Editing Ricardo Salinas Pliego (section)

==Career==
Ricardo Salinas Pliego is a CPA graduate of the [[Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey]] (ITESM). After earning an MBA at [[Tulane University]], he joined Elektra in 1981 as import manager. He learned the business moves when the company faced dire financial straits at the continuing devaluation of the eighties. Between 1981 and 1986, Salinas experimented with other businesses such as a restaurant in Monterrey, satellite dishes and the sale of systems multi communication.<ref>{{cite web|author=Ricardo Salinas|url=https://www.ricardosalinas.com/en/Biography|title= Profile Ricardo Benjamín Salinas Pliego|date=|access-date=3 February 2021|publisher=}}</ref>

In 1987 Ricardo succeeded his father [[Hugo Salinas Price]] as [[CEO]] of [[Grupo Elektra]]. The company began as a family-owned furniture manufacturing company called Salinas & Rocha founded in 1906 by Salinas' great-grandfather, Benjamin Salinas. In 1950, Hugo Salinas Rocha created Grupo Elektra and when Ricardo Salinas became CEO of the company in 1987 he refocused Elektra on basic products: appliances, electronics, and furniture. Significantly, he developed at Elektra a vast new consumer market among [[Mexico]]'s lower middle income consumers by providing credit sales and diverse financial products and services.<ref>{{cite web|author=Grupo Salinas|url=https://www.gruposalinas.com/en/historia|title=Our history|date=2019|access-date=3 February 2021|publisher=}}</ref>

Grupo Elektra expanded further and became Mexico's biggest consumer-finance company when, in 2002, it won the first banking license granted to any Mexican institution in nearly a decade. The strategy was to build new markets by creating new buying power among classes of people largely ignored by most other major Mexican businesses. Thus was born Banco Azteca, which currently has operations in Mexico, [[Panama]], [[Guatemala]] and [[Honduras]]. Subsequently, Grupo Elektra obtained two financial licenses from the federal government to create [[Seguros Azteca]] and Afore Azteca.<ref name="BiRSP"/>

Salinas is also chairman of [[TV Azteca]], one of the world's two largest producers of Spanish-language television programming. Under his leadership, TV Azteca broke Mexico's long-standing television monopoly through the successful privatization of a media package offered by the government.<ref name="BiRSP"/>

In 2001, TV Azteca launched [[Azteca America]], a wholly owned Spanish-language broadcasting network aimed at the 50 million-strong Hispanic population of the United States. Azteca America had affiliates in 70 markets, including [[Los Angeles]], [[New York City]], [[Chicago]], [[Miami]] and [[Houston]], reaching 89 percent of the Hispanic population in the U.S. Azteca America was sold to [[HC2 Holdings]] in 2017.<ref>{{cite web|author=TV Azteca|url=http://www.irtvazteca.com/News/PDF.aspx?idPdf=1825&lang=es&tp_doc=4&sit=15|title= TV Azteca announces the sale of Azteca America to HC2 Network Inc.|date=29 November 2017|access-date=3 February 2021|publisher=}}</ref>

In 2003, Salinas bought Iusacell (the first cell phone company in Mexico) and four years later, merged it with [[Unefón|Unefon]], another cell phone company, founded by him in 1999. However, in early 2015, Grupo Salinas announced the sale of Iusacell to [[AT&T]]<ref>{{cite web|author=Grupo Salinas|url=http://www.gruposalinas.com.mx/ComunicadosVisor.aspx?r=15032|title=Sale of Grupo Iusacell to AT&T for US$2,500 million is completed|date=2015|access-date=10 February 2015|publisher=Grupo Salinas}}</ref> Today, with Totalplay, offers the most innovative internet and television services and telephony via fiber optics to home. Also, Totalplay Empresarial provides broadband internet access video surveillance, broadband interfaces, videoconferencing, among other services to institutions and companies throughout Mexico.<ref>{{cite web|author=Totalplay Empresarial|url=https://totalplayempresarial.com.mx/|title= Totalplay Empresarial (Spanish)|date=|access-date=3 February 2021|publisher=}}</ref>

In 2012, Grupo Elektra acquired Advance America, —currently Purpose Financial<ref name="PF">{{cite web|author= Purpose Financial|url=https://havepurpose.com/|title=Purpose Financial|date=|access-date=3 February 2021|publisher=}}</ref>—, a company that provides short-term non- bank loans in the United States. Also put into operation Punto Casa de Bolsa. The Group operates more than six thousand points of contact in Mexico, [[United States]], Guatemala, Honduras, [[Peru]] and Panama.<ref name="BiRSP"/>

Salinas has participated and addressed The [[World Economic Forum]], The Economist Roundtable on Mexico, the [[Young Presidents' Organization]], [[University of California, Los Angeles|UCLA]], the Institute of the Americas, [[Harvard Business School]] and [[TED (conference)|TED]], where he discussed issues related to globalization, education, entrepreneurship, freedom and opportunity in the BOP. He also has a blog where he publishes his business, political, economic and cultural ideas. His articles have been published in ''[[The New York Times]]'', ''[[The Boston Globe]]'', ''[[The Hill (newspaper)|The Hill]]'', ''[[Newsweek]]'' in Spanish, ''La Opinión'', and regularly writes in the Mexican press. Mr. Salinas was the first Mexican to elect the board of trustees of the [[Aspen Institute]].<ref>{{cite web|author=The Aspen Institute|url=https://www.aspeninstitute.org/news/press-release/six-leaders-elected-aspen-institute-board-trustees-2014/|title=Six Leaders Elected to Aspen Institute Board of Trustees|date=16 April 2014|access-date=3 March 2015|publisher=[[Aspen Institute]]}}</ref>

It was announced in 2020 that Salinas had 10% of his liquid portfolio invested in [[Bitcoin]].<ref>{{Cite news|date=2020-11-18|title=Billionaire Salinas Has 10% of 'Liquid Portfolio' in Bitcoin|language=en|work=Bloomberg.com|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-18/billionaire-salinas-has-10-of-liquid-portfolio-in-bitcoin|access-date=2021-03-29}}</ref>