Word: credito
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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While Spain's new government is trying to end its patriarchal traditions by allowing women to head the monarchy, the private sector is ahead of the curve. Ana Patricia Botín, 43, a financial veteran, is executive chairwoman of Banco Español de Credito (Banesto), and when her father Emilio retires as chairman, she may take over the parent firm, family-controlled Grupo Santander, which is Spain's biggest banking empire. Botín, who speaks five languages, has learned how to face those who charge nepotism. "I started at the bottom," she says. "Nobody has given me anything." Indeed, Bot?...
Ernesto Perez-Carillo Jr., 52, considers that improbable journey as he strolls among the dozen men and women sorting and rolling molasses-colored leaves in El Credito Cigars' pungent storefront in Miami's Little Havana. His father expanded production to 140,000 cigars a day, at one point supplying troops during World War II. They fled to Miami after Fidel Castro's takeover in 1959. In 1968, finally convinced the exile was permanent, the elder Ernesto paid $5,000 for a cigarmaking factory in Miami. To find a niche among the 30 or so other cigar factories, Ernesto Sr. began...
...Miami when his father came down with Lou Gehrig's disease. In the midst of negotiations to sell the business, "something came over me," says Perez-Carillo. He persuaded his father to decline the offer and turn the business over to him. Ernesto Sr. died in 1980. El Credito's focus on premium lines paid off in the early '90s, gaining the company notice during the cigar boom. An article in Cigar Aficionado magazine sparked a flood of orders, causing a six-month backlog. Bill Cosby, Sharon Stone and Arnold Schwarzenegger became loyal clients, says Perez-Carillo...
...Though both have worked in the business, Perez-Carillo's son Ernesto III, 22, is a recent Stanford grad and consultant, and his daughter Lissette McPhillips, 30, is a lawyer. So Perez-Carillo knew he faced a choice in 1999 when tobacco company Swedish Match offered to buy El Credito for a reported $20 million. He sold. "Most people would have thought, Millions and millions of dollars--this is my dream, my dream has come true," says McPhillips. But for her father, "there was a sadness there." Perez-Carillo now works for General Cigar, a subsidiary of Swedish Match...