March 2012

CSR

Although the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is relatively new, for The Cisneros Group of Companies it is a vision and a family value that has been part of our business plan from the beginning: social commitment and successful business practices go hand in hand.

Giving back to society is a value that my father, Diego Cisneros, our founder, bequeathed us, and it has become a highly effective philosophy of the Group. Each new enterprise undertaken is developed along with Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives focused on boosting the development of the nations in which we are present.

The CSR respects values, communities and the environment, a philosophy that permeates the spirit of companies and guides their behavior, allowing them not only to properly position their image, but also to obtain a social license in order to operate in communities where they are present, propelling real change in them, thus maximizing business strategies.

For us at The Cisneros Group of Companies, education and the promotion of culture are powerful catalysts for progress and well-being in communities; therefore we have concentrated significant efforts on initiatives aimed at overcoming inequality and facilitating access to education, thus contributing to the formation of better citizens.

In the seventies, my wife Patricia and I set up the Fundación Cisneros in order to encourage the creation of social capital in Latin America, based on education and cultural programs such as: cl@se, Actualización de Maestros en Educación (AME), The Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros and Piensa en arte/Think Art.

These programs and their excellent results have become one of the best letters of presentation for The Cisneros Group of Companies and have allowed it to become a point of reference with regard to Corporate Social Responsibility strategies.

I am convinced that private initiative needs to be a catalyst that detonates the potential of future leaders of Latin America and, for this reason, Corporate Social Responsibility activities need to be designed hand in hand r with business strategies, allowing us to generate real value for the communities where we operate.

I invite you to find out more about the activities of the Fundación Cisneros:

http://www.fundacion.cisneros.org/

http://www.youtube.com/user/CisnerosRSE

Opinions

When I look back and see the road we have travelled at the Cisneros Group of Companies over the last 82 years, through three generations of leadership, one of the things that makes me most proud is the power to say that today we are a Global Organization that maintains the legacy and tradition of a family company.

It is not easy for a company that started off as a family business to grow and develop corporate structure along with long-term vision. At the Cisneros Group we have achieved this. This has allowed us to become an international business and — more recently – to follow the path of digital convergence, a daunting challenge for many companies.

At the Cisneros Group, we benefit from a firm foundation based on the values established by of our founder, my father Diego Cisneros. He showed us a path based upon business ethics, loyalty, a sense of purpose, recognition for people’s work and passion, reinforced with a spirit of innovation and continuous evolution. This combination has allowed us to become a solid, modern, professional organization well prepared to face future challenges.

I think that it is imperative that family companies in our region make changes and take risks and create new structures. If deeply rooted their fundamental identity, values and foundations will never change. On the contrary, they will be the driving force that will promote innovation, productive changes and foster the growth of new thoughts and ideas. That is what has allowed us to make history, while maintaining our own identity through the years.

Interviews

I have already commented in interviews that I believe that this is going to be Latin America’s decade, why?

Latin America has built a large market: 450 million consumers and 40 million Hispanics in the United States, in which more than 30% of foreign investments come from Latin American companies.

Latin American entrepreneurs have decided to go international and are doing so on a level we could never have imagined before, including service companies, particularly those linked to sectors such as telecommunications, entertainment and engineering. We are exporting new business models.

We are learning to be flexible and to successfully operate in a region that has been affected by political instability and we have developed qualities that have allowed us to confront serious financial crises.

Likewise, countries such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru are strongly committed to those areas crucial to the progress of nations: education, access to technology, research, strengthening of institutions and development of infrastructure. These nations have put aside six-year government plans and have started to develop long-term plans that are strengthening them enormously.

Even though there is still unacceptable inequality in large areas of our region, this is, without doubt, going to be Latin America’s decade. Society, the authorities and entrepreneurs will continue to work together to make Latin America the leading region that we have worked so hard for.