Franco Parisi

Biography

Parisi was born in Santiago de Chile on 25 August 1967. He studied at the Escuela Experimental Salvador Sanfuentes, and completed his secondary studies at the Instituto Nacional. He also briefly studied at Chile's Military Academy. He was later admitted to the career of Business engineering at the University of Chile, and obtained a doctorate in Finances at the University of Georgia.

Parisi served as visiting professor at the Rice University (2002–03), University of Alabama (2000), University of Georgia (1999), and Georgetown University. In Chile, he was a professor at the Faculty of Economy and Businesses of the University of Chile, where he also worked as a vice dean and interim dean in 2010 and was a member of the Group of Monetary Politics (Grupo de Política Monetaria). He candidated for dean in the aforementioned faculty, but lost the election. He also worked at the Andrés Bello National University, where he was appointed dean of the Business Faculty, and, subsequently became the dean of the Chilean Institute for Executive Development (IEDE), organization property of the Laureate International Universities. He resigned the office in July 2012.

In the 1990s, Parisi worked as government advisor in different issues. On 10 June 2010 he was appointed councilor of the Chilean Copper Commission (Cochilco) by president Sebastián Piñera. He left office on 10 June 2012.

During 2011, following a controversy with local retailer La Polar, Parisi made several appearances in Chilean radio and television and his economy phenomena explanations in colloquial terms started to become his trademark. At midyear, Parisi started a TV show called Los Parisi: el poder de la gente (The Parisis: the power of the people), a television program hosted by him and his brother Antonino Parisi. The program was initially broadcast on Vía X, and then in La Red. In March 2012, he advised the leaders of the protests in Aysén.

Presidential candidacy

He announced his presidential pre-candidacy as an independent on 30 January 2012, and called for "independent primaries" against Marco Enríquez-Ominami; however, Enríquez-Ominami declined the proposal. Although some members of the Regionalist Party of the Independents (PRI) wanted the party to support Parisi, the PRI ended up promoting their own candidate, Ricardo Israel. Members of RN requested their directive board "freedom of action" to support Parisi.

In early June 2013, Parisi announced the collection of fifty thousand signatures of people supporting his candidacy, which allowed him to register his candidacy before the Electoral Service of Chile on 7 August 2013.

Personal life

On 16 June 1996, He married Laura Lee Campbell in Clarke, Georgia, USA; the couple divorced on 5 January 2009.

Controversies

On 20 October 2013, Alianza presidential candidate Evelyn Matthei Fornet accused Parisi of owing workers of companies he legally represented 100 million pesos (approximately 200,000USD). On the next day, Matthei's campaign brigade (comando) uploaded to her official site a document containing legal documents involving Parisi, and Matthei herself reiterated the accusations against Parisi, stating that the documents demonstrated he owed up to 500 million pesos (approximately one million USD), and so Parisi was "ethically disabled to be a candidate for president." Parisi denied Matthei's accusations and announced a complaint against her before a local court.

Works