Juan R. García Soto

Juan R. García Soto graduated from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, with a major in Accounting. He earned above average grades while working part-time and participating in campus activities like the water polo team, the chorus and the accounting student association.    

In April 2014 he joined MEC Consulting Service Group, LLC as a Senior Financial & IT Consultant. He migrated his entire team to Office 365, OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams to computers and mobile devices. Negotiated an E3 level O365 agreement and planned and executed the due diligence process for the selection of a cloud virtual machine service to host several business software applications.  He provides project management, management consulting, analytical support and technical expertise for a broad array of financial and operational issues for the medical industry, automotive, construction and advertising industries, amongst others. Influential in developing key performance indicators, business intelligence tools and automation of processes.  Currently Vice President & IT Director for the firm, and servicing construction, advertising, logistics and manufacturing industries.

Instrumental in the development of the ERP system for Aireko Construction and group of affiliate companies.  Automating accounts payable process while utilizing to its full capacity the system’s capabilities.  Researched for construction time and attendance software to implement and interphase with the company’s ERP system.  This allowed the costing process to be complete and to a higher level of accuracy.

Implemented the cost accounting system setup at Ashford Community Presbyterian Hospital on Meditech 5.66 ERP. Managed to setup and micro-cost over 500 operating room surgical procedures on the Meditech Cost Accounting module. Also developed procedures and provided guidance for the Emergency Department billing process automation through documentation.  

Held various top management roles in various industries. Former Assistant Controller Pepsi-Cola Manufacturing International, where he was responsible for assisting the controller with the basic accounting and financial reporting functions, supervision of accounts receivable, cash receipts, payroll, fixed assets and inter-company receivables for a $3.2 billion business.  He was also responsible for the accounting of the interest and taxes for the affiliate’s loans and the treasury cash requirements to cover the disbursements needs with over $1.6 billion in transactions on a yearly basis.  On his tenure on Pepsi-Cola he also was Business Financial Analyst, where participation in the annual planning process and subsequent reforecasts was keen, as well as providing analytics/commentary in support of the monthly close process and external reporting.  

Served as Budget & Finance Director for the Department of Economic Development of Puerto Rico. He was in charge of directing, coordinating, planning and supervising all the activities of the budget and finance office; he participated in the establishment of public policy. Analyzed all budgetary, prepared the consolidated annual budgetary request for the agency, provided expertise and recommendations to the agency Administrator about the adoption of budgetary controls and establishment of policy including legal support on financial matters. 

For a 10-year period, was the Regional Finance Director PR & USVI for Kmart. In charge of coordinating the budget and business plans for the region, which generate over $600 Million in annual revenue. He utilized financial analysis and forecasting tools to develop and prepared their $156 million annual expense budget for 27 stores. 

Proficient in a wide range of applications including Microsoft Office 365; others like Meditech, Hyperion Essbase, FDM, HFM, SAP ERP, PeopleSoft Financials R/8, Business Objects, as well as Windows 7, 8 and 10.  In the edged of developing financial reporting instruments for our clients, he has developed new platforms using Microsoft BI tools to exploit dashboards capabilities for the clients we serve.  Currently being certified as a Microsoft Partner for his dominion over these analytical tools.