Team
Leadership
Chairman of The Real.Politik Group
Carlos Ruiz Hernandez
Carlos Ruiz Hernandez is the founder of The Real.Politik Group and leads the firm’s Geopolitics and Statecraft practice. Most recently, he served as Panama’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs (2024–2025), leading foreign policy during a period of systemic disruption and managing Panama’s seat on the United Nations Security Council.
He has negotiated with the United States, the European Union, and China at head-of-state, ministerial, and ambassadorial levels, and has advised on Panama Canal strategy, U.S.–Latin America policy, and great-power competition in the Western Hemisphere. A former ambassador and an international lawyer in private practice, he is also a non-resident Senior Fellow at CSIS and the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, D.C.
His work brings together statecraft, law, and markets to help clients turn geopolitical complexity into board-level decisions. Educated at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Chicago, and Tulane Law School, he brings legal precision, diplomatic experience, and institutional rigor to RPK Global’s client work.
Advisory Board
Our sounding board.
RPK’s Advisory Board brings together senior voices from diplomacy, defense, finance, and media to sharpen the firm’s judgment with experience, discretion, and institutional perspective.
-
Juan Cruz
Juan Cruz is a specialist in national security and a strategist in hemispheric geopolitics. He currently serves as a senior advisor at Dinámica Américas, where he advises companies and organizations, and, since 2019, has also been a nonresident senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). In this role, he contributes to work on national security issues, strategies to combat transnational organized crime, corruption, democratic backsliding as a source of regional instability, and the influence of China, Russia, and other extra-hemispheric powers in the region.
Cruz’s professional career spans more than three decades in the U.S. government. From 2017 to 2019, he served on the National Security Council as senior special assistant to the president of the United States for hemispheric affairs. In this capacity, he directed the interagency decision-making process, advised the president directly on national security and interactions with foreign leaders, and worked with governments across the region to develop shared approaches to pressing challenges. He played a central role in shaping U.S. policy toward Venezuela and Cuba and in advancing a comprehensive hemispheric strategy.
Earlier assignments included senior positions in Washington, D.C., and at U.S. embassies abroad, where he gained extensive experience in national security and intelligence to counter transnational threats. He has held posts in Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela. While in Colombia, he helped achieve historic successes against drug cartels and insurgent groups. Throughout his government service, Cruz led teams that supported, executed, and shaped U.S. foreign and national security policy.
Cruz speaks fluent Spanish and Portuguese. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, a master’s degree in international public policy from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and an executive leadership certificate from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He also studied at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
-
Stephen Donehoo
Managing Partner Emeritus, McLarty Associates
Mr. Donehoo has advised dozens of clients on issues of strategic planning, government relations, and transaction management. His expertise is in the areas of monitoring and shaping regulatory and legislative processes; litigation support, arbitration, and settlement negotiation support activities; crisis management; risk assessment; concession/bid process support; hostage release negotiations; tariff rate negotiations; public and media relations; and motion picture production support.
Mr. Donehoo is a former military intelligence officer specializing in Latin America who provided strategic policy advice on the region while serving at the White House, Office of the Secretary of Defense, the US Southern Command, and the Army Staff. He also ran the Pentagon’s Army Operations Center 24-hour Intelligence Watch where he oversaw crisis-action support teams for Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and numerous disaster relief deployments.
He is a member of the Pan American Development Foundation Board of Trustees, currently serving as president. He is also a member of the Stimson Center Latin America Program Advisory Board, Council on Foreign Relations, and Americas Society. Previously, he served on CSIS’s Bolivian, Colombian, and Venezuelan working groups. He is an on-air commentator on national security, intelligence, military, and regional issues for CNN en Español, NTN-24, UNIVISION, Telemundo, BBC en Español, Radio France International, and Voice of America. He has a BA in philosophy from Wheaton College and an MPA from the University of Oklahoma.
A native of Walton County, Georgia, Mr. Donehoo was raised in Colombia, has lived in Costa Rica, Panama, and El Salvador, and speaks fluent Spanish.
Engage
Engage with RPK Global
For confidential inquiries, strategic mandates, or partnership conversations.