Ecuador's leading lady: Isabel Noboa came from a wealthy family. But don't hold that against her. She's a self-made woman whose conglomerate, Nobis SA, holds some of Ecuador's leading firms

Latin CEO: Executive Strategies for the Americas, Dec, 2001 by Jose Velasquez

IN 1994, ISABEL NOBOA was set for life. She stood to inherit part of a US$1.8 billion fortune when her father, the late banana baron Luis Noboa, passed away that year. Instead of living off her inheritance, the eldest Noboa daughter--a mother of three and a non-profit volunteer--took the money and built her own empire.

She cashed in her shares of the Noboa family's shipping companies and huge banana plantations, and in 1997, three years after her father died at age 78, she reached an agreement with the estate's heirs to give up part of their banana business in exchange for the largest Coca-Cola bottling company in Ecuador. More than a bold move toward independence, it was Noboa's first step to becoming one of Ecuador's most successful entrepreneurs.

"The most valuable inheritance I got from my father was his effort, his creativity and his faith in this country," Noboa says.

Add tenacity to the list. During the past four years she has also acquired the nation's oldest and most productive sugar mill--Valdez--along with 12 other companies, ranging from one of Ecuador's largest dairy farms, to an alcohol supplier for the liquor industry, to cosmetics and pharmaceuticals firms.

The companies form the basis for Nobis SA, a US$520 million consortium that Isabel Noboa runs as its chairman and CEO. Not bad for a person whose only business experience prior to 1994 consisted of running a small language academy out of her home in Guayaquil when she was 21. "1 had about 50 students, and the academy lasted about four years. That was my very first company," she recalls.

Since then, Noboa has earned a degree in economics from London University, and learned Italian, English and French while also studying computer science at New York's Marymount College. "My father taught me to be prepared for all circumstances," she says of her education.

Apparently, the advice served her well.

Noboa, however, didn't count on Ecuador's economy falling apart. The year after the center opened, Ecuador's currency lost more than 88 percent of its value, ushering in the worst fiscal crisis in the nation's history. By some accounts, almost 600,000 people emigrated from Ecuador in the ensuing years, taking with them much-needed local capital; some US$3 billion was withdrawn from the banking system. The economic storm left hundreds of businesses, including 22 banks, bankrupt.

While negotiating her inheritance, Noboa and her husband, Isidro Romero, took US$70 million and began building the Mall del Sol in Guayaquil. Completed in 1997, the one million-square-foot shopping center--the largest on the South Pacific Coast--has expanded to include an executive center and a Sheraton hotel, becoming the centerpiece of her growing empire.

Noboa, for her part, decided to stay put. With her marriage to Romero failing, she took full control of the consortium in 1998. Facing zero percent occupancy in her new office buildings, Noboa asked her 5,000 employees to work harder and forgo salary increases. "We worked in teams, we assumed the responsibility and we made the commitment not to fail the people depending on us. We all understood these were not my companies, but ours," she recalls. Noboa even went ahead with the completion of the first Howard Johnson hotel in the capital city of Quito in 1999.

The difficult work paid off. The real estate portion of her empire is now, like the Ecuadoran economy as a whole, on the rebound. Two more apartment buildings, two hotels and a high-tech hospital are underway, due for completion in 2003. Noboa's various companies now employ more than 8,000. "I was so impressed by how she managed to run her companies, with such a positive spirit and leadership, fighting back the worst crisis," says Ecuador's foreign commerce minister, Richard Moss.

One of the key elements for Nobis and the national economic recovery came last year, when the government adopted the US dollar as its own currency The inflation nightmare ended overnight, and now the country's rate of GDP growth is the highest in Latin America, forecast at 5 percent or better for both 2001 and 2002.

For its part, Nobis is also on track. "At the moment we barely have debts and we are focused on growing, improving and expanding with the new hotels and hospital," says Noboa. Her Valdez sugar mill is thriving, earning US$19 million in profits last year on more than US$64 million in sales. Her Coca-Cola Congaseosas, meanwhile, has joined the Ecuador Bottling Company a corporation which merged all Coca-Cola bottling operations in the country. Nobis holds one-third of the shares.

Noboa, who is not related to Ecuadoran President Gustavo Noboa, also has also been named president of the pro-trade National Competitiveness Board. She tours the nation twice a month lecturing to entrepreneurs about the challenges of global marketing and takes suggestions back to the government planning board.

Even so, Noboa--who calls herself a "social entrepreneur"--believes her most important work is done outside the boardroom. After her father died, she formed an anti-poverty organization and named it after him. LANN (the initials of her father's full name) supports education, health and housing projects nationwide. "Right now there are 70 public schools in which we finance special programs that provide everything from vitamins to new computers," she says.