Ricardo Benjamín Salinas Pliego (RBS) is a business leader focused on fostering the value of business and doing business dynamically and efficiently. As a public figure, he has concentrated his efforts on the need to modernize Mexican business practices, and as Chairman and controlling stockholder of some of his country’s most important companies, his guidance has been fundamental for promoting free trade, government deregulation and foreign investment, as well as in improving the quality of management and information technologies in Mexican companies. For all of these reasons, some of the world’s most important business associations have recognized his role as a visionary, innovative leader.

According to the Brazilian business magazine Experience, “Despite having a graduate degree, being a voracious reader, and having given lectures to the demanding students at Harvard Business School, he does not believe in diplomas or in books as the best way to educate and evaluate personal capabilities. He is severely critical of traditional teaching methods for taking up too much of people’s time with sterile knowledge and stifling their entrepreneurial potential. He believes more in the university of life.” But let there be no doubt about it: education is very important to Ricardo Salinas.

He has lectured at the World Economic Forum, at the Young President’s Organization, the Economist Roundtable on Mexico, the Institute of the Americas and the Harvard Business School, frequently dealing with current issues like globalization, micro-financing and the benefits of technological change for society.

Ricardo Salinas has enormous confidence in the opportunities resulting from democratic change and believes firmly in the benefits of an open Mexican economy. That is why he seeks value in high-growth industries, creating wealth for his employees, partners and stockholders, at the same time that he raises high the standard of the cultural values of his country and his community.

Ricardo Salinas is an active promoter of social change and the dissemination of culture through the different organizations he heads: Fundación Azteca, Fundación Azteca America, Asociación del Empresario Azteca (Azteca Businessmen’s Association) and Fomento Cultural Grupo Salinas (Grupo Salinas’ Cultural Initiative).

As an active promoter of culture and the arts, today, Salinas Pliego supports several contemporary Mexican artists. While his interests are global, as a Mexican citizen he is proud of his heritage, and his heart is at home with his children and family.