By Jonathan Lomelí. Originally published in El Informador in Spanish on 15 January 2025. Reprinted here in English with permission. Watch the video on Instagram or TikTok.

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Altagracia Gómez Sierra texts Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on her mobile, revealing how close the two are in a recent interview.

 

Gómez has the privilege of speaking directly with the President of Mexico. Add that privilege to the many she enjoyed as a child and as the heiress of the business empire of her father, the Jalisco native Raymundo Gómez Flores.

 

In 2022, Altagracia gave an interview to the host of a podcast. She was still unknown then. In that conversation Gómez offered a key to understanding her ethics both as a businesswoman and an individual, where her awareness of her privilege occupies a central place.

 

At that time, Gómez, who trained as a lawyer at the Escuela Libre de Derecho, was already the president of Grupo Promotora Empresarial de Occidente, a conglomerate made up of companies such as Minsa, the world's second largest producer of corn flour; Dina, dedicated to the manufacture of buses; and Almer, a leading company in logistics and storage services, among other successful firms in the real estate, agribusiness, manufacturing and financial solutions sectors. Today, at 33 years old, Gómez serves as coordinator of the Business Advisory Council of the Presidency of the Republic, an honorary position.

 

In short, Altagracia Gómez is the link between the federal government and Mexico’s private sector.

 

The story of her family's wealth kicked off during the decade of Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the controversial reforming PRI president who championed NAFTA. Gómez’s family benefited from the wave of privatization which President Salinas’ reforms unleashed. Her father, Gómez Flores, acquired the state-owned companies Minsa, Dina and Almer during that time. He also tried unsuccessfully to buy TV Azteca.

 

From that great leap of privatization at the end of the nineties, Gómez Flores’ fortune was born alongside at least 22 other Mexican families, including that of Carlos Slim.

 

Gómez has spoken openly about this, shall we say, "historical paradox,” from her position as a promoter of the so-called “second floor” of the Fourth Transformation (4T). The 4T, of course, rejects neoliberalism and Fobaproa (a reference to the controversial “Savings Protection Banking Fund” introduced by the Ernesto Zedillo administration in the 1990s) , despite the fact that the latter also benefited her family.

 

The businesswoman from Jalisco is not an active user of social media, but she lights up the networks and grabs the headlines every time she appears at a public event.

 

Her eloquence before the microphone easily cuts through cliché corporate speak, often delighting digital audiences and surprising the business community. She combines technical vocabulary with ideas and wordplay: being disruptive without being destructive. “Continuity with change.” “Convincing instead of conquering.” “Nobody gives you power, you take it.” “You do what you can and what is necessary.” “Nearshoring.”

 

Gómez’s particular attire, which is more reminiscent of a Russian empress than a typical businesswoman from Guadalajara, is a way of self-affirmation in a business world dominated by men: “If you see 100 black suits and a girl in pink, it does attract attention,” she’s said.

 

Gómez says that her father read Álvaro Obregón's letter to his son every year. In it, the Mexican politician warns of the dangers of growing up with privileges: “Those who are born and grow up under the protection of high positions are condemned by a fatal law, to always look down.”

 

The letter invites self-criticism in order to build an ethic of effort without getting lost in an unreal world of attention and privileges.

 

Altagracia says that she met Sheinbaum at a citizen hearing in 2019 in Mexico City. They later met at another meeting about the rise in tortilla prices. The admiration was apparently mutual.

 

In that interview years ago, when she was still unknown, Gómez declared: “Those who I want to know me, know me.” Today, everyone is talking about her.

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By Jonathan Lomelí. You can read the Spanish language article originally published in El Informador here. Reprinted here in English with permission. Watch the video on Instagram or TikTok.