Veronica Maldonado

Veronica understands the differences between stewardship, ownership and management having experienced it herself over the past 20 years. She knows what it means to build, lose, and reconfigure one’s family business and legacy. Growing up as part of the fourth generation of a family that impacted Venezuela’s agricultural and industrial sectors, Veronica developed an understanding early on for the meaning of stewardship, and exemplifying values through one’s behavior. When the state disowned the family and took the ranch that for 100 years represented the heart of the family, most family members, including Veronica, having to make a gut-wrenching decision, left the country and gathered in the United States, where they began to rebuild, and together with her cousins and the support of the previous generation, they created a new beginning and continue the Maldonado legacy to this day.

Veronica currently serves as chair for the board of the GEM (Grupo Economico Maldonado) companies, a role she has had since July 2018. In addition, Veronica served as the Executive Director of the Family Office and Chair of the GEM Family Council. From 2002-2021 she was the President of the Foundation, La Compañia Humana, which supports education, community development, music and environmental awareness in Venezuela. Years past, Veronica worked in the development of international business ventures at Phoenix Home Life Insurance Company in Connecticut and in the Daichi Life Insurance company in Tokyo, Japan.

She is a frequent speaker in family business matters and participates in advisory boards of the Family Business Network and the Business Families Foundation.

Veronica has completed various family business management programs and has extensive experience in corporate structures in US, Japan and Venezuela. She is a graduate from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and completed with honors an EMBA in Family Business in the Coles College of Business, Kennesaw State University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Veronica is based in Miami, Florida, USA. She is fluent in English and Spanish and conversant in Japanese.