In 1996, a group of Mexican entrepreneurs founded the Asociación de Empresarios Mexicanos to help Mexican professionals find success in the U.S. and assist Americans interested in doing business in Mexico.
Founded in San Antonio, the US – MX Business Association, as it’s known in English, or AEM, now has chapters all over the country. And while the founding chapter has always been active, the latest generation of young professionals, led by Victor Reyna, who was named president last fall, is breathing new life into the organization.
Last year, Mexico eclipsed China as the United States’ largest trading partner, according to data released by the Census Bureau. In 2023, the U.S. traded $798 billion with Mexico in 2023. AEM is working to boost that trade further and strengthen the economic connections between the U.S. and Mexico.
Reyna serves as vice president of international banking at Amegy Bank. which recently announced it would move its Central Texas headquarters to downtown San Antonio from the city’s North Side.
The Houston-based bank will lease roughly 40,000 square feet at 300 Convent St., formerly the Bank of America Plaza, marking an expansion of its presence in San Antonio, according to the San Antonio Express-News. The bank, which expects to complete its move in the spring of 2025, will also open a banking center on the first floor.
“Our move to downtown shows the commitment we have as a bank with our local community,” said Reyna on the most recent episode of Robert Rivard’s bigcitysmalltown podcast.
“I’m going to echo what David McGee, our CEO of Amegy Bank, mentioned. He said, ‘We’re moving to the cornerstone of the community and commerce, and this will allow us to serve San Antonio’s rapid growth.’”
Reyna, who was born in Monterrey, Nuevo León, exemplifies the close ties and cross-border porousness between San Antonio and Northern Mexico, Rivard said, asking Reyna to trace those connections in his early years.
Reyna said his family moved to San Antonio — where his father was born — when he was a teenager so they could learn English and earn dual citizenship. After a brief time here and in Laredo, the family moved back to Monterrey. But Reyna, sensing he would find more opportunity by attending an American college, moved back to San Antonio and enrolled at the University of the Incarnate Word.
Reyna and his now-wife also spent time in England while she was serving in the military, where he got his first job in banking before returning to San Antonio to launch his career.
As president of the San Antonio chapter of AEM, Reyna is working with all strands of the business ecosystem here, including Sebastián Garzón, executive director of Alamo Angels and Ileana Gonzalez, a UTSA graduate born in Guadalajara who has been working in the tech startup community here since 2016.
Gonzalez spoke to bigcitysmalltown in March about San Antonio’s tech ecosystem attracting talent from Mexico.
AEM recently visited the business ecosystem in Monterrey and is taking a business delegation to Guadalajara later this month. “There is a lot going on, and the resources are phenomenal,” said Reyna. “I feel we created a lot of momentum in Monterrey, and now we’re taking that to Guadalajara.”
Rivard described the “symbiotic relationship,” between Northern Mexico and San Antonio in automobile manufacturing, as trains with Toyota truck and SUV chassis built in Mexico arrive here to be turned into Tundras and Sequoias. Now Tesla is building a Gigafactory in Austin and Monterrey, with suppliers already starting to locate in Bexar County.
“Do you see this is becoming a kind of a corridor of advanced manufacturing of automobiles that starts down in Coahuila or Saltillo, Torreón, and up through Monterrey and into San Antonio and Austin?” he asked Reyna.
Listen to Reyna’s answer and learn why he thinks the economic and cultural activity that connects San Antonio to Mexico is poised to grow even deeper in the coming years.
