Manuel Barreiro Castañeda

In his role as partner and chairman of the Aston Group in Mexico, Manuel Barreiro Castañeda draws upon 25 years of experience to oversee real estate and development investment opportunities in Mexico, Europe, and North America. He founded the firm in 2007 and has since invested more than $1 billion while leading Aston Group subsidiaries Aspen Living, Akua Retail Properties, Auren Offices and Resorts, and Abac Logistics. In his work, he prioritizes sustainable real estate projects that make cities more inclusive, safe, and resilient. He sees real estate as a means to achieve common goals, improve quality of life, and benefit citizens, governments, and private investors.   

Previously, Manuel Barreiro Castañeda served as partner and founder at Advance Real Estate (ARE) from 2008 to 2018. With ARE, he oversaw the acquisition, operation, and leasing of industrial properties in Mexico with support from a diverse team of international institutional investors. Through 10 years with the industrial and logistics real estate start-up, he grew its revenue from $10,000 to more than $1 billion. Manuel Barreiro Castañeda began his career in 1997 at Hines Real Estate Investors and rose from the position of assistant project manager to partner within a 10-year period.  

Manuel Barreiro Castañeda served as a former president of the Asociación Mexicana de Parques Industriales Privados’ Energy Group. He held this position from 2016-17 and oversaw negotiations with the Mexican Congress to secure more agreeable terms and conditions for energy supply in various industrial sectors. He is also a former board member of the companies La Lupita Madrid, Manifesto Advertising CO, and Suin Energy Drinks, and spent four years as a consultant to the Urban Development Board for the State of Querétaro in Mexico.  

Currently, he is actively involved in The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations overseeing information and communications technologies. He serves as vice chair of the ITU’s Working Group 8 on the Metaverse – Sustainability, Accessibility & Inclusion, which is dedicated to environmental sustainability, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and other social considerations related to the metaverse.  

Complementing his extensive industry experience, he holds an executive master’s of science in cities from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business. Earlier, he earned his bachelor’s degree in international business at Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, where he completed academic exchange programs at higher learning institutions in Japan and Argentina. He recently completed the Oxford Real Estate Programme at University of Oxford.