Gustavo Cisneros

Through his father, Diego Cisneros's paternal side, Cisneros is related to Pablo de Hita y Salazar, who was the 27th Governor of La Florida from 1674 to 1680.

As a tribute to his father, Cisneros published a book about the Cisneros family tree.

On 29 December 2023, Gustavo Cisneros, died in New York City, at the age of 78.

Spanish newspaper El País reported that the cause of his death was pneumonia, a complication following a spinal surgery.

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.

Gustavo Alfredo Jiménez de Cisneros y Rendiles (20 November 1945 – 29 December 2023) was a Venezuelan businessman and Chairman of Grupo Cisneros.

Cisneros was born on 1 June 1945, the son of Diego Cisneros and Albertina Cisneros (née Rendíles Martínez).

Cisneros graduated from Suffield Academy in Connecticut in 1963.

He graduated from Babson College in Massachusetts in 1968.

Grupo Cisneros is one of the largest privately held media entertainment organizations in the world.

Patricia and Gustavo Cisneros began collecting Latin American abstraction after their marriage, in 1970.

Over the years, it has grown to more than 2,000 pieces, including about 200 Spanish colonial objects.

In addition, the couple have amassed a vast holding of ethnographic material from the Amazon.

Based in New York and Caracas, the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros today also includes works by Uruguay's Joaquín Torres-García, Brazil's Lygia Clark and Venezuelan modern masters Jesús Rafael Soto, Alejandro Otero, and Carlos Cruz-Diez.

Cisneros was married to his wife, Patricia, from 1970 until his death.

The Cisneros Foundation was moving toward building a permanent institution in Caracas in the late 1990s until Hugo Chávez was elected president.

Cisneros lived in the Dominican Republic beginning in the 1990s.

In addition to Venezuelan citizenship, Cisneros also held United States, Spanish and Dominican citizenship.

She has been a significant MoMA benefactor since 1992, and has been a trustee of the museum and made substantial cash contributions to the museum's recent renovation.

Her name is on one of the institution's exhibition rooms.

In addition to MoMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hammer Museum, Long Beach's Museum of Latin American Art, and the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid also have received art loans.

The company has been headquartered in Coral Gables, Florida, since 2000.

Cisneros became President of Grupo Cisneros when he was 25 years old.

Cisneros's wealth came 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.

Long an advocate of free enterprise Cisneros for many years expanded his operations outside of Venezuela and into overseas markets, including the U.S., Spain and later China.

Although Cisneros and Hugo Chávez were originally friends and Cisneros contributed to Chávez's first presidential campaigns, Cisneros was accused of involvement in the 2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt against Chávez after their relationship became strained because of Chávez's confrontation with the media.

Cisneros was questioned about his relationship with Chávez.

Cisneros supported two philanthropic entities: Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros and Fundación Cisneros.

Fundación Cisneros runs a wide range of educational and cultural programs aimed at improving the lives of Latin Americans.

These include the AME program for professional development of Latin American educators, visual arts education and awareness based on the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros; PPV, a visual thinking curriculum for Latin American school children, and traveling art exhibits showcasing the talents of Latin American artists for North America and European audiences.

Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros is a privately held Latin American art organization based in Venezuela and New York City.

The Cisneros family was the wealthiest in South America on the 2006 Forbes ranking.

A onetime billionaire, according to Forbes his net worth peaked at 6.0 billion dollars in 2007 (equivalent to $ billion in prices when adjusted for inflation); he dropped off the billionaires' list in 2020 as a consequence of his Venezuelan assets losing value due to the long economic crisis in Venezuela.

In 2007, the foundation encountered resistance from the Chávez government when lending works by Venezuelan painter Armando Reverón (1889-1954) to New York's Museum of Modern Art for the museum's first retrospective devoted to a single Latin American artist in 50 years.

In August 2013, Gustavo Cisneros appointed his daughter Adriana Cisneros de Griffin as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Cisneros.

Before his death, Cisneros was developing Tropicalia, a multibillion-dollar resort in Miches, 80 km northwest of Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.

Its opening is scheduled for 2026.

His wealth decreased from its 2014 secondary peak of US$ 4.4 billion, and its 2007 primary peak of US$ 6.0 billion.

Cisneros was listed among the world's richest men according to Forbes magazine, which estimated his fortune at US$1.1 billion in 2019.