Salas, Paloma

Partner and Director of Infrastructure at FOA Consulting

Paloma Salas, Economist (Tec de Monterrey), Master in Development Studies (London School of Economics, LSE), Executive Diploma in PPPs named Infrastructure in a Market Economy (Harvard Kennedy School) and Doctor in Public Policy (EGAP – ITESM), she is a partner and Director of Infrastructure at FOA Consulting. Paloma Salas has 21 years of experience focused in Transport Economics.
She has specialized in toll roads, railway, airport and maritime infrastructure projects, including some important projects in the US-Mexico border, related to international trade. Recently she was invited by the San Diego Association of Governments (Sandag) to participate in a panel of experts to review the Traffic and Revenue Study of Otay Mesa East Port Of Entry, which will be dedicated to process cargo movements under a new concept of efficiency, guaranteed by the operator, in order to foster competitiveness and economic development.
She has conducted detailed studies of the phenomenon of induced traffic on toll roads and border crossings, and has developed methodologies for traffic forecasting based on panel data econometric models. Recently, she headed a forecasting effort for half of the toll roads in the Mexican toll road network, in which she innovated new methods to address demand risk, and led to raising more than 750 million dollars in the Mexican Stock Exchange for the Mexico – Puebla Highway. She has also specialized in price elasticity analysis for toll roads.
In the area of Public Policy, she has participated in the planning of transport infrastructure and economic development planning with the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Federal Government. She is currently part of the advisory group that prepares the 1st Public Bid to select the Integral Administrator of a Special Economic Zone (ZEE) in Mexico under contract with the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB).