The Site Selectors Guild has announced the addition of one new full member and five associate members. The Guild, the only association of the world’s foremost professional site selection consultants, is now comprised of 66 Full members, eight Associate members, and three Emeritus members.
Guild membership is the highest standard in the corporate site selection industry. All members must be actively engaged as site selection professionals and adhere to the Code of Conduct established by the Site Selectors Guild. At least seven years of business location strategy experience is required of Full members, and three years’ experience is required of Associate members.
“On behalf of the Board and entire membership, I am honored to welcome our six newest members to the Site Selectors Guild,” said Michelle Comerford, Site Selectors Guild board chair and project director and Industrial & Supply Chain Practice leader for Biggins Lacy Shapiro & Co. “Their diverse backgrounds, from labor market analytics and incentives negotiation to international business development, reflect the global scope and evolving demands of the site selection profession.”
Matt Szuhaj, membership chair for the Guild, added, “We are proud to recognize the achievements of these seasoned consultants and look forward to the valuable insights and leadership they will bring to our association.”
New Full Member:
Yazmin Ramirez
Yazmin Ramirez holds the position of Senior Director for CBRE’s Site Selection practice in Mexico City. She specializes in formulating labor strategies and securing economic incentives for CBRE’s corporate clients throughout Latin America. Yazmin’s expertise spans all aspects of site selection projects, with a strong emphasis on talent acquisition and the negotiation of incentives at the federal, state, and local levels. Additionally, she organizes community tours across Latin America for various clients in the Labor Analytics and Location Incentives sectors. Having advised numerous projects for Fortune 500 companies, Yazmin is dedicated to mitigating risk by aligning location requirements with cost-effective talent through comprehensive qualitative due diligence. She has evaluated thousands of labor markets and incentive programs across Latin America, making her one of the region’s leading experts on labor market conditions and economic incentives for a diverse range of industries. Yazmin is fluent in Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese.
New Associate Members:
Liesel Schmader
Liesel Schmader is a Manager at Deloitte Consulting LLP with over 10 years of experience in management consulting and real estate law. Liesel has advised scores of client executives on their location strategy, real estate strategy, and global business services (GBS) decisions. Liesel’s area of expertise is in helping organizations develop and leverage location decisions to enter new markets, improve access to talent, decrease costs, and mitigate risk. This includes a mix of shared services and manufacturing site selection, field due diligence, and labor market analysis in the Americas, APAC, and EMEA. Further, Liesel has cross-industry experience, with a focus on Energy, Resources & Industrials. Finally, Liesel advises economic development agencies in developing business attraction strategies. Prior to consulting, Liesel was in corporate and real estate law, working on the full deal lifecycle, from the front end (entitlements) to the back end (contracts), including time at a Fortune 200 company. Liesel holds a Juris Doctorate and is a frequent speaker, author, and contributor on location strategy.
Nicholette Ross
As a managing site selection consultant at Global Location Strategies (GLS), Nicholette Ross advises companies on making informed location strategy decisions that drive growth and success. She also manages the firm’s Europe office and oversees international business development initiatives. Nicholette brings a unique international perspective to location strategy, having previously worked in Europe for the South Carolina Department of Commerce. At SC Commerce’s European Office, she advised companies throughout Europe on opening a facility in the US and assisted with the site identification process.
Carlos Sánchez Pavon
Carlos Sánchez joined Newmark in May 2019 and currently serves as Managing Director at Newmark Global Strategy. In this role, Carlos aids corporate clients in their location strategy, incentives negotiation, and internationalization requirements. Carlos is located in Newmark’s Mexico City office. Carlos has advised numerous clients from different geographies and industries in location strategy projects within Latin America, Europe and Africa. His focus on data analysis, normalization, and in-market due diligence has provided his clients with key insights about their optimal location. Moreover, Carlos has an extensive contact network derived from his experience as a Diplomat working for the Former Investment Promotion Agency of Mexico in London, Frankfurt and Mexico City, as well as having served in local Mexican Economic Development Organizations.
Mario Schade
Mario Schade is a seasoned consultant specializing in location strategy and operational excellence, with over two decades of experience guiding manufacturing companies through site selection and performance optimization across Central and Eastern Europe. As the founder of Factory Location Scouting, based in Budapest, Mario leads initiatives that encompass site selection, self-learning, training, coaching, consultancy, and interim management for manufacturing enterprises. His consultancy is rooted in a deep understanding of the manufacturing landscape, logistics, and lean management principles.
Ramya Gowda
Ramya Gowda is a managing director at Newmark, where she leads strategic consulting engagements focused on site selection, location strategy, and labor analytics. With a strong foundation in engineering and project management, she brings a diverse and data-driven perspective to help clients navigate complex real estate decisions. She has successfully delivered projects across a range of industry sectors, geographies, and scales—from corporate expansions to global portfolio strategies. She specializes in labor market demand/supply analysis, supply chain optimization, development of multiple-criteria decision evaluation models, financial modeling, and real-estate investment analysis. Prior to joining Newmark, she led industrial engineering initiatives at Bosch in India. Ramya is a subject matter expert for Lean, Quality Management System and Value Engineering concepts. Representative Clients include Brose, GAP, Dropbox, GRAIL, ClassPass, Thomson Reuters, Plastic Ingenuity, Deluxe Corporation, Lam Research, and BASF.
About the Site Selectors Guild
The Site Selectors Guild is the only association of the world’s foremost professional site selection consultants. Guild members provide location strategy to corporations across the globe and for every industry, sector, and function. Founded in 2010, the Site Selectors Guild is dedicated to advancing the profession of international corporate site selection by promoting integrity, objectivity, and professional development. Members are peer-nominated, vetted, and must demonstrate significant professional location advisory experience. In 2024, Guild members facilitated the committed or announced creation of approximately 111,000 jobs and $141 billion in capital investment by corporate clients, which required location analysis across 90 countries. Guild membership is the highest standard in the site selection industry. For more information, visit siteselectorsguild.com or follow Site Selectors Guild on LinkedIn.
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