Emiliano Salinas Biography

An Introduction to Emiliano Salinas

• Emiliano Salinas (legally named Carlos Emiliano Salinas Occelli) is a Mexican businessman, venture capitalist and anti-violence and anti-corruption activist.
• His father is Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the former President of Mexico.
• Salinas is currently the Vice President of Prorsus Capital, a venture capital firm.
• He was born in 1976.

Education

• Salinas went to school in various countries: Mexico, France, Switzerland and the United States.
• He is fluent in English, French and Spanish.
• He received his bachelor’s degree in Economics from ITAM (Autonomous Technology Institute of Mexico).
• After undergraduate school and a little work experience, he went on to earn his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University.

Career and civic activity

• Before Salinas received his Ph.D. from Harvard, he was a financial analyst at Lazard Freres and Co. LLC, an investment bank located in New York.
• He worked mergers and acquisitions involving Telefónica de España, Anheuser-Busch InBev, and Revlon (among other mergers and acquisitions).
• In addition to his career, Salinas is the general coordinator of the Movimiento IN LAK’ ECH por la Paz, A.C. (IN LAK’ ECH Peace Movement) in Mexico, which is a “civil initiative seeking to restore peace in Mexico by strengthening its society to transform violence with compassion.”

Political ambitions

• In March 2011, Denisse Maerker of the Punto de Partida Mexican TV show asked Emiliano if he was interested in running for political office to start a political career.
• Salinas responded that he would run for office “if I considered that government is the solution to the problems we face today.”
• He also told Maerker that he is convinced that strong citizenship is a better solution to social problems than government-run programs.

How Salinas plans to achieve his goal of reducing violence and corruption in Mexico

• Aside from his professional career, Salinas acts as a powerful voice against violence and corruption in Mexico.
• He has suggested that the "culture of self-victimization" is to blame for country's current plight.
• Salinas believes that if the Mexican people acted proactively through civil resistance, they would have the power to overthrow the "regional subjugation of the large drug cartels."
• He describes solutions to these problems through four levels of response against violence: (1) denial and apathy, (2) fear, (3) courage, and (4) non-violent action.

What Salinas believes in terms of non-violent action

• Salinas believes that the people of Mexico are in denial about the state of the country, and describes this denial as the first level of response against violence.
• Although Salinas mentions rage as an important step in combating violence, he is a practitioner of non-violent resistance.
• He believes that the Mexican people should channel their rage into activism.
• Salinas references the kidnapping of Eric LeBaron to illustrate the power of Mexican civil response, and with it a challenge to the political voices that have the power to begin recognizing social problems and coming up with solutions.

Famous speeches and appearances

• In 2011, Salinas participated in the TEDxSanMigueldeAllende conference as a speaker. He discussed issues such as the current climate of violence in Mexico and how Mexican society responds to it.
• During the talk, Salinas called on regular citizens to move on from denial and fear to peaceful, community-based action.
• Emiliano Salinas' talk was the first talk posted on TED.com that was delivered in a language other than English (he gave the talk in Spanish and it is shown on Youtube with English subtitles).

How Emiliano Salinas is involved with Executive Success Programs

• Salinas learned from a young age that hard work and dedication are critical to self-development. When he was a teenager, he took his studies seriously.
• Salinas has been a member of the executive board of Executive Success Programs (ESP) since 2009.
• He also serves as the Vice President of Ethics.
• ESP’s mission is to “help transform and, ultimately, be an expression of a noble human civilization.” ESP provides people with personal and professional development programs to help them attain their full potential.

His role within ESP

• Salinas helps ESP by leading its sales force. He serves as head trainer and field trainer where he trains new salespeople.
• He is a trained facilitator of ESP’s patented technology, "Rational Inquiry".
• He is an owner of ESP offices in Los Angeles and Guadalajara.
• He directly trains many successful people, including business entrepreneurs, politicians, athletes and actors.

Emiliano Salinas and popular culture

• Salinas has been involved as producer of acclaimed theater productions, such as the movie Sicario.
• He has also worked with authors in literary productions, such as a book on addiction written by Luis Eugenio Todd.
• An essay on corruption co-authored by Salinas, entitled “The Organization of Corruption: Political Horizons and Special Interests”, won the First Prize of the 2006 Research Competition on Corruption organized by Mexico’s Office of the Comptroller (SFP) and National Autonomous University of Mexico.