Lorenzo Alejandro Mendoza Giménez (born 5 October 1965) is a Venezuelan

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least 1,000,000,000, one billion units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. It is a sub-category of the concept of the ultr ...

businessman, and CEO of

Empresas Polar Empresas Polar is a Venezuelan corporation that started as a brewery, founded in 1941 by Lorenzo Alejandro Mendoza Fleury, Juan Simon Mendoza, Rafael Lujan and Karl Eggers in Antímano "La Planta de Antimano", Caracas. It is the largest and b ...

, Venezuela's largest privately held company, with $7 billion in annual sales. The company was founded by his grandfather and is currently owned by his family. Mendoza has been listed as one of the top 10 people believed to rebuild Venezuela. Lorenzo Mendoza has made a fortune selling beer and basic food items including flour, condiments, tuna fish, and wine through Empresas Polar, Venezuela's largest food company that was founded by his grandfather. He is a former Member of the Boards of AES La Electricidad de Caracas, CANTV-Verizon, and BBVA Banco Provincial. He was also a Member of the Board of Grupo GEPP, Member of the Boards of

MIT Sloan The MIT Sloan School of Management (branded as MIT Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs ...

, the Latin American Board of

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...

, Group of Fifty ( G-50), the

Latin America Conservation Council Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area around Rome, Italy. Through the expansion of ...

(LACC), and the Latin American Business Council, and Member of the Boards of Trustees of

Universidad Metropolitana The Metropolitan University () (Unimet) is a Venezuelan university founded in 1970 by a group of entrepreneurs led by Eugenio Mendoza Goiticoa in the terrains donated by the businessman Pius Schlageter, father of the Venezuelan painter Eduard ...

, and

Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración The Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (''Institute of Advanced Studies in Administration'', IESA) is a private non-profit Venezuelan business school with campuses in Caracas, Maracaibo and Valencia. It was founded in 1965. It has i ...

(IESA). Ashoka Fellow and Member of the

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental organization, international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German ...

(named a Global Young leader in 2005).

Early life

Mendoza was born in Semillero, Caracas to Lorenzo Alejandro Mendoza Quintero and Leonor Giménez Pocaterra. Mendoza attended the

Hun School of Princeton The Hun School of Princeton is a private, coeducational, secondary boarding school located in Princeton in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. The school serves students from sixth through twelfth grades. The school has been accredited ...

in New Jersey, and went on to receive a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from

Fordham University Fordham University is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit research university in New York City, United States. Established in 1841, it is named after the Fordham, Bronx, Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx in which its origina ...

, and an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular a ...

in 1993 from the

MIT Sloan School of Management The MIT Sloan School of Management (branded as MIT Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree progra ...

Polar holding

Mendoza is the third generation of the family that controls

, Venezuela's largest privately held company, founded by his grandfather as a beer company in 1941. Empresas Polar is a holding that owns: Polar Brewery, Polar Foods, and Pepsi Venezuela. The brewery produces a Venezuelan popular beer called Polar, named after the

polar bear The polar bear (''Ursus maritimus'') is a large bear native to the Arctic and nearby areas. It is closely related to the brown bear, and the two species can Hybrid (biology), interbreed. The polar bear is the largest extant species of bear ...

. Polar Foods makes basic food products from corn flour and condiments to tuna fish and wine. Pepsi Venezuela fabricates different types of beverages. In 2009 Polar was affected by Venezuelan president

Hugo Chavez Hugo or HUGO may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Hugo (film), ''Hugo'' (film), a 2011 film directed by Martin Scorsese * Hugo Award, a science fiction and fantasy award named after Hugo Gernsback * Hugo (franchise), a children's media franchise ...

's land reform policies when the government took over one of the company's properties claiming the land was being underused. Along with his family, Lorenzo supports one of Venezuela's largest charities, Fundacion Polar. The focus of the nonprofit organization is children's nutrition, health, and education. As of November 2015, ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

'' estimated his net worth at US$2.7 billion. On June 8, 2018, Lorenzo Mendoza was invited to an MBA convocation in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to speak about resilience in the business world, regarding the Venezuelan crisis. The company ("

") is one of Venezuela's major employers and is seen as a symbol of resilience in a country rocked by political and economic turmoil.

Personal life

He is married to Maria Alexandra Pulido and has four children and likes to practice sports such as tennis, water skiing, snow skiing, baseball, and running.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mendoza, Lorenzo 1965 births Living people Venezuelan chief executives MIT Sloan School of Management alumni Venezuelan billionaires Businesspeople from Caracas Fordham University alumni Industrial engineers Empresas Polar Presidents of boards of companies of Venezuela Social entrepreneurs

Early life

Polar holding

Personal life

See also

References