Jorge Giordani was born on June 30, 1940, in the city of San Francisco de Macorís in the Dominican Republic.

Both had left Europe in the wake of the Spanish Civil War, in which Jorge's father had fought on the Republican side as part of the Garibaldi Battalion.

[citation needed] He was nicknamed "the Monk" in reference to his austere lifestyle,[4] and was one of Chávez's closest advisers and the chief architect of the country's state-led economic system.

[6] Political opponents accused Giordani of being a "Soviet-era dinosaur"[7] and placed upon him a large amount of the blame for the country's 2013–present economic crisis in Venezuela.

[7] As of January 2023, Giordani has continued to speak out against the Maduro presidency in the years since, including a denouncement of the loss of $300bn to corruption in 2016.