences from the University of Rome “La Sapienza.” After decades abroad, Gallina and his wife, Cuban entrepreneur Diana Sainz, returned to Havana to co-found and manage boutique hospitality properties that blend Cuban culture with international standards. They opened the Paseo 206 Boutique Hotel and its restaurant Ecléctico in El Vedado. They also developed Estancia Bohemia Boutique Hotel in Old Havana.

Diana Sainz, is a Cuban entrepreneur and business leader known for her role in developing innovative private enterprises in Havana’s emerging private-sector economy. She worked on policy and program initiatives aimed at fostering political dialogue, cooperation and development between the European Union and partners in Latin American and the Caribbean. She is co-owner and operator of several hospitality and food retail ventures — including the Home Deli markets, Café Bohemia, Paseo 206 and Estancia Bohemia Boutique Hotels — that reflect a blend of Cuban flair and international quality in Cuba’s evolving micro, small and medium-sized business landscape.

Alejandro de la Fuente, is a historian of Latin America and the Caribbean who specializes in the study of comparative slavery and race relations, Professor de la Fuente’s works on race, slavery, law, art, and Atlantic history have been published in Spanish, English, Portuguese, Italian, German, and French. He is the author of Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana (Cambridge University Press, 2020, coauthored with Ariela J. Gross), Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century (University of North Carolina Press, 2008), and of A Nation for All: Race, Inequality, and Politics in Twentieth-Century Cuba (University of North Carolina Press, 2001), published in Spanish as Una nación para todos: raza, desigualdad y política en Cuba, 1900-2000 (Madrid: Editorial Colibrí, 2001), winner of the Southern Historical Association’s 2003 prize for “best book in Latin American history.” He is the coeditor, with George Reid Andrews, of Afro-Latin American Studies: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2018, available in Spanish and Portuguese) and of the “Afro-Latin America” book series, Cambridge University Press.

Professor de la Fuente is also the curator of three art exhibits dealing with issues of race and the author or editor of their corresponding volumes: Queloides: Race and Racism in Cuban Contemporary Art (Havana-Pittsburgh-New York City-Cambridge, Ma, 2010-12); Drapetomania: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba (Santiago de Cuba-Havana-New York City-Cambridge, Ma-San Francisco-Philadelphia-Chicago, 2013-16) and Diago: The Pasts of this Afro-Cuban Present (Cambridge, Ma-Miami, ongoing).

Professor de la Fuente is the founding Director of the Afro-Latin American Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research and the faculty Chair of the Cuba Studies Program, DRCLAS. He is also the Senior Editor of the journal Cuban Studies.