Gustavo Cisneros

Early life and education

Cisneros is the son of Diego Cisneros and Albertina Cisneros (née Rendíles Martínez).

Cisneros's father, Diego Cisneros, was in business in Caracas from 1929 and received the Pepsi concession for Venezuela in 1940, before going on to gain the concession for private TV channel Venevisión in 1961. The Cisneros family was the first-wealthiest in South America on the 2006 Forbes ranking.

Cisneros graduated from Suffield Academy in Connecticut in 1963. He graduated from Babson College in Massachusetts in 1968.

Grupo Cisneros

Grupo Cisneros is one of the largest privately held media entertainment organizations in the world. The company has been headquartered in Coral Gables, Florida, since 2000.

Cisneros became President of Grupo Cisneros when he was 25 years old.

Cisneros’ wealth comes from his holdings in media, entertainment, telecommunications and consumer products companies. Grupo Cisneros is one of the largest privately held Spanish-language media and entertainment companies. Until the buyout of Univision, the United States’ leading Spanish-language television network, Cisneros was one of the biggest shareholders of the Company. He also owns Venevision International, which produces and distributes media and entertainment products throughout the world, and Venevisión, a Venezuelan television network. Since 1980 the Group has owned the Miss Venezuela contest and since 2001 also the Leones del Caracas baseball team.

Long an advocate of free enterprise Cisneros has for many years been expanding his operations outside of Venezuela and into overseas markets, including the U.S., Spain and more recently China.

One of his major accomplishments has been a major role in the international development of telenovelas – emotion-packed melodramas based on the harsh realities of life in Latin America that are now broadcast to about 2 billion people around the world.

In August 2013, Gustavo Cisneros appointed his daughter Adriana Cisneros de Griffin as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Cisneros.

Cisneros has been developing Tropicalia, a multibillion-dollar resort in Miches, near Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Its opening is scheduled for 2019.

In the past, he has been listed among the world’s richest men according to Forbes magazine, which estimated his fortune at US$1.38 billion in 2017.

Politics

Although Cisneros and Hugo Chávez were originally friends and Cisneros contributed to Chávez's first presidential campaigns, Cisernos has been accused of involvement in the 2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt against Chávez after their relationship became strained because of Chávez's confrontation of the media.

Cisneros has been questioned about his relationship with Chávez.

Philanthropy

Cisneros supports two philanthropic entities: Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros and Fundación Cisneros.

Fundación Cisneros runs a wide range of educational and cultural programs aimed at improving the lives of Latin Americans. These include the AME program for professional development of Latin American educators, visual arts education and awareness based on the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros; PPV, a visual thinking curriculum for Latin American school children, and traveling art exhibits showcasing the talents of Latin American artists for North America and European audiences.

Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros is a privately held Latin American art organization based in Venezuela and New York City. Patricia and Gustavo Cisneros began collecting Latin American abstraction after their marriage, in 1970. Over the years, it has grown to more than 2,000 pieces, including about 200 Spanish colonial objects. In addition, the couple have amassed a vast holding of ethnographic material from the Amazon. Based in New York and Caracas, the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros today also includes works by Uruguay’s Joaquin Torres-Garcia, Brazil’s Lygia Clark and Venezuelan modern masters Jesus Soto, Alejandro Otero, and Carlos Cruz-Diez. The Cisneros Foundation was moving toward building a permanent institution in Caracas in the late 1990s until Hugo Chavez was elected president. In 2007, the foundation encountered resistance from the Chavez government when lending works by Venezuelan painter Armando Reveron (1889-1954) to New York’s Museum of Modern Art for the museum’s first retrospective devoted to a single Latin American artist in 50 years.

Personal life

Cisneros has been married to his wife, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, since 1970. She has been a significant MoMA benefactor since 1992, she has been a trustee of the museum and made substantial cash contributions to the museum’s recent renovation. Her name is on one of the institution’s exhibition rooms. In addition to MoMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hammer Museum, Long Beach’s Museum of Latin American Art, and the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid also have received art loans. Phelps de Cisneros is an active member of the International Council and the Latin American Acquisitions Committee of Tate, London; she is an International Trustee of the Fundación Amigos del Museo del Prado, Madrid; belongs to the Association Centre Pompidou América Latina; the Museum Berggruen’s International Council; and the American Friends of the Fondation Beyeler, among others.

Cisneros has lived in the Dominican Republic since the 1990s

In addition to Venezuelan citizenship, Cisneros also holds United States, Spanish and Dominican citizenship.

Through his father, Diego Cisneros's paternal side, Cisneros is related to Pablo de Hita y Salazar, who was the 27º Governor of La Florida from 1674 to 1680. As a tribute to his father, Cisneros published a book about the Cisneros family tree.

Commendations

Honors

Leadership