Laurent Guinand, Ph.D.

President - GiraMondo Wine Ventures

Laurent Guinand is a French national. He comes from Lyon, not far from the Beaujolais Region. He started his career promoting the French wines in the US with Food & Wines from France, Inc. He then became a banker and worked on financing food and wine ventures in the US.

Since then, Laurent has accumulated over 12 years experience in strategy consulting for companies such as A.T. Kearney, Accenture, Altis (now part of Cap Gemini Ernst & Young) and Metis Strategy LLC in Washington, DC.

Laurent developed innovative tools derived from strategy consulting to enhance the wine tasting experience and started GiraMondo Associates LLC in 2004 after designing and presenting well over 150 wine tasting seminars for wines from France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Chile, Argentina, Australia, South Africa and of course the United States. He is currently writing a book on Wine Economics.

Laurent holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Paris XIII. He is also a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University and of the Ross School of Business from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Laurent was an adjunct professor of international business at the Flecther School of Law and Diplomacy (Tufts University) and is currently a visiting lecturer at the Fuqua MBA (Duke University) and the Bordeaux International Wine Insitute (Bordeaux, France). He is an experienced public speaker with recent presentations for the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Cooking and Entertaining Show as well as trade conferences such as Winevolution in Paris.

Laurent is a member of the Society of Wine Educators and the American Association of Wine Economists.

Associated Consultants

Rafael Marti

Rafael is a dual citizen of the US and Mexico. He worked for the ministry of finance and the ministry of trade and industrial development. Rafael has also extensive private sector experience in management consulting.

His experience in the wine industry is mostly with Latin American wines from Argentina and Chile.

Rafael holds a B.Sc. In International Relations from Universidad Iberoamericana and a Master of Law & Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He is fluent in English, French and Spanish

Nadia Dmytriw

Nadia is a native of California. Most of her work experience was acquired in the Wine Industry. She worked in winery marketing and public relations, hospitality and wine education programs for prestigious wine house such as Chateau Lynch Bages and Chateau Pichon Longueville, both located in Pauillac. Nadia has experience in international wine business development with Negociants Barriere Freres in Medoc. She also participated in numerous business development efforts for US wineries in Russia as a consultant with the Agricultural Trade Office of the US embassy in Moscow.

Nadia holds a BA in Language Studies from UC Santa Cruz. She is fluent in English, Russian and French. In addition, she holds a certificate in Viticulture, Oenology and Sensorial Analysis from the University of Victor Segalen in Bordeaux.