Our Founders
Imelda Echavarria
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Imelda is Proaji’s dedicated team leader. She studied biology at Tufts University and co-founded Proaji with Phillip. Imelda balances her pragmatism and effectiveness with a focus on team collaboration to accomplish Uchu’s goals. She has an insatiable curiosity about the world and its people reminding everyone around her to ask questions and learn more about our society and the world at large. Imelda loves reading, scuba diving and yoga.
Phillip Baker
Co-Founder and General Manager
Phillip’s journey began with studying horticulture at Murray State University and working with his family in Colombia. After meeting Imelda, he moved to Ecuador and co-founded Proaji. Since childhood, Phillip has been exposed to the history of the chili pepper, its development and markets, and has deep knowledge of the Capsicum family. He brings new ideas and projects to Uchu, while inspiring our team to build, innovate and improve both professionally and personally. To satisfy his creative mind, Phillip enjoys diving and sailing, and going on long, long, long runs.
Administrative Team
Paul Palacios
General Manager
Paul is our General Manager and accounting supervisor. Although he is young, he has a lot of experience in administrative areas, especially in manufacturing plants. He is always designing financial projects for the company. On his free time, he drives his car at full speed and goes camping.
Gabriela Rojas
Chief Accountant and HR Coordinator
Gaby is leading the accounting team and forecasting weekly payments. She is always pressing so nobody goes over budget. She also leads HR in the company and executes programs to support gender equity and diversity.
Johana Cusme
Accounting Coordinator
Joha is the most patient person in the office. She makes sure that all our smallholder farmers get fast and informative accounting information about their payments. She started working with us as an intern 4 years ago and is now in charge of filing our tax returns.
Domenica Benitez
Accounting Assistant
Dome is our youngest accounting team member. She came to us as part of the UCHU Intern Program and due to her excellent participation and numerical ability, she became a part of our full-time team. She recently finished her university studies.
Valeria Freire
Commercial and Logistic Coordinator
Vale is our logistics and shipping genius; she gives support to our clients with her positive vibes and fast response. She is constantly in the battle of getting a chilli container from one location to another.
Production Team
Andrea Zambrano
Quality Assurance Coordinator
Andrea is responsible for all quality control processes in our operation. While wearing her almost astronaut-looking outfit, she measures the physicochemical qualities of our chilis. We admire her creativity and dedication to produce high quality products and appreciate her kindness and friendliness with all workers.
Roberto Peñarreta
Production Coordinator
Roberto is committed to our production plant's activities 24/7. He is serious, responsible, and always thinking about how to process more chili. Organizing such a busy processing schedule is no easy task, but he is always on top of things.
Javier Zambrano
Chief Supervisor #1
Javi started working with us 13 years ago when he was single and inexperienced. Today, he is a family man and with 13 years of experience in the chilli-processing business, he is our plant's chief supervisor and the backbone of our operations team.
Carlos Alcivar
Chief Supervisor #2
If critical thinking were a hobby, it would be his. Carlos questions every process to ensure quality but also promote improvement. He previously worked as a plant operator and thanks to his sharp eye for analyzing and questioning our processes, he was promoted to chief supervisor.
Jerry Bermeo
Logistic and Dispatch Assistant
Jerry is one of our Generation Z hires. He is one of our youngest team members. When you need some help in the factory, you must call him. He is very collaborative and polite. One of his biggest strengths is being able to multitask. He supervises our warehouse and dispatches containers from our Ecuador plant.
Sebastian Fernandez
Maintenance and Operations Coordinator
Sebas manages machinery and structural projects, as well as general maintenance at our Ecuador processing plant. He is very knowledgeable on anything to do with industrial processing and enjoys troubleshooting pieces of equipment. His job is to make sure everything is up and running.
Alicia Suarez
Plant Coordinator
Alicia has been with us for 16 years and runs our Peru processing plant. She oversees all production and quality control processes. She is very responsible and is very in touch with her team, constantly receiving feedback, both from Peru and Ecuador. She enjoys collaborative working.
Pablo Berón
Head of Technical Sales
Pablo oversees our R&D department. His experience comes from his immense love for food (he is a chef by training). He must always visualize several scenarios to make the best decision. You can find him in the factory developing formulations to satisfy our client’s requirements.
Agriculture Team
Paul Vallejo
Agroindustrial Manager
Paúl manages our agricultural department. He is strategic, values teamwork, and is constantly providing new ideas, goals, and projects for our team. He brings people together and motivates us to work smoothly as a team that embraces confidence, unity, and creativity.
Judith Luna
Agricultural Field Coordinator
Judith leads field investigations in the R&D center. In addition, Judith is responsible for caring for our peppers´ genotype, seed propagation, and producing great quality seedlings. She is the guardian of The Seed Lab. She inspires healthy competitiveness in the team due to the high efficiency of her projects and is always willing to share her knowledge.
Nora Naranjo
Agriculture Coordinator
Nora promotes the planting and harvesting of our myriad of chili species. She works directly with smallholder farmers and promotes sustainable agricultural practices. Thanks to her patience and ability to communicate with people from all walks of life, she ensures our farmers´ success in their agricultural pursuits.
Leonardo Enriquez
Field Extension Assistant
Leo visits chili fields in Ecuador daily to provide his knowledge and techniques to our smallholder farmers to help their chili crops grow sustainably. He always puts farmers first.
Leo´s personality fills you with cheer. You will always find him full of positive energy, and a spirit of solidarity.
Juan Andrés Sunción
Agricultural Coordinator
Juan leads the Agriculture Team in Perú, attends to our farmers´ needs, and suggests good agricultural practices in their chili crops.
He is always focused on complying with harvest projections, but his most significant objective is bringing quality raw material for production in the factory.
Juan is always contagious with his good humor at the office.
Neil Montalvo
Field Extension Assistant
Neil takes care of our chili producers in Peru, constantly trains them, collaborates with the logistics of their harvests, and monitors the applications of permitted chemicals.
He has active participation in different research projects in Peruvian crops. One of his great strengths is handling the digital world and technology.
We have an amazing team in our offices, our factory, and out in the fields.
They work hard every day to bring our peppers to the world, offering a positive impact to smallholder farmers and to the planet. We couldn’t do it without each and every one of them.
