In 2016, the consulting firm KPMG surveyed more than 200 directors and senior executives of family businesses in Mexico. Only 45 percent of the respondents had a governing body such as a board of directors. Only 30 percent of the boards included independent members in their meetings. KPMG described “decisiones más o menos unilaterales tomadas por los dueños y directores” (more or less unilateral decisions taken by the owners and directors).
Twenty-One Coaches
In April 2014, Jorge Vergara, the owner of the football club Chivas of Guadalajara, announced the dismissal of its coach, Ricardo La Volpe, himself. In October 2014, El Financiero counted that in his twelve years as owner, Vergara had hired 21 coaches. It called them “la larga lista de entrenadores empleados y despedidos por Vergara” (the long list of coaches hired and fired by Vergara).
In June 2019, ESPN reported that Vergara had given his son Amaury full authority over the club’s decisions, including changes of coach. When Amaury dismissed a coach, ESPN wrote that he continued “una tradición que su padre” had made popular “con el conjunto rojiblanco” (a tradition that his father had made popular with the red-and-white team).
The One Who Commands
El que manda, manda, y si se equivoca, vuelve a mandar. “The one who commands, commands, and if he makes a mistake, he commands again.” In a 2019 column in Excélsior, the journalist Félix Cortés Camarillo wrote that he learned the saying from a businessman, don Emilio.