• Function: Managing Director
• Company: DAABON EUROPE & UK

Manuel is a curious and strategic thinker with a passion for teaching and leadership. He loves to travel the world, understanding other cultures and making sense of world economics. Most of his career has been spent around the topics of sales, marketing, strategy, business analysis and leadership. He studied International Business Administration in Erasmus University, Rotterdam School of Management and then completed his MBA at Macquarie University, Macquarie Business School in Sydney. He’s currently living in the UK, close to Windsor with his family of three young children.
Manuel began his professional career in Amsterdam in 2012 as a marketing specialist at Tradin Organic (part of Acomo), one of the world’s leading trading companies of organic ingredients. After returning to Colombia, he joined Unilever, as part of a trainee management program in which he focused on strategic sales, marketing finance, and marketing.

He then joined his family business the Daabon Group in 2016 as a Strategy Business Analyst at their HQ in Santa Marta, Colombia. The Daabon Group is a sustainable development agro-industrial family business that grows, mills, refines, processes and exports organic and sustainable palm oil and palm kernel oil, biofuels, soaps, bananas, and coffee, and offers services in logistics, ports, financial services, and real estate.
Soon after joining Daabon, he was relocated to Tokyo to support Daabon Japan and continue his work as an Analyst for the Asia Markets. After completing his tasks in Asia, he was then sent to Daabon Australia in Melbourne, as the Financial Director, to oversee the construction of a new organic vegetable oil refinery to serve the organic infant formula industry of Australia. In 2023, after the pandemic restrictions were lifted, he took up the role as the Managing Director of Daabon UK focused on organic palm kernel expeller serving the organic dairy industry of the UK. More recently, he has been appointed Managing Director of Daabon Europe, a well-established organic palm oil sales office in Germany.
His current interests are the EUDR, traceability and sustainability, vegoil economics, carbon credit industry, biochar (black pellets), biogas, biodiesel and SAF, product development and formulation, and regenerative agriculture.