Espuelas was the co-founder and Chairman of the StarMedia Foundation which, in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank and Microsoft, built technology training schools in poor neighborhoods in Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay.

[28][29] Espuelas also writes for the Huffington Post,[30] The Hill,[3] and CNN[31] and is a frequent commentator on television, such as CBS News,[32] radio on Univision[33] and NPR,[34] as well in print across the world.

[citation needed] Espuelas worked a series of jobs while going to junior high and high school: gardener, gas station attendant, Woolworth's clerk, restaurant worker; movie usher; newspaper delivery boy, messenger, Chinese food delivery person, pet shop cleaner, baby sitter, electronics board assembler in an electronic church organ manufacturing company, clerk at a soda fountain; greeting card salesman, and as an intern at Philip Morris' headquarters in New York.

[citation needed] In 1988, Espuelas was hired as an assistant account executive by Wunderman Worldwide, a division of the Young & Rubicam advertising agency.

After two months in Argentina, Espuelas was additionally named head of the company's Unilever account, responsible for a portfolio of global brands such as Dove and Pond's.

Within a year, he was promoted to Managing Director of Marketing Communications for the Latin American and Caribbean region, becoming one of the youngest executives of that rank at the company.

After a frustrating year and a half of approaching venture capitalists to invest in his vision, only to have them uniformly refuse, many avowing that Latins "did not like technology" and would never use the Internet, the company went on to raise $2.5 million in 1997.

[51] Squeezed by the 2008 capital markets crisis and unable to raise additional venture funding, Voy restructured its operations, including lay-offs of staff in the U.S. and Latin America, and put itself up for sale.

[64] Fernando Espuelas created, hosts and is the managing editor of his eponymously named radio talk show on Univision America Network.

[66] Centered on politics and controversial social issues, Espuelas has interviewed on The Fernando Espuelas Show diverse political leaders,[33] including: President Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Chairman of the Republican National Committee Reince Priebus, Chair of the Democratic National Committee Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Obama for America Chief Campaign Spokesman Ben LaBolt, U.S.

Senator Michael Bennet, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Former Obama White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Ron Kirk, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, Democratic National Committee Executive Director Patrick Gaspard, Chairman of the American Conservative Union Al Cardenas, Special Assistant to the President & White House Deputy Director of the National Economic Council Brian Deese, Governor Buddy Roemer, Congressman Luis Gutierrez, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Obama "Car Czar" Steve Rattner, Bishop William Henry Willimon of the Methodist Church of Alabama, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, California Governor Jerry Brown, former New Mexico Governor and Libertarian Party 2012 Presidential candidate Gary Johnson, candidate Meg Whitman, Congressman Francisco Canseco, Congressman Xavier Becerra, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, Congressman David Rivera, Congressman George Miller, Congresswoman Judy Chu, Lt.

[69] Poder Magazine[70] named Espuelas one of "The Nation's 100 Most Influential Hispanics" in 2012 for the show's empowering of "...Latinos to be part of the American political system.

[29] In a highly publicized moment of inspiration that was recounted in numerous articles and television segments, Espuelas envisioned a "virtual plaza to connect the peoples of Latin America" while hiking atop a mountain in Nepal.

[72] Using a combination of their 12 credit cards, family savings, and loans from friends, the pair managed to piece together the first $100,000 used to launch the Latin portal in September 1996.

[75] According to Institutional Investor, "the $110 million IPO in May [1999] for StarMedia Networks, the Internet company [Espuelas] founded three years earlier, marked a watershed in the history of Latin America's financial markets.

For the first time, a pan-regional company built from scratch and headquartered in New York has sold shares on the Nasdaq Stock Market to mainly United States investors to finance its expansion in Latin America.

So far, the positioning has allowed StarMedia to make deals with Fox Latin America for sports and children's programming, with Dow Jones for financial news, and with Viacom Spelling Entertainment Group for TV show Melrose Place and other nighttime soap operas", explained Business Week in the article "Welcoming Spanish Speakers to the Web: Fast-growing StarMedia is Racing to Fill the Niche First"[80] Espuelas added: "We are literally creating an industry, we have built, but will continue to construct, the biggest brand in Latin America.

Round Table- Online Pioneers: The Buzz Never Stops", Espuelas explained his approach: "I spent a lot of time learning how Winston Churchill ran the Second World War.

"[10] According to a Harvard Business School case,[13] written by professors Thomas Eisenmann and John K. Rust, "by the fall of 1999, StarMedia had sprinted to a sizable lead in the race to acquire Latin American Internet users.

Its pan-regional, horizontal portal was the first to target Spanish- and Portuguese-language speakers on the Internet, registering 1.2 billion page views in the third quarter of 1999.

A picture of him on the cover of Internet World magazine--ripping his shirt open to show the StarMedia logo, like Superman, summed up the spirit of the company."

The company's high profile, as manifested in its thousands of press articles across the world, ensured that the whole Latin Internet sector benefited from a constant source of positive attention and relevance.

Billions of dollars were subsequently invested in Latin America by foreign and local companies, international venture capitalists and buy-out firms seeking to capitalize in the fast growth of this new segment.

The media referred to Espuelas as "The Hispanic Bill Gates"[87][88] and the "Simón Bolívar of the Internet",[89] terms that would be often recapitulated in thousands of articles and interviews referencing Starmedia.

[90] On August 5, 2001, after a disagreement with the Board regarding the strategic direction of the company, Espuelas resigned as CEO of StarMedia but agreed to stay on as Chairman until November 15, 2001 [91] to effect an orderly management transition.

[94] EresMas' new leadership of the Latin Internet (through the purchase of StarMedia the previous week) was cited by France Telecom as the reason for the acquisition.

[95] Espuelas writes in Life in Action[96]: "Because I believed in our company and our mission, I had never sold a single StarMedia share or stock option.

[97] At the time of the filing, Espuelas, who cooperated with the SEC investigation over five years,[98] told Adweek magazine: "I know that I did nothing wrong....It [the lawsuit] is related to accounting issues at the company.

In 2006, the company stated,[99] Starmedia was serving over 22 million unique users a month and continued to expand by launching new services, such as finance and entertainment channels, and opening offices across Latin America.

[84] " "What Fernando has been credited with is a vision that may be ahead of his time", says Adele Morrissette, a former angel investor in Starmedia and now a managing director at investment bank BMO Capital Markets Corp. of Toronto.