Ricard Gras – Partner

Ricard has extensive experience in several functional and process improvement fields where, for 11 years, he has been applying Lean and Six Sigma methodologies in different business areas.

Prior to founding Kairos Management, Ricard had held several operational, quality and production roles at General Electric as well as Procter & Gamble, among them as European Lean and Six Sigma Director of two large GE units (GE Plastics y GE Power Controls). Here he led the deployment of the initiative throughout the units and managed a team of Master Black Belts and Black Belts in charge of different improvement projects.

Another post included From Manufacturing Logistics Director at GE Power Controls, responsible for inventory management and product delivery at all GE Power Controls plants and warehouses worldwide. Ricard also served as European Productivity Manager and Customer Fulfilment Manager.

During this period of his career the correct application of Lean and Six Sigma methodologies was always instrumental in achieving and surpassing his operational targets.

Ricard holds a M.Sc. degree in Chemical Engineering from the Institut Químic de Sarrià, and an M.Sc. degree in Industrial Engineering from Universitat Ramon Llull. He is also a GE certified Black Belt and Master Black Belt and Speaks Spanish, English, Italian and Catalan. 

Jorge Castrillo – Partner

Jorge brings with him 16 years of extensive experience in the areas of business productivity and process improvement, eBusiness, Six Sigma and finance. He served for 3 years in the General Electric Corporate Audit Department, where he led diverse teams in in-depth strategic, operational and financial reviews at many GE units in Europe, US, Latin America and Asia Pacific. While at there Jorge was involved in the deployment of Six Sigma across GE, was trained as a Black Belt, and led a number of Six Sigma projects in areas of logistics and customer service.

Jorge co-founded Kairos Europe, a sister company of Kairos Management that provides strategic consulting services in the eBusiness area. Some of its clients include global companies such as HP, Microsoft, Azertia, Terra and Lucent Technologies.

Prior to that he held different leadership roles at a number of General Electric units. Most recently he was General Manager of Exchange Services for the Retail industry at GE Global eXchange Services, with worldwide responsibilities to manage and bring to the retail market GE GXS' products and services. He had previously been European Manager for eBusiness services leading the development and commercialisation of innovative eBusiness products and services in Europe.

Jorge holds an M.Sc. degree in Telecommunication Engineering from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, in Spain and also teaches executive programs at Instituto de Empresa, Madrid's leading Business School. He speaks Spanish, English, French and Catalan.

Emilio Fernández–Martos – Partner

Emilio has a very diverse experience: as a consultant and international speaker/trainer, as a Manager of Professional Services in an eBusiness services company, as a Director of e-business for a global industrial company and as a teacher at Instituto de Empresa, Madrid's leading Business School. He is also a master Black Belt; trained as Black Belt by Motorola University and as Green Belt by General Electric.

Prior to co-founding Kairos Management Emilio had co-founded Kairos Europe, a sister company that provides strategic consulting services in the eBusiness area, and he was Director of eBusiness for GE Power Controls where he was responsible for defining and implementing the eBusiness strategy for the European division of General Electric. His group included a number of Black Belts and Master Black Belts, who combined Six Sigma and eBusiness tools to achieve significant improvements in productivity, quality and process efficiency.

Additionally, Emilio managed the European e-business Professional Services practice of GE Global eXchange Services, being responsible for the definition, implementation and operation of eBusiness solutions for multinational customers and trading communities. He started his career in France, in pre-sales, consulting, industrial marketing and eBusiness roles at Air Liquide and General Electric, always on a global scope.

Emilio holds a M.Sc. degree in Telecommunication Engineering from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, in Spain, and an MBA from Collège des Ingénieurs, in Paris, France.He speaks Spanish, English and French.

Fotios Christodoulopoulos – Senior Consultant

Fotis has joined Kairos Management in 2005 after a career in high level management positions in different branches and in various areas.

He has been actively involved in process improvement and quality initiatives over the past five years, successfully coaching multiple Six Sigma and DFSS projects in the IT, banking, informatics, manufacturing and maritime sectors in companies of international scope. As a trainer he has provided courses in numerous countries, covering several levels and divisions.

Prior to that, Fotis had been working in the manufacturing sector for over 10 years, having operational responsibilities up to the highest level – including Business Unit and Country wide responsibility for a large international group. During his career in the manufacturing sector, Fotis has supervised Lean project implementations, Six Sigma projects and ISO certifications.

He is a certified Black Belt and Master Black Belt and holds an M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Technical University (RWTH) Aachen in Germany and a Masters in Business Administration from Collège des Ingénieurs in Paris, France.

He has worked in Germany, France, Belgium, Greece and Spain and speaks Spanish, English, German, French, Dutch, Greek and Catalan.

Oscar Fernández de Retana – Senior Consultant

Oscar joined Kairos Management at the beginning of 2009. He brings over 20 years of experience operations management, engineering management, continuous improvement, eBusiness and General Management.

He worked for 8 years at General Electric Consumer & Industrial (GE C&I), GE’s Electrical Equipment division. For 5 of these years he was General Manager for low voltage devices in EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa) with overall management responsibility for a €150M business: commercial, engineering, production in 5 sites in 5 different countries and projects delivery activities. In GE C&I Oscar also served as European Lean Six Sigma Leader for purchasing, in charge of an organization located across 16 countries and responsible for the deployment of Lean Six Sigma in Sourcing and the development and implementation of new purchasing processes.

Before these years with GE C&I, Oscar was General Manager of GE Power Management, also a GE business that manufactures protection and control devices for high voltage systems and large electrical equipment. As General Manager he had profit and loss accountability and management responsibility over all the operations (sales, production and engineering) in this €12M business.

Earlier in his professional career Oscar had managed Product Engineering, Technology, Production Engineering and eBusiness departments.

Oscar is a GE certified Black Belt and Master Black Belt. He studied Industrial Engineering at the “Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales” (Technical University of Industrial Engineering) in Bilbao, and also possesses an MBA from Basque University. He speaks Spanish and English.

Cristina Enjuto – Executive Assistant

Cristina had worked as an executive assistant for more that ten years before joining Kairos Management at the beginning of 2006.

Within the multinational REPSOL she started her career as a management secretary in the logistics department. Four years later she got into the field of advertising cinema where she performed tasks of increasing responsibility, first as an assistant to the executive producers and later on as a production co-ordinator of the different departments involved in international shoots.

Currently at Kairos Management she carries out internal organizational and assistance to management duties from Barcelona’s central office.
Cristina is a graduate of Valladolid School of Humanities and she speaks Spanish, English, French and Catalan.