Oct. 8 (UPI) — Mike Bezos, father of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has appointed Chilean executive Valeria Alberola as the new CEO of his family office, Aurora Borealis, a Miami-based firm created in 2020 to manage the family’s estimated $40 million fortune.
Alberola holds a degree in economics and business from the School of Economics and Management at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in the United States, which she attended on a Fulbright scholarship.
She speaks four languages fluently — English, Spanish, French and Portuguese — and has a long record in business leadership.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Alberola describes herself as an experienced CEO and corporate board member with more than 25 years of experience. She has “a proven track record of transforming and growing organizations as a C-suite executive, investor, investment banker and McKinsey strategy consultant across industries and geographies.”
Most recently, Alberola served as CEO of ZomaLab, the private family office of Walmart heir Ben Walton and his wife, Chilean philanthropist Lucy Ana Walton. There, she oversaw global investments and several philanthropic and service initiatives — a role that positioned her to later lead the Bezos family firm.
She also served as chief financial officer at Bridge Education Group, an international education company “where she expanded the organization to 10 locations in the United States and Latin America to serve more than 3,000 students a year,” according to her LinkedIn profile.
Alberola also worked as a partner at Q Advisors, an investment bank based in Denver and San Francisco, where she said she led more than $800 million in transactions for global technology and telecommunications clients.
Alberola is active in entrepreneurship and innovation. She serves as vice chair of Endeavor Colorado and is a member of Colorado Thrives, a coalition of chief executives from the state’s largest companies.
“The greatest strength Valeria brings as the new CEO lies in her solid professional track record. She has developed the skills to understand organizational strategy, analyze complex and uncertain situations, assess their financial implications, and sustain and improve performance,” said Cecilia Callejas, academic director of the Strategic Leadership for Senior Management program at the University of Chile’s School of Economics and Business.
It’s a path she began shaping during her university years, said Victoria Valdés, director of the Business Administration Program at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.
“[Valeria] is a source of pride. She was an outstanding student in her time — she entered the Business Administration program in the 1990s and earned excellent grades. She specialized in finance and the management of multinational companies,” Valdés said.
She noted that even in the choices Alberola made as a student, “it was already clear that this was the field she was interested in and where she was directing her efforts. She has a very solid background in finance, which allows her to understand how markets work.”
She added that Alberola’s new position will place her in a much more visible and public role.
“The world is watching her now, in a highly complex environment with difficult geopolitical challenges that clearly affect how business is done and how companies perform,” Valdés said.
