The Aston Group Founder and Chairman Manuel Barreiro Castañeda
An experienced and highly educated real estate and private equity investment professional, Manuel Barreiro Castañeda seeks to make a positive impact on the planet by pursuing environmentally friendly projects, starting in his home country of Mexico. He believes that sustainable real estate projects can improve quality of life, increase profitability in the long term, and yield benefits for governments, investors, and citizens alike.
Manuel Barreiro Castañeda began pursuing his career interests by enrolling at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico in 1992. While enrolled at the school, he completed academic exchanges at Kyushu Kyoritsu University in Kyushu, Japan, and Universidad El Salvador in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Manuel Barreiro Castañeda earned a bachelor's degree in international business in 1998 and later earned an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business and an Executive master's of science in cities from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences. He recently completed the Oxford Real Estate Programme at University of Oxford.
Manuel Barreiro Castañeda began his career at Hines Real Estate Investors. He spent 10 years with the firm, during which time he worked in marketing, project management, and financing. He served as its director before launching Advanced Real Estate (ARE) in 2008 and Aston Capital Partners.
Through 10 years as partner at ARE, Manuel Barreiro Castañeda worked with a diverse group of international investors to grow the Mexico-based business from $10,000 to more than $1 billion in value.
Today, he serves as partner and chairman of the Aston Group, a private equity firm he founded that has now invested more than $1 billion in real estate and development projects as well as different private equity placements across Mexico, the rest of North America, and Europe. Aston Group has a solid diversified portfolio in private equity, financial services, real estate, natural resources, infrastructure, connectivity, food & beverage, technology, education, and health.
In addition to his investment endeavors in real estate, he has held several executive and board positions with professional membership groups. He was president of the Energy Group for the Asociación Mexicana de Parques Industriales Privados from 2016-17 and has held board positions with Coparmex and several businesses in which Aston Private Equity has invested.
Manuel Barreiro Castañeda is also a member of The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for information and communications technologies. He serves as vice chairman of the ITU’s Working Group 8 on the Metaverse – Sustainability, Accessibility, & Inclusion, which is dedicated to addressing social and environmental matters related to the metaverse.
Passionate about giving back, he supports the The Aston Barreiro-Ugalde Foundation, which provides support and resources to Mexican students.
