The person who picks up the phone is the person who knows Panama
No account managers, no hand-off to a junior you've never met. Just Alex and a network built over 12 years of actually doing this.
An attorney who has lived Panama's business world, in one very opinionated advisor
Alex Garrido has spent 12 years in the middle of Panama's business world — as a practicing attorney, which means he's seen deals from both the legal side and the "will this actually close" side. That experience is rarer than it should be, and it's the whole reason Proper Consulting exists.
The practice is built on three things: transparency, empathy, and a refusal to sugarcoat. Panama rewards people who get good information early — and punishes the ones who don't. Alex's job is to make sure you're in the first group.
The mission is simple: help clients make informed, secure and well-sequenced decisions in Panama — without ever needing to set foot in the country until they're ready to.
The paperwork, if you're into it
LL.M. in Business Law
Boston University · 2009
Advanced Negotiation and Deal Implementation
Harvard Negotiation Institute · 2009
Master's in Entrepreneurship
University of Arkansas · 2010
Founders Institute
Alumni · 2016
Present · Proper Consulting, Founder
Country advisory for Panama: guides, roadmaps and a curated network of professionals.
2010–2024 · Garrido y Garrido, Partner
Partner and head of a family business office: legal, marketing and day-to-day business development with partners and developers.
2021–2022 · eXp Realty
Transactions, then Onboarding Specialist: legal and compliance support for a team, and mentoring new colleagues.
2018–2020 · Playa Nómada
Consultant and Conceptualizer: co-created the concept for a beach development and ran marketing funnels and inbound calls.
2017–2018 · Keller Williams
Co-created marketing strategy with the Head of Costa del Este operations.
Earlier · Selina and Íntimo Restaurante
Head of Tours at Selina (2016), opening and running the department in Panama and Costa Rica; partner and legal officer at a restaurant.
A country advisory
Proper Consulting is a country advisory. We give advice, guides, strategy and roadmaps, and we go through the numbers with you. We are not financial advisors: we don't invest for you or hold your money.
What we do have is a curated network: immigration specialists, lawyers by area, brokers, builders and trades we would recommend to our own family. When your plan needs a regulated professional, we connect you with the right one and keep the roadmap in order.
Honesty is the whole product
Here's the model, plainly: Proper is a neutral hub, not a firm trying to sell you its own product. We listen to what you're actually trying to do — invest, relocate, build a life here — before we point you anywhere. And when we point you somewhere, it might be outside our own network entirely if that's genuinely what's best for you.
If we don't have a confident answer, we say so. We don't guess, and we don't quietly steer you toward whoever happens to pay us the most for the referral — which, in this market, is more often how things work than anyone likes to admit. That's not a shot at any one person or firm; it's just the incentive structure this industry runs on by default. Today Proper receives no payment from the professionals it refers you to. If that ever changes, we will tell you before it applies to you, and it will not change who we recommend.
The network so far — growing deliberately
We'd rather add one great partner a year than a directory of names we can't vouch for. Right now, that list looks like this:
Immigration & relocation
Visa specialists, movers and relocation partners who handle each step properly.
AI & Automation
Implementation partners for the operational side of a business or move.
Legal follow-through
Specialist lawyers by area (immigration, corporate, property, tax), people we trust with our own clients.
Builders & trades
Contractors, architects and tradespeople we would hire ourselves.
Why neutrality isn't a nice-to-have
A few years ago, Alex watched a client from Poland put her life savings into an "Ave Balboa" investment and a plot of land meant to secure her visa — sold to her by the very same people who were supposed to be advising her. That's the conflict of interest in one sentence: the person telling her what to do was also the person profiting from what she did.
The land turned out to be landlocked, without proper access. By the time anyone outside that arrangement looked at it honestly, there was no clean way to fix her situation without hurting someone else in the process — the mess was already tangled into other people's interests. It's a hard thing to witness, and it stayed with him.
That's the entire case for neutral advice, made concrete: when the person guiding you also profits from where you land, the advice stops being advice. It becomes a sales pitch wearing a nicer outfit. Proper exists so that doesn't happen to you.
Four things we won't compromise on
Uncompromising professionalism
Straight answers, real timelines, and zero disappearing acts once you've signed.
12 years in the field
Not theory. Actual deals, actual paperwork, actual mistakes we've already made so you don't have to.
A network that actually answers
Lawyers, immigration specialists, brokers, accountants and builders we've vetted ourselves — not a directory listing.
Partnerships built on trust
We recommend people because they're good, not because they pay us to be recommended.
Want to talk to Alex directly?
Book a Clarity Session — you'll be talking to the person who actually does the work.
Book the Clarity Session