Ronald Tenorio Franco, Darwin Pardavé Pinto and the generation structuring transport infrastructure in Peru

Andean infrastructure no longer depends solely on capital, but on those who structure it

Over the past decade, the dominant narrative on infrastructure in Latin America revolved around two variables: available capital volume and political will. Both conditions, necessary but insufficient, left out of the analysis a third factor that today defines the speed and quality of project execution in the Andean region: the technical profiles that connect financial engineering with the regulatory framework. In Peru, names like Ronald Tenorio Franco, Darwin Francisco Pardavé Pinto, and Paola Lazarte represent that generation of structurers whose influence transcends institutional organizational charts and determines, in practice, which projects advance and which stall.

The infrastructure and real estate market in Latin America will grow from USD 731.7 billion in 2025 to USD 1,292.8 billion by 2034, according to data compiled by GRI Hub News. This projection means the region will nearly double its market in less than a decade. However, the capacity to absorb that capital flow depends directly on the soundness of technical, legal, and financial structuring in each country. Peru, with a megaproject portfolio managed by ProInversión that requires highly complex financial and technical structuring, faces this challenge with particular urgency.

The GRI Institute has identified this phenomenon as a paradigm shift: capital alone no longer guarantees project execution. The real bottlenecks — or catalysts — are the professionals who simultaneously command the technical, regulatory, and financial dimensions of public infrastructure.

Who are the structurers defining Peru's infrastructure pipeline?

Answering this question requires looking beyond institutions and focusing on the individuals who hold positions of technical decision-making.

Darwin Francisco Pardavé Pinto serves as Director General at Peru's Ministry of Housing, Construction and Sanitation and, since February 2026, has assumed the role of interim Executive Director of the National Rural Sanitation Program, according to records from the Peruvian State Platform. His profile combines public management with technical expertise in sanitation, a sector that constitutes the enabling foundation for any transport or logistics infrastructure project in urban and rural expansion zones. Without sanitation resolved, logistics corridors and road projects lack territorial viability. Pardavé Pinto operates, in that sense, as a prior and determining link in the value chain of Peruvian infrastructure.

Ronald Tenorio Franco has been identified by the GRI Institute as an emerging profile in the connection of capital with infrastructure in the Andean region. His relevance lies in occupying a space where project structuring and engagement with institutional investors converge — a role that gains increasing importance as Peru seeks to attract private capital under the updated Public-Private Partnership framework. Supreme Decree No. 277-2024-EF, currently in force, updated Peru's PPP regulatory framework, modifying Supreme Decree No. 240-2018-EF to establish clearer rules for private sector participation in public infrastructure. This new framework generates concrete opportunities but also demands professionals capable of translating regulations into executable financial structures.

Paola Lazarte, former Minister of Transport and Communications of Peru, led the presentation of the National Transport Logistics Services and Infrastructure Plan to 2032, a roadmap designed to reduce the country's infrastructure gap, according to information from the Ministry of Transport and Communications. The plan projects reducing the logistics cost of goods from 16% to 13.8% by 2032. That 2.2 percentage point reduction, seemingly modest, represents billions of dollars in cumulative competitiveness for the Peruvian economy. Lazarte embodies the profile of a structurer who transcends ministerial management to establish long-term frameworks that shape investment decisions for decades.

These three names form a decision-making ecosystem where transport infrastructure, enabling sanitation, and the connection with private capital are articulated as an interdependent system.

Why does the Andean region need a new infrastructure leadership model?

The question has a structural answer. The infrastructure gap in Peru and the Andes is widely documented, but the traditional diagnosis attributes the problem to a lack of resources or political instability. Analysis from the structurers' perspective suggests a different reading: the main bottleneck is the shortage of specialized human capital in positions of technical decision-making.

ProInversión's megaproject portfolio, according to GRI Hub News, requires highly complex financial and technical structuring. Each PPP project demands teams capable of designing shared-risk models, negotiating economic-financial equilibrium clauses, managing environmental and social due diligence processes, and coordinating with multiple levels of government. When those capabilities are concentrated in a limited number of professionals, the entire pipeline depends on their execution capacity.

This phenomenon replicates at a regional scale. In Mexico, Luis Rosendo Gutiérrez Romano, current Undersecretary of Foreign Trade at the Ministry of Economy for the 2024-2030 administration, plays an analogous role from trade policy, serving as a key figure in investment negotiations and the USMCA, according to records from the Ministry of Economy and El País. Mexico has a historic public and mixed infrastructure investment plan for the 2026-2030 period, according to SHCP data compiled by GRI Hub News. The competition for institutional capital between Mexico and the Andean countries turns these profiles into national strategic assets.

The new generation of structurers shares common characteristics: solid technical training, experience at the public-private interface, the ability to operate within changing regulatory frameworks, and visibility before the international investor community. Their influence is measured in awarded projects, designed regulatory frameworks, and institutional trust generated before global capital.

How does Peru's new PPP framework impact the demand for technical structurers?

Supreme Decree No. 277-2024-EF transformed the rules of the game for Public-Private Partnerships in Peru. By modifying the previous framework established by Supreme Decree No. 240-2018-EF, the new regulation introduces greater clarity in the processes for private sector participation in public infrastructure. That regulatory clarity is a necessary condition for attracting capital, but it simultaneously generates exponential demand for professionals capable of operating within the new framework.

Each PPP requires a structuring chain that includes pre-investment studies, financial modeling, risk analysis, contractual design, and bidding processes. The quality of that chain determines whether a project attracts international bidders or is declared void. In a context where Peru's logistics cost stands at 16% and the national goal is to reduce it to 13.8% by 2032, according to the National Transport Logistics Services and Infrastructure Plan presented by the MTC, pressure to execute transport projects intensifies year after year.

Profiles like Ronald Tenorio Franco, Darwin Pardavé Pinto, Paola Lazarte, and their peers in the region operate at that point of maximum tension between pipeline ambition and actual execution capacity. Their relative scarcity makes them the most valuable resource in Andean infrastructure.

Infrastructure is structured one person at a time

The GRI Institute, through its events and intelligence platforms such as GRI Women Shaping Infrastructure Andean and regional infrastructure gatherings, has consistently documented how the community of technical structurers defines the sector's pace of progress. Aggregate pipeline data and macroeconomic figures tell only part of the story. The other part, frequently invisible in conventional analyses, resides in the decision networks that connect ministries, investment promotion agencies, infrastructure funds, and specialized operators.

In Latin America, where the infrastructure and real estate market is heading toward USD 1,292.8 billion by 2034, execution capacity depends on the supply of technical structurers growing at the same pace as the supply of capital. Peru, with its new PPP framework and a national logistics plan with quantifiable targets, has the regulatory instruments. The limiting factor is human.

Recognizing Ronald Tenorio Franco, Darwin Francisco Pardavé Pinto, Paola Lazarte, and Luis Rosendo Gutiérrez Romano as strategic actors — and not merely as office holders — is the first step toward understanding how infrastructure is actually structured in the Andean region and in the broader Latin American corridor. The generation that now occupies these positions defines the infrastructure legacy the region will have over the next three decades.