Fernando Botero Zea

Fernando Botero Zea (Mexico City, Mexico, August 23, 1956) is a businessman and liberal politician of dual Colombia and Mexican nationalities, mainly known for having served as Minister of National Defense of Colombia and also for being an important businessman based in Mexico City. He is the son of Colombian painter and sculptor Fernando Botero and cultural promoter and icon Gloria Zea.
Born in Mexico City, Fernando Botero Zea is the first son of artist Fernando Botero and the cultural promoter and director for 46 years of the Museum of Modern Art of Bogotá Gloria Zea, who also served as Minister of Culture of Colombia from 1974 to 1982.
Fernando Botero Zea's parents divorced in 1960, just five years after their marriage. Botero Zea has a sister named Lina, who is an art curator and interior designer, and a brother named Juan Carlos, who is a writer.
Botero Zea's childhood was influenced by his stepfather, Andrés Uribe Campuzano, who was married to his mother Gloría Zea. Andrés Uribe Campuzano was a Colombian businessman, creator of the Juan Valdez Café brand and shareholder of some companies in Colombia.
When Botero was just four years old, his family moved to New York, taking advantage of the fact that his maternal grandfather, German Zea Hernandez, had been appointed Colombia's Ambassador to the United Nations.
In New York, from 1960 to 1967, Botero studied at the Trent School and then at Trinity School. From 1967 to 1969, Botero boarded at the Fessenden School in Boston, Massachusetts. At that school, he was elected president of his class, awakening his early interest in politics.
In 1973, Botero's mother Gloria Zea and her then husband Andrés Uribe Campuzano were kidnapped. The couple was released after paying ransom and being held in captivity for several weeks. But due to the risk of the kidnapping of other members of the family, they decided to leave the country.
Faced with this new and unexpected family and security situation, Botero Zea entered the Ecole Nouvelle de la Suisse Romande in 1973, where he graduated in 1974 with an International Baccalaureate.
At the university stage Fernando Botero Zea began his process of academic formation. He first studied in Paris, France. There he obtained, in 1975, a Certificat d'Études Politiques (Certificate of Political Studies) at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris. Returning to Colombia in 1975, he graduated from the Universidad de los Andes (Colombia) with a degree in Economics and Political Science in 1980.
In 1980, he began a joint program between the Business School and the School of Government at Harvard University. There he earned two master's degrees: Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School and Master of Public Finance from the John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1983.
Years later - and after his time in Colombia's politics - he returned to his passion for study. Thus, it was that in 1999 he completed a master's degree in journalism from City University London. Botero's thesis was entitled "The Colombian Community in the UK: Myths and Realities". In his thesis, Botero Zea documents the particularity that nearly 80% of Colombian migrants living in the UK come from the municipality of Sevilla, Valle del Cauca and the surrounding municipalities in that corner of southwestern Colombia, working in their country of destination in legal jobs.
In 2016, he completed a master's degree in the Science of Happiness at the Universidad Tec Milenio, part of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education.
When Botero Zea was 17 years old, he was involved in an automobile accident on the road from Seville to Madrid in southern Spain. In this accident, his younger brother Pedro Botero Zambrano was tragically killed. The Botero family was on Easter vacation in 1973, when the accident happened. In the car were Master Fernando Botero, his then wife Cecilia Zambrano, his sister Lina and his brother Pedro, as well as Botero Zea himself. In this automobile accident not only Pedro Botero lost his life, but also Master Botero himself was seriously injured in both hands.
In 1984, he returned to Colombia to become president of Compañía de Servicios Bursátiles S.A., one of the brokerage firms that made part of the Bogotá stock exchange. During his tenure, from 1984 to 1988, the company moved from 17th place among the different companies on the Bogotá Stock Exchange to third place.
Simultaneous to his work at the Bogota Stock Exchange, Botero Zea developed a side business as a consultant on time management and productivity for large companies and multinationals in Colombia. In 1986, he published a cassette with the title "Efficient Time Management", which was produced in a large quantity of copies, destined to national and multinational companies, and also to be distributed through libraries in Colombia.
In 1979, Botero Zea occupied the first position in his life as Coordinator of Local Mayors of Bogota, part to the Department of Government of the Bogotá City Hall. The Secretary of Government at the time was Luis Guillermo Sorzano and the Mayor of Bogota, Hernando Durán Dussán. Botero's responsibility was to coordinate the 20 Local Mayors that existed in the capital.
Botero was head of that office for a year, until he made the decision to enter electoral politics, seeking a seat in the Assembly of Cundinamarca Department in the 1980 elections. In that attempt, he was defeated and suffered his first electoral setback.
In 1986, Botero Zea ran for the position of Councilman of Bogotá. Botero Zea was elected but did not serve on the Bogotá City Council because a few days after his election he was appointed Deputy Minister of Government by President Virgilio Barco Vargas.
Botero was appointed Deputy Minister of Government by President Virgilio Barco on August 7, 1986. The Minister of Government at the time was Fernando Cepeda Ulloa. At the head of his post, Botero Zea developed four main functions:
First, to serve as a connection between civilian and military power. In this capacity, Botero Zea was part of the Colombian National Security Council and served as a permanent connection between the Presidency of the Republic and the Ministry of Government, on the one hand, and the Colombian Armed Forces and the National Police, on the other.
A second function was to serve as the coordinator of the government's legislative program with a broad presence in the National Congress. Many of the Barco administration's bills passed through the office of the Deputy Minister of Government, defining the lobbying strategy and the management of Congress.
Third, to coordinate the Barco administration's work on administrative decentralization. Botero was in charge of drafting the presidential decrees, bills and ministerial resolutions in the years 1986 to 1988 that led to successive reforms of the Colombian state, aimed at achieving greater administrative decentralization.
A fourth function of Botero in the Ministry of Government was the development of the government-opposition political framework, devised by Minister Cepeda Ulloa, and partly carried out by Botero Zea and his team. In this context, he was in charge of multiple functions related to this framework at the level of the Congress, the Governors and the Mayors of the main cities of the country.
When Cepeda Ulloa resigned as Minister of Government in 1987, Botero Zea continued as Deputy Minister of the new Minister César Gaviria Trujillo, who was elected President of the Republic in 1990.
In 1988, Botero resigned from his position as Deputy Minister of Government to run for election as Councilman of Bogotá, which he achieved in 1988 with a large vote.
In 1989, Fernando Botero ran as a candidate for Mayor of Bogotá for the Liberal Party. He participated in a competition campaign with Juan Martín Caicedo Ferrer, who was the eventual winner of the race and later Mayor of the Colombian capital. At the November 1989 Liberal convention that chose the candidate, Botero won 42.3% of the delegates' votes running against Caicedo Ferrer.
In 1991 Botero Zea was appointed Secretary General of the Liberal Party, under the leadership of former President Alfonso López Michelsen.
During his administration, an important reform of the Liberal Party statutes took place, to make the party more democratic, more modern, more decentralized and more in tune with the party's social sectors.
Botero's administration coincided with the development of the National Constituent Assembly of 1991 and the promulgation of the new Political Constitution of Colombia in the same year. During the deliberations of the Constituent Assembly, Botero Zea presented on several occasions the official position of the Colombian Liberal Party on key issues such as the presidential run-off, political and administrative decentralization, the royalties regime, the national constituency of the Senate and other issues of fundamental importance.
He was elected Senator of the Republic on two occasions. First, in the 1990 elections; and then again in 1991 after Congress was revoked by the National Constituent Assembly.
In the Senate of the Republic, Botero occupied a place in the Seventh Commission of the Senate. He was President of the committee on several occasions.
In addition, he was rapporteur of the 1990 Labor Reform along with Senator Álvaro Uribe Vélez and the 1990 Pension Reform again with Uribe Vélez and other members of the committee.
These two reforms, the labor reform and the pension reform, were the bases of the social transformations of the government of César Gaviria. In particular, the pension reform gave rise to the birth of the private pension system that exists in Colombia today.
Botero Zea also played a role in the life of the Senate as the speaker and promoter of the debate against the government of President Gaviria, when notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar escaped in 1992. Those debates showed the life of luxury that Pablo Escobar had in his prison, called La Catedral and the deception that had occurred to the Colombian and international public opinion with his submission to justice. An important consequence of the debate was the resignation of the Minister of Justice at the time, Fernando Carrillo Flórez.
Fernando Botero Zea was appointed Minister of Defense on August 7, 1994. His time at the Ministry is remembered for some important reforms of the institution.
The first was the creation of the Army Aviation in the format of the most modern armies of the world, including the United States, France, the United Kingdom and Israel. It is an air brigade, consisting mainly of troop transport helicopters, designed for rapid deployment of offensive and defensive armed forces. With this reform of Colombia's military structures, the Army's traditional dependence on the Air Force ended.
In the new organization, the Army acquired a tool of importance for the rapid movement of troops and the use of airspace as a method of attacking enemy forces, mainly guerrillas and drug cartels. The Air Force was left with its traditional role of defending Colombia's national sovereignty.
Second, it developed an active program of respect and promotion of human rights within the Army and the National Police. One of the major advances in this area was the appointment of a human rights adviser to the Minister of Defense, a position first filled by Pilar Gaitán, a well-known human rights activist in Colombia. As a consequence of this reform, it was established that in each military battalion there would be a high-ranking officer with responsibility for the defense and protection of human rights, as well as the training of the officer corps and troops for these purposes. In addition, during Botero Zea's tenure, the military criminal justice system was reformed to take into account the guidelines and standards for the defense of human rights in Colombia.
Third, Botero Zea modernized and streamlined the contracting and supply process within the military forces to improve the logistical support of the troops.
Finally, he reformed Military and Police intelligence to integrate these intelligence sources and make it more operational and efficient for the different branches of the armed forces.
On the military and strategic front, Botero Zea used both the National Police and the Army in his pursuit of the Cali Cartel. During Botero Zea's tenure, the Cali Cartel's top leaders were all killed or imprisoned, including brothers Gilberto and Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela, Phanor Arizabaleta, Helmer "Pacho" Herrera, and José Santa Cruz Londoño.
On the other hand, Botero Zea developed an aggressive campaign against the guerrillas, especially the fronts of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that operated in Magdalena Medio and the departments of Bolívar, Cesar, Córdoba, eastern Antioquia, Urabá, Valle del Cauca, Cauca, Nariño, Putumayo, Huila and Caquetá.
Shortly after Ernesto Samper's 1994 presidential victory, Samper's opponent and future successor, Andres Pastrana, accused Samper of having received campaign donations from the Cali Cartel in the amount of US$6 million.
Colombian Attorney General Alfonso Valdivieso Sarmiento personally led the investigation. Valdivieso is a cousin of the late Luis Carlos Galán, a charismatic presidential candidate assassinated in 1989 by the Medellín Cartel for his political views. Galán favored the extradition of drug traffickers to the United States for prosecution.
Valdivieso's investigation revealed connections between the Cali cartel and major figures in Colombian society, including politicians, journalists, athletes, and military and police officers, among others.
As a result, numerous politicians and senior members of the government were indicted. Botero was arrested in connection with this investigation and accused of having facilitated the entry of illegal money into the presidential campaign. He was sentenced to 30 months' detention at the Escuela de Caballería, a military base located in northern Bogotá. Upon completion of his sentence, Botero Zea was released on February 12, 1998.
In 1999, another case was opened against Botero for the alleged embezzlement of more than 800 million Colombian pesos destined for the same 1994 presidential campaign. The accusation was brought by the then Attorney General Alfonso Gómez Méndez, appointed by President Samper, who was a political enemy of Botero by that time.
In 2002, Judge 37 of the Colombian capital assessed the prosecution's accusation, conducted an exhaustive investigation of Botero Zea's bank accounts and financial movements, and finally declared him innocent of the crimes of which he was accused. A few weeks later, in 2003, the Bogotá Superior Court, subject to political pressure from Samper and his allies, overturned the sentence of Bogotá's 37th Criminal Court.
In January 2007, the Supreme Court of Justice reaffirmed the ruling by the Superior Court of Bogota.
In a televised interview for Canal RCN on Tuesday, February 13, 2007, Botero presented proof of his innocence, including the deed to a property that Botero's family had sold at the time of the events, and denounced the political persecution that was allegedly the cause of the adverse rulings of justice and offered previously unknown details.
In 2009, due to the accumulation of sentences decreed by the Superior Court of Bogotá in the last instance, Botero Zea obtained the benefit of freedom and the end of his criminal proceedings. Since then, he has dedicated his personal and professional time between Mexico and Colombia.
Botero Zea founded Grupo Editorial Estilo México in 2002. This publishing group published during its existence an important number of magazines, among them Estilo México, Be, Espacio Corporativo, Destinos, Sabores, Estilo (Los Cabos, Acapulco, Riviera Maya, San Miguel de Allende, Aeromar magazine, Danhos magazine and Peyrelongue magazine, among other titles. Grupo Editorial Estilo México also edited and published the book México desde el Aire.
In the book Conversaciones en la Cantina, Botero Zea attempts to sketch the history of the 21st century in Mexico based on the testimony of the main protagonists of Mexican political life such as Jorge Castañeda, Felipe Calderón, Vicente Fox, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, among many others; as well as the vision of leading observers and analysts of Mexican political life and history such as Héctor Aguilar Camín, Carmen Aristegui, Germán Dehesa, Denise Dresser, Carlos Loret de Mola, Andrés Oppenheimer, among others.
The book became a success, which prompted a second and then a third edition, and the inclusion of the book in the curriculum of some universities in Mexico City.
The book México desde el cielo was made by Botero Zea in collaboration with Alejandro González, Ágata Lanz and Kike Arnal. The book is centered on the best air photographs of Mexico's landscapes and its most outstanding cultural sites. The book was acquired in its first edition, by the governments of the states of Quintana Roo, Jalisco, State of Mexico, Baja California Sur, among others.
In 2014, Botero Zea picked up the cultural and artistic legacy of his family and decided to create Botero-in-China, the company in charge of organizing the first exhibition of Master Fernando Botero in China. The exhibition included his father's major work and was presented in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. The Botero- in-China exhibitions attracted more than 1.5 million visitors. By 2021, the same company had organized more than 200 educational conferences in 21 different countries worldwide.
Through the company Botero-in-China, Fernando Botero Zea has opened new frontiers for the work of his father Fernando Botero, in China as well as in other Asian countries such as Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Botero Zea also began opening spaces for his father's work in the Middle East, in countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Israel and Kuwait. He also plans to extend his father's work in the medium term to India, a promising art market in the future.
Since the death of his father (2023), the artist Fernando Botero, Fernando Botero Zea has been at the head of The Estate of Fernando Botero as Co-President. In addition, Fernando Botero Zea is a member of the Board of Directors of The Fernando Botero Foundation (in the process of legal creation) which aims to preserve and expand the artistic legacy of the Master Fernando Botero through the organization of exhibitions in multiple venues around the world, the creation of a catalogue raisonné of his work, the publication of books, academic studies on the artist's painting and sculpture and other related activities.
Botero Zea has also dedicated many years of his life to teaching. He has been a university professor in both Colombia and Mexico in the fields of Macroeconomic Policy and Finance.
His first teaching experience was in the Faculty of Business Administration at the Universidad de los Andes. In that faculty, he taught Introduction to Finance from 1984 to 1994. Since 1985, Botero Zea extended his teaching activities to the Faculty of Economics at the Universidad de los Andes. In that faculty, he taught Macroeconomic Policy from 1985 to 1994.
Between 1989 and 1994, he taught Finance and International Relations at the School of Economics of the Universidad Externado de Colombia.
When Botero Zea moved to Mexico in 1999, he looked for a way to continue his teaching. Between 1999 and 2003, he taught Macroeconomic Policy at the School of Economics at the Universidad Iberoamericana and the same at the Universidad de la Américas, both in Mexico City.
In 2001, shortly after taking up residence in Mexico, Botero Zea created Landmark Education of Mexico, focused on human potential courses. This company has also seen its expansion in Colombia since 2005.
Botero was the founder and principal architect of Landmark Education's expansion in Latin America, where it has three main epicenters: Mexico City, Bogotá in Colombia and São Paulo in Brazil.
In the framework of Landmark Education, Botero Zea has taught seminars and various courses from 2002 to 2014 on topics such as money management, human potential, relationships and business development.
Botero Zea married María Elvira Quintana in 1988. They had two sons: Fernando Botero Quintana and Felipe Botero Quintana. Botero also has a daughter, Camila Botero Llano, born from a previous relationship. In 1999, Botero married María Inés Londoño Reyes, daughter of Fernando Londoño Henao, who had 3 daughters from her previous marriage.
He has seven grandchildren: Cayetana, Pedro and Felipe Roca de Togores; Federica Peyrelongue; Antonia and Paulina Klapp, and Martina Botero.
Fernando Botero Zea lives with his wife, Maria Inés Londoño Reyes, in Mexico City and travels frequently to Colombia and other countries. He is dedicated to his businesses, mainly Botero-in-China and BodyBrite; to expanding the legacy of his father, Fernando Botero and to his activities in the fields of education, sports and hobbies.