Fernando Espuelas

Fernando Espuelas
Political analyst, host and managing editor of "The Fernando Espuelas Show"
Born	(1966-08-06) August 6, 1966 (age 50) Montevideo, Uruguay
Nationality	USA
Alma mater	Connecticut College
Spouse(s)	Ann Clark Espuelas
Awards	New York Magazine New York Award (1999); Hispanic Business Magazine 100 Most Influential Hispanics (1999); Hispanic Business Magazine 100 Most Influential Hispanics (2000); Crain's New York magazine "2000 All-Star Business Leader" (2000); Latin Trade Magazine's Bravo Award, "Internet CEO of the Year" (2000); Hispanic Business Magazine "Hispanic Entrepreneur Award"(2000); The Hollywood Reporter "THR's Latino Power 50" (2007); U.S. Hispanic IT Executive Council (HITEC) "100 Most Influential Hispanics and Rising Stars in Information Technology" (2008 & 2009); PODER Magazine "The Nation's 100 Most Influential Hispanics" (2012)
Website	espuelas.com

Fernando Espuelas (born August 6, 1966) is an American entrepreneur, author, media personality and philanthropist.

Espuelas is one of the pioneers of the consumer Internet. He is the co-founder (along with Jack Chen) and first CEO of Starmedia, the first pan-Latin Internet portal, launched in 1996 and now part of Orange, France Telecom's Internet services company. Starmedia was the first venture-capital backed Latin Internet company and also the first initial public offering (IPO) in the Latin Internet industry.

According to the Harvard Business School case StarMedia: Launching a Latin American Revolution, "by the fall of 1999,StarMedia had sprinted to a sizable lead in the race to acquire Latin American Internet users. Its pan-regional, horizontal portal was the first to target Spanish- and Portuguese-language speakers on the Internet, registering 1.2 billion page views in the third quarter of 1999. Thirty-three-year-old StarMedia co-founder Fernando Espuelas was the toast of "Silicon Alley" and a recognized hero throughout Latin America. A picture of him on the cover of Internet World magazine--ripping his shirt open to show the Starmedia logo, like Superman, summed up the spirit of the company."

By the year 2000, Starmedia was the world's leading Latin portal, serving over 25 million Spanish and Portuguese speakers every month across Latin markets in America and Europe, making it one of the top sites by audience size in the world.

Espuelas is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute.

Many years before social media would play a leading role in the Arab Spring, Espuelas presaged that the Internet would provoke an "uncontrollable wave of democracy" and give "the power of information and communication to the individual, not to institutions."

In 2012, Espuelas was named one of "The Nation's 100 Most Influential Hispanics" by PODER Magazine.Time included Espuelas on their list of the "Leaders of the Millennium", and he was recognized as a "2000 All-Star" business leader by Crain's New York Business magazine. The World Economic Forum includes him among its "Global Leaders of Tomorrow, " and he was also a recipient of Latin Trade Magazine 's Bravo Award, being named "Internet CEO of the Year". He received a New York Award in 1999.Hispanic Business magazine gave Espuelas its Hispanic Entrepreneur Award in 2000. He was also named a "Latin American Leader of the Internet" by CNN en Español