CNE Management Staff




Miguel A. Soto-Class, Executive Director Deepak Lamba-Nieves, Research Director Sergio Marxuach, Policy Director and General Counsel Dianimer Nevares Parras, Development & Donor Relations Officer Nydia Suarez, Public Affairs Carla J. Alonso, Special Events Coordinator Vanessa Ortiz, Administrative Assistant

Miguel A. Soto-Class, Executive Director

Mike Soto has had a wide range of experience in both the private and public sectors. In the private sector he has worked at law firms in Puerto Rico and the U.S. and in the banking sector as Assistant to the President of a bank in San Juan. He has also worked in the non-profit sector with California Rural Legal Assistance in San Francisco and has been involved with United Way and the Boys and Girls Clubs, where he served as a Board member, in Puerto Rico. In the Public Sector he has served as an appointed member of the Policy Group drafting a gubernatorial campaign platform and as Director of Public Policy and Legal Counsel in the Senate of Puerto Rico.

Mike has a B.A. from Yale University and a Juris Doctor from Vanderbilt University.

He is a past appointee by the Governor of Puerto Rico to the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National Service in Puerto Rico and to the Advisory Board of the Department of the Family. He has also been appointed by the President of the University of Puerto Rico to serve on the Board of Directors for the University Press. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Baldwin School of Puerto Rico and of the Advisory Council for the Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico. He is also a member of the Growing Wealth Working Group of the Corporation for Enterprise Development in Washington, D.C.

In 1999, Mike founded the Center for the New Economy, Puerto Rico’s first think-tank. CNE is an independent, nonprofit, research and policy development organization dedicated to promoting innovative economic development strategies. In 1999, CNE became a grantee of the Ford Foundation. In 2003 the Center received the prestigious Zenith Award for Best Non-Profit from the Chamber of Commerce.

Mike has been a columnist for El Nuevo Día, Puerto Rico’s largest circulation daily, since 2004. His first book, The Economy of Puerto Rico: Restoring Growth, was published by the Brookings Institution in 2006.

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Deepak Lamba-Nieves, Research Director

Deepak joined the Center for the New Economy shortly after completing his Masters in City Planning (MCP) from the University of California at Berkeley where he concentrated on regional and economic development planning with a focus on high-technology industries and economic development institutions. He has ample experience in the field of non-profit community development, policy advocacy and housing and has worked for numerous organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area and San Juan, P.R., including PolicyLink, LISC, San Juan NHS and Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation.

Deepak is a Truman Scholar (PR ‘98), and works closely with the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation in the selection of prospective Scholars. Currently, he teaches geography and planning courses at the Social Sciences College of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, from where he graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1998 with a B.A. in the field of economics

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Sergio Marxuach, Policy Director and General Counsel

Sergio M. Marxuach is the Director for Policy Development at the Center for the New Economy. Prior to joining the Center, Mr. Marxuach served as Deputy Secretary of Commerce and Economic Development for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, under the direction of Milton Segarra. Previous to his service as Deputy Secretary, Mr. Marxuach worked as Special Assistant to Ms. Melba Acosta, former executive director of the Commonwealth’s Office of Management and Budget.

Before joining the Commonwealth government, he was an associate for five years in the New York City law firm of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP, where he worked mostly in Latin American and international corporate matters, structuring cross-border capital market transactions, and arranging vendor financing and syndicated credit facilities for U.S. multinational firms.

Mr. Marxuach has a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Yale University, where he was awarded the Henry Edwards Ellsworth Prize for his Senior Essay. He also has a Juris Doctor degree from the Georgetown University Law Center and a Master of Science in Foreign Service from the Graduate School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

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