Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Marcos Galperin grew up in a well-to-do family.

His family owns SADESA, one of the world’s largest leather companies. He attended Saint Andrew’s Scottish School in Olivos. He then continued his high school education in the United States at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania where he studied finance.
In 1994, the entrepreneur began his career by joining YPF, an Argentinian company specializing in petroleum exploitation. There, he headed the Capital Markets sector and the Futures and options sector. The entrepreneur was also a summer intern at JPMorgan. Three years later, he returned to the United States and obtained an M.B.A from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

The MercadoLibre journey began in 1999 while he was still a student at Stanford.

Marcos Galperin quickly understood importance of relationships in the business world. It is his finance teacher, a first-time investor, who put him in contact with potential investors. He notably asked John Muse, guest speaker and co-founder of Hicks Muse if Marcos could take him to his private plane. Marcos Galperin knew how to be persuasive since after his pitch, Muse decided to invest and brought in other big names such as JPMorgan Partners, Flation Partners, Goldman Sachs, GE Capital and Banco Santander Central Hispano.
MercadoLibre was born after with less than 10 people and for a handful of users.

 MercadoLibre was born after with less than 10 people and for a handful of users.

In 2001, eBay took a 19.5% stake and merged its Brazilian activity with MercadoLibre. 15 years later, eBay sold its stake. In 2007, Galperin listed the company on Nasdaq where it is now known as MELI. This success story from the other side of the world is a real entrepreneurial success that has been built on solid pillars. It benefits first of all from a monopoly: Amazon has not established itself in the Latin American market, preferring to establish in Asia. In addition, the cost of skilled labor is low, higher education is of a very good standard and free, a cocktail favorable to the success of an innovative company. The company now operates in 18 Latin American countries and Portugal.
But Marcos Galperin did not stop at e-commerce. In 2003, he launched the MercadoPago digital payment solution. The platform now has 8M active payers, provides payment solutions to 2.5M merchants and now purposes credit offers for suppliers and consumers. MELI signed a partnership with Paypal in 2019.

Finally, the businessman has taken advantage of the current pandemic, a real boon for e-commerce.

The platform became one of the only options for buying and selling many products, as tens of thousands of convenience stores closed, the company is hiring (5,000 across Latin America and 1,450 in Argentina) and stocks were blazing on Wall Street. In May 2020, MELI stock climbed to 20x the stock market cap of oil giant YPF. The Financial Times has ranked MercadoLibre as the 37th best-doing company during the pandemic. It is, moreover, the only Latin American firm in the ranking.
Marcos Galperin recently opted for a modification of the logo of his company in his online communication: the traditional handshake that sealed deals has become an elbow to elbow salute, cirsconstance in times of pandemic. Marcos Galperin is considered one of Argentina’s leading tech entrepreneurs. In 2008 and 2018, he received the Konex Award for the most important businessman of the last decade in Argentina.
The entrepreneur lives in Buenos Aires. He holds 9% of the capital through its Galperin Trust fund.