In a move that signals more than just routine leadership change, the appointment of Mónika Infante Henríquez as General Manager of Manzanillo Gas & Power has launched a new strategic chapter for the Dominican Republic’s evolving energy sector. This hire is far from a standard administrative reshuffle: it brings a decorated, high-stakes executive to a critical project at the exact moment it shifts from years of preliminary planning to the high-pressure work of scaling large-scale energy operations.
Infante’s arrival aligns perfectly with a defining turning point in the Dominican Republic’s efforts to diversify its national energy matrix. The sprawling Manzanillo energy complex, which integrates a new natural gas import terminal and a state-of-the-art combined-cycle power plant, was developed to deliver long-term reliability and stability to the country’s national power grid. For a major infrastructure project of this scope, Infante’s unique combination of legal expertise and decades of experience delivering public-private partnership projects positions her uniquely to navigate the tangled regulatory and technical challenges that are common across the global energy industry.
A Career Built on Delivering Large-Scale Infrastructure Success
Before stepping into this new energy leadership role, Infante spent years leading Aeropuertos Dominicanos Siglo XXI, better known as AERODOM, a subsidiary of VINCI Airports. Her tenure at the helm of the Dominican airport operator was marked by a string of transformative achievements: she successfully negotiated extended infrastructure concessions, structured complex, bankable financial frameworks to fund nationwide airport modernization, and delivered upgraded public assets that drove tourism and economic growth across the country. This proven track record of managing critical public infrastructure through a model that combines public accountability with private sector efficiency is exactly what the Manzanillo Gas & Power consortium aims to replicate with the energy project.
Beyond the immediate impact on the Manzanillo complex, Infante’s appointment highlights a growing, encouraging trend across the Latin American and Caribbean region: the increasing advancement of women into top leadership roles in heavy industrial sectors that have long been male-dominated. By tapping a professional with Infante’s established reputation for results, Manzanillo Gas & Power has gained a leader with a proven ability to build alignment and consensus across a diverse range of stakeholders, from government regulators to private investors and local community groups. Her management approach, which centers on radical transparency and continuous process optimization, is widely expected to establish a new benchmark for corporate governance across the Dominican energy sector.
The strategic value of this appointment stems from Infante’s proven ability to deliver projects on strict technical timelines without sacrificing fiscal responsibility or operational integrity. Her deep mastery of large-scale logistics and complex contract management gives the Manzanillo consortium an immediate competitive advantage as it moves into operations. The end goal of the project is clear: to turn the Manzanillo complex into a regional benchmark for responsible energy infrastructure development that will drive inclusive economic growth across the entire northwestern region of the Dominican Republic.
Ultimately, placing a seasoned, results-driven executive at the head of such a critical national energy hub reflects the growing institutional maturity of the Dominican Republic’s energy sector. As Manzanillo Gas & Power enters its full operational phase, market analysts and industry stakeholders broadly view Infante’s leadership as a strong guarantee of long-term project stability. Her career track record makes clear that the Manzanillo complex will benefit from the same analytical precision, uncompromising professional rigor and commitment to delivery that have defined Infante’s decades-long career in infrastructure leadership.