Hernando de Soto

Hernando de Soto is currently President of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD) based in
Lima, Peru. The ILD has been described as one of the most important think-tanks in the World and Mr Greatest Living Economist. In 2004 he received Cato Institute’s the Milton Friedman Prize.

Mr. de Soto was born in Arequipa, Peru, in 1941 and did his post-graduate work at the Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva. He has served as an economist for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, as President of the Executive Committee of the Copper Exporting Countries Organisation (CIPEC), as Managing Director of Universal Engineering Corporation, as a principal of the Swiss Bank Corporation Consultant Group, and as a governor of Peru’s Central Reserve Bank.

As his principle activity he designs and implements capital formation programmes aimed at strengthening
the economy in developing countries in Asia, Latin America and the MiddleEast. Mr de Soto is widely regarded as one of the most influential development theoreticians of the last millennium and offers corporations the benefit of his wealth of experience.

Mr. de Soto has published two books about economic and political development: The Other Path, at the end of the 1980s, and The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, in 2001. Both books have been best-sellers and have been translated into some 20 languages.

Among the prizes he has received are The Freedom Prize (Switzerland), and The Fisher Prize (United
Kingdom). This year he will receive The Goldwater Award (USA), The Adam Smith Award from the Association of Private Enterprise Education (USA), and the CARE Humanitarian Award (Canada).

A brilliant speaker and charismatic personality, Mr de Soto’s presentations are both entertaining and enlightening.