| Marcos Galperin | |
| Birth Name: | Marcos Eduardo Galperin |
| Birth Date: | 31 October 1971 |
| Birth Place: | Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| Occupation: | Businessman |
| Chairman, President and CEO of Mercado Libre | |
| Known For: | Co-founder of Mercado Libre |
Marcos Eduardo Galperin (born 31 October 1971) is an Argentine billionaire businessman, who is best known as the co-founder, Chairman, President and CEO of Mercado Libre. With an estimated net worth of $6.8 billion dollars, as of July 2024, he is the wealthiest person in Argentina.[1]
Marcos Eduardo Galperin was born on 31 October 1971 in Buenos Aires to a wealthy family of Jewish descent.[2] His family owned of SADESA, one of the largest leather companies in the world. He attended Saint Andrew's Scots School in Olivos. While in school, Galperin excelled at rugby. He played on tour in New Zealand and Australia before deciding to study finance at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.[3] There, he became friends with José Estenssoro, YPF president's son. In 1994, he joined this company when he finished college and returned to Argentina.
In 1997, he returned to the United States and he enrolled at Stanford Graduate School of Business and in 1999 he earned his MBA.
Galperin co-founded Mercado Libre while still in business school at Stanford University. Finance professor Jack McDonald had been helping Galperin to contact potential investors and asked John Muse, an invited speaker and co-founder of Hicks Muse, if Galperin could drive him to his private plane. Before boarding his plane, Muse expressed his desire to have his fund invest in the idea and soon thereafter the company started. Mercado Libre received funding from JPMorgan Partners, Flatiron Partners, Hicks Muse Tate and Furst, Goldman Sachs, GE Capital and Banco Santander Central Hispano. In September 2001 eBay acquired 19.5% of Mercado Libre in exchange for eBay's recently acquired Brazilian subsidiary of Ibazar.com.br. In this transaction, Mercado Libre also became eBay's exclusive partner for the Latin American region.
Galperin is considered one of Argentina's internet entrepreneurs. As result of this he received a Konex Award in 2008 and a Platinum Konex Award in 2018 as the most important businessmen of the last decade in Argentina.[4] In 1999, Galperin was selected as an Endeavor Entrepreneur and currently serves its Argentina's Board of Directors. Endeavor is a global non-profit that selects and supports entrepreneurs in emerging markets. Additionally, he serves on the board of directors at Onapsis, in business application security, and is also an investor at COR,[5] a project management tool that predicts and tracks profitability in real time.[6] [7] [8]
In addition to his duties at Mercado Libre, Galperin also sat on the board of directors of Globant until 2020.[9] In 2020, he decided to move to Uruguay because of a friendlier business environment in that country.[10] Many other Argentine businessmen have followed his steps.[10]