Lorenzo Mendoza

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Lorenzo Mendoza (2012)

Lorenzo Alejandro Mendoza Giménez (born October 5, 1965 in Caracas ) is a Venezuelan entrepreneur in the food industry. He is Chairman of the Board ( presidente ejecutivo ) of the group Empresas Polar , which is largely owned by his family. Forbes Magazine estimates that Mendoza and his family's net worth fell from $ 6 billion in 2007 to around $ 1.2 billion in 2016.

Origin and career

Lorenzo Mendoza comes from an entrepreneurial family. His grandfather and father of the same name were instrumental in building the Polar group. His grandfather Lorenzo Alejandro Mendoza Fleury switched the family business from soap to beer production in the 1930s and successfully established the pilsner brand Polar Beer - a play on polar bears - in Venezuela . Mendoza's father, Lorenzo Alejandro Mendoza Quintero , psychologist and psychiatrist, took over management of the company in 1969 after his older brother, who ran the company, passed away and his father retired for reasons of age. He headed the group until 1987 when he died at the age of 55. His son and designated successor Lorenzo was studying industrial engineering at Fordham University in New York . Therefore, his mother Leonor initially took over the management of the company, while Lorenzo completed his studies, gained practical experience in the financial sector and earned his MBA at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992 .

Entrepreneurial activity

Mendoza returned to Caracas and took over the chairmanship of the Empresas Polar group of companies. Under his leadership, the group entered new industries outside of the food sector , in particular the banking and petrochemical industries. Despite some investments in neighboring countries, the main focus of Grupo Polar's activities is clearly in Venezuela. In 1996, the polar group of the group took Cisneros the Pepsi license for Venezuela after they had chosen Coca-Cola. The brewery with over 50% market share in Venezuela was in 2001 the 14th largest company of its kind in the world. The group of companies includes around 40 companies with more than 17,000 employees. The company also produces the flour for the arepas , the staple food for Venezuelans, as well as beer, ice cream, pasta, rice, corn oil, wine, soft drinks as well as plastic bottles and beer cans. In 2016, his Polar brewery had to stop beer production for a few months, as barley malt could not be bought abroad due to a lack of foreign currency .

Political commitment

In contrast to other Venezuelan entrepreneurs like Gustavo Cisneros , he had not spoken out openly against President Hugo Chavez's policies for a long time . At the end of 2002 and beginning of 2003 he had his monopoly production facilities stopped when opponents of the government called for a "general strike" against the then President Hugo Chavez.

After a Grupo Polar company site in the state of Barinas , whose governor is Chávez's father Hugo de los Reyes Chávez , was confiscated for "under-use of the land" in September 2005 , Mendoza opposed the political measure and appealed to the Supreme Court. A marketing department was located on the premises, as well as corn silos that were classified by the government as vacant . The background was an industrial policy program Chavez ', in which "underproducing" companies are confiscated and handed over to the "Venezuelan people" for production. In November 2005, the Supreme Court accepted Grupo Polar's complaint and ordered the expropriation activities to be suspended until further notice.

In January 2018, the entrepreneur was asked by the Movimento Independiente Nacional de Alianzas Sociales (MINAS) to run in the 2018 presidential election in Venezuela during a demonstration to the headquarters of his Polar group .

According to an analysis of the data from the polling institute “Venebarometro”, the chances of Lorenzo Mendoza being successful for the presidency are good. In the struggle for leadership in Venezuela, however, the potential opponents from the opposition Leopoldo López (currently under house arrest), Henrique Capriles (currently banned from political activities), Julio Borges and María Corina Machado would have to clear the way and support him.

Other memberships and activities

Lorenzo Mendoza is Ashoka Fellows and Young Global Leaders . In 2011 he moderated the “Music for Social Change” section at the World Economic Forum in Davos in the panel discussion on “How can music transform communities and unite people?” In 2016, he participated in the “Regions in Transformation: Latin America” dialogue and held in 2018 there a speech on the topic: “Standing Up for Social Progress”.

Private life

Mendoza lives in Caracas, is married and has six children. His family has been running one of the country's most important charitable foundations, the Fundación Empresas Polar , since 1977 .

Web links

Commons : Lorenzo Mendoza  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/10/07billionaires_Lorenzo-Mendoza-family_PQ0H.html forbes.com The World's Billionaires # 119 Lorenzo Mendoza & family from August 3, 2007 forbes.com (accessed January 24, 2018 )
  2. ↑ https://www.forbes.com/profile/lorenzo-mendoza/ Profile Lorenzo Mendoza & family forbes.com (accessed January 24, 2018)
  3. ↑ hyperinflation and food shortages. Venezuela's great void spiegel.de from January 14, 2018 (accessed on January 17, 2018)
  4. ^ Company in Venezuela. Economic suicide in the tropics handelsblatt.com from July 19, 2016 (accessed on January 17, 2018)
  5. ^ Newspaper vum Lëtzebuerger Vollek : "Alle Macht dem Volk!" From May 2, 2016 (accessed on January 20, 2018)
  6. ↑ Venezuela: ¿quién es Lorenzo Mendoza? dw.com from October 23, 2015 (accessed January 20, 2018).
  7. ↑ NZZ, January 16, 2018, page 2
  8. ↑ Several dead in an attack on insurgents haz.de on January 15, 2018
  9. ↑ Hyperinflation and food shortages Venezuela's great Void Spiegel Online from January 14, 2018
  10. ↑ Movimiento Independiente Nacional de Alianzas Sociales invita a marchar para promover la candidatura de Lorenzo Mendoza ( Memento of the original from January 22, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , concienciaesnoticias.com, January 20, 2018 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / concienciaesnoticias.com
  11. ↑ Venezuelans Clamor for Billionaire to Save Nation From Calamity bloomberg.com from December 22, 2017 (accessed January 21, 2018)
  12. ↑ Poll gives Venezuela's Maduro clear lead ahead of 2018 presidential race miamiherald.com from December 5, 2017 (accessed January 21, 2018)
  13. ↑ Venebarometro / opinion poll December 2017 (accessed January 21, 2018)
  14. ↑ 20% apoyaría a Lorenzo Mendoza en elecciones primarias de oposición hinterlaces.com of May 21, 2017 (accessed on January 21, 2018)
  15. ↑ “The Venezuelan opposition does not want democracy or elections” - interview with Jorge Martín (part 1) InvestigAction from May 26, 2017 (accessed January 21, 2018)
  16. ↑ Stephen Gibbs: Maduro to ban Venezuelan opposition from election thetimes.co.uk of December 12, 2017 (accessed January 21, 2018)
  17. ↑ Klaus Ehringfeld: Venezuela's great void , Spiegel Online from January 14, 2018 (accessed January 21, 2018)
  18. ↑ Se derrumba dramáticamente la estructura política venezolana Datincorp, Revelaciones y análisis prospectivo del estudio de Diciembre de 2017 from December 2017 (accessed January 21, 2018)
  19. ↑ https://www.weforum.org/people/lorenzo-a-mendoza
  20. ↑ he program day-by-day of the 2011 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos (accessed on January 20, 2018)
  21. ↑ Lorenzo Mendoza , WEF Speaker 2018 Standing Up for Social Progress (accessed January 20, 2018)
personal data
SURNAME Mendoza, Lorenzo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lorenzo Alejandro Mendoza Giménez
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Venezuelan entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH October 5, 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH Caracas