Frank Rainieri

Frank Rainieri
Frank Rainieri with his family
Born	Circa 1944 Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic
Nationality	Dominican
Alma mater	Saint Joseph's University
Known for	Founder and developer of Punta Cana
Net worth	Near US$ 1.0 billion
Board member of	Puntacana Group
Spouse(s)	Haydée Kuret Pacheco
Children	Paola, Francesca, and Frank Elías
Parent(s)	Francisco Rainieri, Venecia Marranzini
Relatives	† Fernando Rainieri (brother) Celso Marranzini (second-cousin)
Awards	Order of Merit of Duarte, Sánchez and Mella, Order of Christopher Columbus

Francisco Rafael ‘Frank’ Rainieri Marranzini is a businessman from the Dominican Republic. He is the chairman and founder of Puntacana Group. According to Forbes, Rainieri has one of the ten largest fortunes in the Dominican Republic, with a net worth near the billion-dollar mark. In 2015, he was designated ambassador of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta to the Dominican Republic, a position that his father also held 4 decades earlier.

Rainieri was born into a family with tradition of hospitality. His paternal grandparents, Isidoro Rainieri and Bianca Franceschini, migrated from Bologna,northern Italy, to northern Dominican Republic, and established two hotels, one in Puerto Plata and the other in Santiago; they had more than 10 children. His parents were Francisco Rainieri Franceschini and Venecia Marranzini Lepore (daughter of the Italian immigrants Orazio Michelo Marranzini Inginio and Inmaccolatta Lepore Rodia, who migrated as children with their respective families, all of them natives of Santa Lucia di Serino, in southern Italy).

He went to college in Philadelphia at Saint Joseph's College, now Saint Joseph's University.

In 1969, Rainieri and Theodore Kheel, a high-powered New York attorney and labor mediator, acquired a 58-million square meter lot on the eastern end of the Dominican Republic, which was covered with jungle and six miles of beach. Their first project was a 40 guest hotel called the Punta Cana Club, inaugurated two years later. In 1979, they constructed The Puntacana Hotel. The Punta Cana International Airport followed in 1984. In 1997, Rainieri and Kheel partnered with Oscar de la Renta and Julio Iglesias to start work on the Punta Cana Marina and the real estate development of the area.