Ernesto Cruz (born August 3, 1931) is a Nicaraguan banker, lawyer, and academic. Cruz was the founding Rector of

INCAE INCAE Business School is an international business school located at the Francisco de Sola campus in Nicaragua and the Walter Kissling Gam campus in Costa Rica. The ''Financial Times'' has ranked INCAE as a top global MBA program and ''The Wall S ...

, a position he held until 1980.

Early life and education

Ernesto Cruz was born in

León, Nicaragua León () is the second largest city in Nicaragua, after Managua. Founded by the Spanish as Santiago de los Caballeros de León, it is the capital and largest city of León Department. , the municipality of León has an estimated population of 2 ...

in 1931. After spending his youth in

Managua ) , settlement_type = Capital city , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Nicara ...

, Cruz moved to

Silver Spring, Maryland Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially unincorporated, in practice it is an edge city, with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 censu ...

, USA for boarding school. In 1956 Cruz earned his law degree from the National University of Nicaragua. After practicing law for several years, he went to

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, where he earned a PhD in Political Economy and Government in 1968. After moving back to Nicaragua, he returned to the US in 1980, moving to Miami where he would eventually earn a JD from the

University of Miami School of Law The University of Miami School of Law (Miami Law or UM Law) is the law school of the University of Miami, a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. Founded in 1926, the University of Miami School of Law is the oldest law school in ...

. He then worked in the banking industry for companies including BAC Financial Network.

INCAE

Cruz became the founding Rector of INCAE in 1968, and remained in that position until 1980. During his time at the head of the institution, he worked with Harvard and other US schools to provide advanced degrees in business management and executive education programs to Central and South Americans. He also created scholarship on subjects such as the proper role of government. An official portrait of him was unveiled at the university in 2013.

Writing

In 2017 Cruz published a history on INCAE’s inception and early years entitled ''INCAE, Los Años Formativos''. In 2018 Cruz released his first literary book ''Cuentos Verídicos'', which contains twenty-four stories from his career. For each he has taken literary liberties and changed the names of those involved.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cruz, Ernesto 1931 births Living people People from León, Nicaragua Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Nicaraguan academics Nicaraguan bankers 20th-century Nicaraguan lawyers University of Miami School of Law alumni