Who We Are

The Group of Fifty (G50) is composed of a select group of business leaders who head some of the most significant and forward-looking enterprises in Latin America. The G50 was founded in 1993 by Moisés Naím under the auspices of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the oldest foreign-policy think tank in the United States. Since 2008, the G50 is an independent nonprofit organization with no partisan, ideological, religious or commercial affiliations.

The G50 members convene annually for a highly interactive meeting that covers a variety of topics - from Geopolitics and the Arts to Healthcare and Business - and everything in between. After more than two decades, the G50 has become a top forum for Latin America's most influential business leaders to explore the latest trends in world affairs as well as an opportunity for them to hear from their peers in other countries and industries. Though its principal activity is to celebrate an annual meeting, the G50 offers a permanent base of support to its members throughout the year.

Our Founder and Chairman

Moisés Naím is a distinguished fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a best-selling author, and an internationally syndicated columnist.

Naím was the editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine for fourteen years. During his tenure, Foreign Policy won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence three times. He is author of many scholarly articles and more than ten books on international economics and politics. His 2013 book, The End of Power, a New York Times bestseller, was selected by the Washington Post and the Financial Times as one of the best books of the year upon release. His earlier book, Illicit, continues to be widely cited for its pioneering analysis of the globalization of transnational criminal networks. In 2018, he published his first novel Two Spies in Caracas. 

In 2011, Naím was awarded the Ortega y Gasset prize, the most prestigious award in Spanish journalism. The British magazine Prospect named him one of the world’s leading thinkers in 2013, and for several years the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute of Switzerland ranked him among the top 100 global thought leaders. He is also the host and producer of “Efecto Naím,” an Emmy-winning weekly television program on international affairs that airs throughout the Americas on DirectTV (NTN24).

Naím’s experience in public service includes his tenure as Venezuela’s Minister of Trade and Industry in the early 1990s, director of Venezuela’s Central Bank, and executive director of the World Bank. He was a professor of business and economics and dean of IESA, Venezuela’s main business school, and also taught at John Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington.

Naim holds a Ph.D from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Doctor Honoris Causa in International Affairs from American University. He is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations and an honorary member of Venezuela’s Academy of Economic Sciences.