Santiago Polo

Santiago Polo is a Managing Director at ACON Investments, a Washington, D.C.–based international private equity firm that manages funds making control and growth investments across the United States and Latin America. Polo sits within ACON's Latin America investment team and is based in Colombia. He began consulting for ACON in 2014 and has since become one of the firm's senior Latin America dealmakers.

Before ACON, Polo was a Senior Associate at Altra Investments, a private equity firm focused on middle-market investing in the Andean region. While at Altra he participated in the acquisition of a leading port and logistics service provider in Colombia and helped monitor a multinational business process outsourcing company on the firm's behalf. Earlier in his career he worked in the Corporate Finance Group of the main telecommunications firm in Bogotá and as an Investment Analyst in the private equity unit of Corficolombiana, a leading Colombian merchant bank with assets in excess of $3.0 billion.

Polo has served on the boards of multiple companies across infrastructure, manufacturing, hospitality, and business process outsourcing. He currently sits on the Boards of Directors of ACON portfolio companies Amfora Packaging, Grupo Biosidus, Rymel, and Salesland, and previously served on the board of Vitalis, a former ACON portfolio company that the firm sold in 2025.

He holds a B.S. in Finance from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, and an International M.B.A. with Honors from IE Business School in Madrid, Spain.

• Invests through ACON's Latin America Opportunities Funds (e.g., Fund V), making control or significant-stake buyout/growth investments in established, cash-generative middle-market companies — this is institutional private equity, not seed/angel investing.
• Sector emphasis mirrors his board seats and deal history: industrial manufacturing (electrical equipment, packaging), pharmaceuticals/healthcare, infrastructure & logistics, and business services/BPO.
• Geographic emphasis on the Andean region and Colombia, leveraging deep local relationships in Bogotá and Medellín; ACON frequently partners with founding families who retain meaningful ownership (as with Rymel's Cardona family).
• Comfortable structuring deals alongside development finance institutions — the Rymel transaction included co-investment from DEG, FMO, and Proparco.
• Typically backs companies with regional/export growth potential (e.g., Rymel exports to 18+ Latin American countries and was entering the U.S. market at acquisition).