Alejandro Betancourt López, President of Hawkers Sunglasses
Alejandro Betancourt López stands as a formidable force in international business, demonstrating exceptional foresight across diverse sectors from energy to fashion. With a net worth estimated at $2.6 billion, the Venezuelan-born entrepreneur has built a reputation for identifying market shifts before they materialize. As president and major shareholder of Hawkers, he transformed a modest sunglasses startup into a global brand challenging industry giants. His investment portfolio spans continents, including oil and gas ventures in Latin America, financial institutions in Africa through BDK Financial Group, and
What experiences from your upbringing helped shape your entrepreneurial spirit?
I think it’s all about motivation. I grew up in an environment where everybody had what they needed, but I always wanted to achieve higher and bigger goals. I grew up in high society, but my friends were wealthier than me. It’s not that I envied them, but I wanted to be able to do something on my own.
What’s interesting is that all those people who took things for granted later didn’t have that hunger for success. Everybody has their own goals and levels of achievement where they feel comfortable. I think either you’re born with that motivation—being hungry to achieve more and more, not for wealth, but for the sensation that you won an objective, that you achieved something, that you created value—or you’re not.
From simple activities like playing rock and roll in a band, playing drums, and wanting to play in every bar in town, to dreaming of being a rock star, to being a good professional and learning all about the energy business and oil industry, then diversifying and becoming an entrepreneur—it takes a lot of passion.
The edge you have is that passion. It’s not about being smarter than most people; it’s about how dedicated you are and how sure you are that you’ll achieve your goals. That puts you in front of everybody else because unconsciously, you dedicate more time to it than anyone else. You can’t stop thinking about it.
When I was growing up, I was always daydreaming about being somebody more important or achieving higher goals. Everybody thought I was wasting my time or being irrelevant, but I was always sure I was going to get somewhere. I was in South America thinking, “I want to go to Europe, I want to see what I see in the movies.” That’s what motivates you, and you daydream about it all day. Once you start believing in it, it becomes reality without you noticing.
What principles guide your business decisions?
I’m very logical. I try not to make things complex. I think I have a good sense of perceiving what will be the next cycle of profitable businesses. I’ve been lucky enough to accurately predict where profits will come from in different industries or when an industry will shift to another cycle.
One of my biggest talents is knowing where the value chain is moving and positioning myself there before it reaches that point. I can give you a good example: When we started the traveling business in Spain, Auro, we knew Uber was coming to Spain. We started accumulating licenses for private vehicle transportation—it was a regulated environment. It was a gamble, but a calculated one because we knew the market would shift from taxis to private riding and generate a lot of hype.
People were selling these licenses for almost nothing because they were just complements to taxi drivers at the time, with seemingly no purpose. We bought the whole lot from different taxi holders, held them, and started creating competition for Uber. Ultimately, it was a strategic move for Uber to place itself in the market and buy us out. We had the vision to anticipate something that was already happening in the U.S. and other more advanced countries—it was just a matter of time before it arrived in Spain.
This approach applies to every industry. In oil, the refiners were making profits during Rockefeller’s time because they controlled the market. Then oil became scarce, and the value shifted to producers. During wartime in the 1940s, shipping became valuable—Onassis made his fortune because he had all the ships, which was the most valuable step in the chain.
It’s about placing yourself in the position in any industry that can capture that margin and create value for yourself or investors. That’s how I make decisions—I try to find where I think the money will be. It’s not complex. They bring you 100 ideas, you analyze them like an orchestra director, select 10, and from those 10, you fund two and hopefully get them right.
How would you describe your leadership style?
I view leadership as caring about making something happen. I focus intensely on the task at hand and won’t leave it alone until my team gets it right. I’ll be on top of everybody—I might drive people crazy, but we’ll get results.
For me, there’s no wrong time for a call or to be on top of things. I tell everybody to check things 10,000 times to ensure our planning is correct and we achieve the results we projected. If not, it’s unacceptable. I push people a lot, but that’s what makes us successful.
When I hire people, I look closely at their experience. I want to know they know more than me, that they’re better than me, that they have better knowledge than me in that industry. That’s something I respect. If I get that sense, I highly value their opinion and hire them. I like to hire people who are better prepared and smarter, and who aren’t afraid to tell me what to do because they know better.
I push my team to bring me solutions for new problems. When people tell me something is very difficult, I tell them it’s not difficult—they’re just not trying enough. I encourage a lot of out-of-the-box thinking and non-traditional solutions. That’s key for success.
How do you assess and mitigate risk with large-scale investments?
I consider myself a massive risk-taker, but I have a good batting average, to use a baseball analogy. I’m very proud that I hit more home runs than I strike out. I don’t swing for first base—I always swing for a home run. I do strike out, and that’s human; nobody gets everything perfect.
When things go bad, I sink with the ship. I don’t walk away. Those investments that have gone bad—if you hold them long enough, they sometimes come back to par and you make your money back. I never abandon them; I try to support them all the way.
The ones that go well pay for everything else. When you have a portfolio of 10 investments that are all high-stakes—big return or nothing—if two of them go well, they pay for the other eight and still make a good profit overall. It’s about getting a good sense of how well-positioned you are in your various ventures.
How do companies effectively balance sustainability and profitability?
Sustainability and profitability are different things. You might be profitable tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be profitable forever. Profitability is tough, but it’s easier to achieve than sustainability because it’s very hard to predict where the market is shifting in any industry.
Fashion is the hardest. Fashion brands are valued at very low multiples because you don’t know how long they’ll remain hot. With Hawkers, you have to convince everybody to buy sunglasses every day, put in a lot of marketing, wake up the next day, and do it all over again. It’s extremely difficult to keep such a company sustainable over time.
You have to use all your marketing tools, creativity, and constantly reinvent yourself. In a different industry like oil, sustainability doesn’t depend on you but on technology and whether energy demands will come from hydrocarbons or something else in the next 20 years. It’s about being able to adapt constantly.
If it were easy, everyone would be wealthy all the time. That’s why you see cycles—people get it right sometimes and wrong other times. Nobody has a perfect upward trajectory. It’s a very competitive market, and sustainability requires staying on top of your game all the time in any industry.
How do you become familiar with new industries you haven’t invested in before?
I consider myself a very fast learner. I think of myself as an orchestra director who knows how to play a little bit of every instrument—that’s key for success. I understand the basics of my investments and surround myself with talented people who can run them efficiently. I can understand what they’re doing and be involved enough to guide them or let them do their own thing, getting their input and making sure I trust their decisions.
Everything I do is based on intuition and information—intuition based on the right information and the right people around me. You need to surround yourself with people at the top of their game. If I go to the right places and interact with the right people, I get good information that makes my intuition more tuned up. It’s a mix of surrounding yourself with talented people, listening to them, and applying your intuition to good work.
What is your core investment philosophy?
We like anything that is promising and makes money while providing a good challenge. We enjoy challenging environments, innovation, and being first. We want to be where the value in the chain will be next—that’s our philosophy.
AI is exploding right now, and we invested about five years ago, so we’re very excited to see how it’s transforming the world. We’ve had successful investments across various sectors—the Uber operation, Playtomic (the largest padel operator in the world), Hawkers (now the third largest in its category), and oil and gas ventures.
Everyone talks about their successful ventures, but nobody wants to discuss unsuccessful ones. We’re constantly diversifying and innovating in new investments that are different from traditional sectors like oil and gas. We’re becoming more involved in AI, manufacturing for technology, robotics, etc.—high-risk, high-reward ventures. We’re trying to get it right and partner with the right players in the market.
How have your investments made an impact on communities?
In South America, we ran one of the largest privately-owned oil and gas companies. The impact on communities was massive because a portion of the wealth generated went directly to them. I saw firsthand how communities thrived through this wealth—schools were built, jobs were created, people prospered, and families’ lives improved dramatically with the resources injected into the community.
Social responsibility isn’t just about building a school or hospital—it’s also about ensuring job creation so people have income and purpose. You can build a hospital and cure diseases, but if you don’t develop a community with sufficient job opportunities to make it sustainable, that society suffers.
In Hawkers, we run programs providing eyewear solutions for people who lack access or can’t afford them. In South America, we built schools in communities without them, surrounding areas where we’ve made an impact or have a presence. We also offer scholarships and support other initiatives.
What advice would you give entrepreneurs?
Don’t be afraid of success. Don’t be afraid of failure. You’re going to fail for sure, but you’ll be successful at some point.
A lot of people sabotage themselves. They say, “I arrived where I wanted to be,” become comfortable, and don’t want to do anything more. Don’t be afraid of feeling uncomfortable. When I take on projects or investments, I motivate myself, but then I go to sleep at night thinking, “What did I get myself into? I was perfectly fine before.”
But once you’re in, don’t be afraid to swim. Throw yourself into the ocean, and you have to swim. That’s my motivation now. You have to swim and reach land, no matter what. You can’t drown. You must do whatever it takes to get to shore.
The way to achieve this is: don’t leave anything to chance. Be thorough, look at things 10,000 times, and keep your goal in sight. Focus, focus, focus—and it will happen.
Alejandro Betancourt López Online:
