# Marcos Galperin

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 (as of July 2024), he is the wealthiest person in Argentina.

## Early and personal life

Marcos Eduardo Galperin was born on 31 October 1971 in the capital city of Buenos Aires to a wealthy family of Jewish descent. The fourth of five sons to Ernesto and Silvia Julia Galperin (née Lebach), his family owned SADESA, one of the largest leather companies in the world.
Galperin attended Saint Andrew's Scots School in the district of Olivos. While in school, Galperin excelled at rugby union. He played on tour in Australia and New Zealand before deciding to study finance at the University of Pennsylvania. There, he became friends with the son of then-president of YPF, José Estenssoro, who was killed in a plane crash through the mountains of Ecuador in 1995. Galperin joined this company when he finished college in 1994 and returned to Argentina. In 1997, he returned to the United States and enrolled at Stanford University, graduating with an MBA in 1999.
Galperin married his wife, Karina, on 11 March 2000. Together, the couple have three children: Félix, Julia y Simón. Galperin has lived in Uruguay since 2002 between Montevideo and Punta del Este. He returned to Argentina in 2015 to support the presidency of Mauricio Macri, but ultimately decided to move back to Uruguay in 2020 because of its friendlier business environment. Many other Argentine businessmen have followed his steps. Galperin is a supporter of Club Atlético Independiente.

## Career

Galperin co-founded Mercado Libre while still in business school at Stanford. 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. 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, a project management tool that predicts and tracks profitability in real time.
In addition to his duties at Mercado Libre, Galperin also sat on the board of directors of Globant until 2020.
He is one of the founders and main investors of the rugby team Miami Sharks, a rugby union team based in Miami, Florida, which was established in 2023.