An entrepreneur is born or made: the ex-shark Arturo Elias Ayub thinks this

Arturo Elias Ayub is one of the most charismatic and famous businessmen in Mexico. In addition to being the son-in-law of Mexico's richest man, Carlos Slim Helú, Elias Ayub was also a panelist on the famous reality show Shark Tank, alongside other famous and successful businessmen, such as Carlos Bremer, Patricia Armendariz and Rodrigo Herrera Aspra.

However, a few weeks ago the businessman reported that he would leave the program, after several seasons on it, like his partner Rodrigo Herrera, owner of Gennoma Lab.

Arturo Elias Ayub has been interviewed on several occasions. One of these was with youtuber Juanpa Zurita. In that interview they touched on various topics, including whether they thought that an entrepreneur was born or was made throughout his life. “Do you think you have it or don't you?” , asked Juanpa Zurita, to which the businessman replied that he believes they are worth both. “I don't think you have it in your blood, I don't think it's genetic, but it's certainly a little where you're born, and how you're educated, isn't it? And what you see, the examples you see in your house, I bet you that if your dad has a place in La Merced or in Tepito, or in a market where it is, you bring the trade in your blood”, he says.

He explains that his dad had a store in downtown Mexico City. “I tell you, my grandparents were merchants, I listened to that at home, and I listened to business, and I think that does influence your way of thinking a little later, but I don't think it's part of a DNA, and I think that even if you don't have that at home, you can develop it without a doubt,” explains the extiburón.

Arturo Elias Ayub was born in Mexico in 1966 and has Lebanese ancestry, like Carlos Slim, since the latter's parents came to Mexico from Lebanon at the beginning of the 20th century. Arturo's parents, Alfredo Elias and Silvia Ayub, had a textile uniform factory in the Historic Center of Mexico City. This made Arturo, as a child, interested in business, because when he left school, he went to the factory to work. Alfredo, his brother 16 years older than him, was director general of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).

At the age of seven, Elias Ayub was already accompanying his parents to buy stationery products in bulk, and later resell them at his school. Carlos Slim described Ayub, in the foreword to his son-in-law's book, The Negotiator, as a child who was easily distracted by his hyperactivity and as a bad student. “Thus, Arturo, who was a bad student and who, due to his intelligence, curiosity and hyperactivity, became bored and distracted in the classroom, is now a great teacher with this short, enjoyable and substantial manual for negotiating in its broadest sense, including the business one,” says Slim in the book.

Arturo Elías studied Business Administration at the Universidad Anahuac, and studied a postgraduate degree in Senior Business Management at the Pan American Institute of Senior Business Management (IPADE).

Ayub met Johanna Slim Domit, the youngest daughter of Carlos Slim, in 1995. A year later, the businessman would start working at Teléfonos de México (Telmex), a company that had little command of his father-in-law, since he had acquired it in 1990, following its privatization by then-president Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

In 2001, he acquired the position of president of the Club Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), a football team of the Mexican first division popularly known as Pumas, and with whom he won several championships until 2005, when he was promoted to the presidency of Fundación Telmex, since occupies so far. Telmex Foundation is an organization that tries to help people with school scholarships, sports and surgeries.

He currently serves as Director of Strategic Alliances and Content for América Móvil, Managing Director of the TELMEX Telcel Foundation, Director of Uno TV and Claro Sports.

KEEP READING: