Martín Varsavsky

Martín Varsavsky ( born April 26, 1960 in Buenos Aires ) is an Argentine businessman. He is CEO and founder of FON, a Wi-Fi company. When multiple founders, he founded companies such as Viatel and the Spanish communications company Jazztel. He opened and also supported two great internet education portals in Latin America and is a member of the advisory board of the Clinton Foundation. Varsavsky is married and has six children.

The Early Years

Varsavsky was born in 1960 in Argentina. When he was 16 years old, his family fled to the U.S. after his cousin, David Horacio Varsavsky, had been abducted by the new rulers. He earned the academic degree of Master of Arts in International Relations at New York University and a Master of Business Administration from Columbia University.

Entrepreneurial activities

While still a student, he founded Urban Capital, a pioneer in the establishment of so-called lofts in New York City.

In 1987 he was co-founder of Medi Corp. Sciences, a biotechnology company specializing in the development of HIV testing.

1991 Varsavsky went with Viatel in the telecommunications sector. To avoid expensive long distance call prices, his company invented the callback method. Viatel transformed itself from a small company with the first call-back service in Colorado on a pan- European telecommunications network. With headquarters in London Viatel operate a fiber optic network, which joined more than 50 strategic points in Western Europe with the largest cities in the U.S. East Coast. 1994 Viatel went public.

1998, Varsavsky withdrew from Viatel to devote himself entirely to his new company Jazztel. Within the next two years, he sold most of his shares Viatel. Jazztel concentrated its efforts on the development of fiber optic networks in Spain and so joined a direct competitor against the state-dominated Telefónica.

In 1999 he founded the Internet portal Ya.com temporarily Spain's third largest Internet site, at the same time also Internet Service Provider. To Ya.com also includes Spain's second largest online travel agency, www.viajar.com. Ya.com belonged to 70% Jazztel to 10% Martin Varsavsky and 20% of the employees. The company was sold to T -Online International in 2000.

In 2000 he founded Einstein.net, a company based in Germany, which should rent business software company. Accessed should be via broadband connections. The market was for this idea but apparently not yet ready, so that he retired in 2003 with significant losses from this business.

Since 2005, Varsavsky now focuses on the market with wireless Wi-Fi Internet access. He founded FON with registered office in Madrid, a company in Community form that allows its users wireless access to the Internet world, either against payment or against providing its own bandwidth. The project receives support and funding by renowned names like Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, eBay, and Google.

Outside of the telecommunications sector it is in the field of renewable energies the main investor of the wind farms El Moralejo and Proesa. He is also the owner of the fashion label Sybilla and Jocomomola.

Honors and Awards

  • World Technology (2006)
  • Pickering, Columbia University (2003)
  • Spanish Entrepreneur of the Year, Ibest (2000)
  • Global Leader for Tomorrow, World Economic Forum ( 2000)
  • European Entrepreneur of the Year, ECTA (1999)
  • European Entrepreneur in Telecommunications (1998)
  • Entrepreneur of the Year, New York City (1995 )

Other fields of activity

Varsavskys Foundation has initiated two projects. Firstly Educ.ar, on the other EducarChile.cl, two important education portals for Latin America.

In addition, he was between 2001 and 2005 Ambassador of his native country Argentina. He is also the founder of the Safe Democracy Foundation.

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