Born in New York City and raised in Colombia, Santiago graduated from the Universidad de los Andes law faculty in Bogotá, Colombia and obtained a Masters in Law at Harvard. He remains active in alumni associations and fund raising.
He joined Brown and Wood (now Sidley) and then our firm where he practiced for 14 years. He took an extended sabbatical from the law to lead a group of investors that acquired a controlling stake in Millonarios, a Colombian professional soccer team, and was a member of the board for 8 years and at one time, President. He also held the U.S. franchise for the AC Milan Junior Camps, broadcast World Cup Qualifiers via closed circuit PPV and founded a video sports analysis company.
He returned to the law with R&S International Law Group in Miami, joined a client as in-house counsel for several years and headed a company that helped foreign families set up complex trust structures in the U.S. He returned to our firm in 2022.
Santiago has experience in a broad range of corporate transactions, including the acquisition and sales of companies, structuring family businesses and succession planning, and generally assisting companies as a virtual in-house counsel.
He has a reforestation project in Tumaco, Colombia, where he has planted over 14,000 trees of which over 2,000 are of 10 rare and endangered species. With his family he founded Solidaridad Rural, a Colombian non-profit that helps the rural poor acquire lots in organized communities.
Santiago is married, has three children under the age of 25, a dog and three cats. They live in Weston, Florida.
Santiago is fluent in English and Spanish.