Gustavo Alfredo Jiménez de Cisneros Rendiles (born 1 June 1945) is a Venezuelan businessman and Chairman of Grupo 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, northwest of Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Its opening is scheduled for 2021. He has been listed among the world's richest men according to Forbes magazine, which estimated his fortune at US$1.1 billion in 2019. His wealth has decreased from its 2014 peak of US$4.4 billion. Politics Although Cisneros and Hugo Chávez were originally friends and Cisneros contributed to Chávez's first presidential campaigns, Cisernos has