Items13The creator’s order
  1. 1Marcos GalperinMarcos GalperinBorn 31 Oct 1971Argentina, e-commerce. Galperin started MercadoLibre in 1999 and spread it across 18 Latin American countries, each with its own payment habits and inflation. The answer was to build the plumbing itself: Mercado Pago for buyers without cards, its own logistics network where postal services were…0i
  2. 2David VélezDavid VélezColombia and Brazil, banking. Vélez, a Colombian, founded Nubank in São Paulo in 2013 with a fee-free credit card managed entirely from an app, aimed at customers Brazil's concentrated banks overcharged or ignored. He then took it to Mexico and Colombia, applying for local licences and building…0i
  3. 3Lorenzo ZambranoLorenzo ZambranoBorn 27 Mar 1944Mexico, cement. Zambrano took over Cemex, his grandfather's regional cement firm in Monterrey, and from 1992 bought producers in Spain, Venezuela, the Philippines, the United States and Britain. Cemex became known for operational discipline, tracking ready-mix trucks by satellite to cut delivery…0i
  4. 4Lorenzo ServitjeLorenzo ServitjeMexico, baking. Servitje co-founded Grupo Bimbo in Mexico City in 1945 with packaged sliced bread and a fleet of delivery vans serving small corner shops. That route-delivery system became the model for expansion into Latin America and later the United States, where Bimbo bought established…0
  5. 5Horst PaulmannHorst PaulmannBorn 22 Mar 1935Chile, retail. Paulmann, born in Germany, opened the first Jumbo hypermarket in Santiago in 1976 and grew Cencosud into one of Latin America's largest retailers, entering Argentina in 1982 and later Brazil, Peru and Colombia through new stores and acquisitions. Running supermarkets, department…0i
  6. 6Antônio Luiz SeabraAntônio Luiz SeabraBrazil, cosmetics. Seabra founded Natura in São Paulo in 1969 and built it on direct selling through a large network of consultants, mostly women, plus ingredients sourced from Amazon communities. Natura took the consultant model into Argentina, Chile, Mexico and beyond, then bought foreign brands…0
  7. 7Julio Mario Santo DomingoJulio Mario Santo DomingoBorn 16 Oct 1923Colombia, brewing. Santo Domingo built Bavaria into Colombia's dominant brewer and then expanded it into Ecuador, Peru and Panama, buying local breweries rather than exporting beer. In 2005 he merged Bavaria into SABMiller in exchange for a large stake, turning a family brewing business into a…0
  8. 8Gustavo CisnerosGustavo CisnerosBorn 1 Jun 1945Venezuela, media. Cisneros took his family's Venezuelan television and retail business into Spanish-language media across the Americas, investing in Univision in the United States and launching satellite television for Latin America. Spreading the business beyond Venezuela proved prescient as the…0i
  9. 9Jorge Paulo LemannJorge Paulo LemannBorn 26 Aug 1939Brazil, brewing and consumer brands. Lemann and his partners at Banco Garantia bought the brewer Brahma in 1989, merged it with Antarctica to form AmBev, then combined with Belgium's Interbrew and in 2008 bought Anheuser-Busch, creating AB InBev. Their method, exported country by country, was…0i
  10. 10Wences CasaresWences CasaresBorn 26 Feb 1974Argentina, financial technology. Casares, raised on a sheep farm in Patagonia, founded Patagon in 1997, an online brokerage and bank that operated across Latin America and sold to Santander in 2000. He later started Banco Lemon, a low-cost bank for Brazilians without accounts, and then the bitcoin…0i