Preliminary Letter
Grey Gold is a biography of CEMEX’s Mexican billionaire CEO Lorenzo Zambrano. Zambrano’s story is essentially an epic set in the world of international business and globalization which also tells the tale of the modernization of the Mexican state. Although at its core a “business case”, the story of CEMEX (Cementos Mexicanos) and Zambrano brings together elements of Mexican politics, economics, and financial crises along with the implementation of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). Leading personalities from the world of business and politics from the 1980’s through to the present day are also examined in Grey Gold. Nicknamed “Lorenzo the Magnificent” by his friend, the celebrated author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Zambrano guided the evolution of CEMEX from a company operating in Mexico and valued at $300 million/U.S. to a company valued at $33 billion with operations in fifty countries. Today CEMEX is the number one cement company in the United States with more than 10,000 employees and continues to dominate the Mexican market. Overall, CEMEX is currently the largest building material company in the world competing head to head with France’s LaFarge and Swiss company Holcim, that are mainly cement producers. Furthermore, CEMEX is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), where it is consistently a top performer with an average share price increase of 20% per year for the past twenty years. CEMEX has been profiled in many business case studies from such institutions as Harvard Business School, Stanford INSEAD and Columbia University. With regards to the business press, Forbes, Fast Company and The Wall Street Journal have all written profiles of CEMEX. Both the academic and business studies along with the press profiles have focused on the company’s unique management model and its logistical business strategy which was modeled after the operations of both Federal Express and Houston Texas’ 911 emergency response system. Despite all of the attention focused upon CEMEX in recent years the complete story of this immensely successful company has yet to be told. This biography has not been authorized by Zambrano, nor endorsed by CEMEX. It is essentially a “warts and all” story of an intriguing family saga set amidst the financial and political elite of the ruling class in Mexico. Given this unique viewpoint, Grey Gold does not avoid the vital issue of power and its monopoly by a very small segment of Mexican society. Grey Gold contains information gathered over the past three years through interviews with not only Zambrano himself but also CEMEX’s top executives and their competitors. In addition, this biography made use of many primary sources to ensure a thorough investigation of the subject matter. As the author of Grey Gold, I bring many years of experience and expertise in the fields of economics and politics both in the Mexican context and on a worldwide scale. As a Mexican journalist covering business and politics, I am currently the Op-Ed Editor of
Mexico’s largest daily newspaper, “El Universal”, Editor of Foreign Affairs in Espanol (a joint venture with Foreign Affairs New York), host of the Televisa TV program “Contrapunto” and a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Washington Post and other U.S. media outlets. In addition, I am a former Investigative Editor of Reforma, the number two daily newspaper in Mexico and a Media Fellow at the yearly World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland. Lorenzo Zambrano attended Stanford Business School in the 1960’s where he not only studied the best of American business/management models and philosophy but he also became fascinated with the “high tech” world of computers in the very early stages of their development. Zambrano brought this “Silicon Valley” education and experience with him back to Mexico and his family’s relatively small cement producing business. Zambrano also returned to Mexico with a viewpoint quite different to that of his contemporaries along with an extremely strong work ethic and a dedication to risk-taking and a sophisticated approach to financing future growth. When most of the family owned companies in Mexico were selling out to multinationals, Zambrano decided that CEMEX should become one. Furthermore, when many Mexican companies were borrowing capital in Mexican pesos from supportive local banks, Zambrano was able to convince J.P. Morgan Bank and additional U.S. and European money lenders that he was worth the financial risk in dollars and euros. Grey Gold will appeal to those who are interested in business sagas such as Ron Chernow’s Titan and The House of Morgan, James Stewart’s Disneywar and Niall Ferguson’s The Rothschilds as well as those who read autobiographies by prominent CEO’s such as Jack Welch’s Straight From the Gut, Roberto Goizueta’s I’d Like the World to Buy a Coke and Richard Branson’s Losing My Virginity. I also firmly believe that Grey Gold will also appeal to the non-business reader with an interest in the history, politics and culture of Mexico. Americans in particular find stories portraying the Mexican experience extremely fascinating and at the same time alien and mysterious. Stories in the New York Times Magazine or by CNN’s Lou Dobbs pertaining directly to Mexico command a great deal of attention in the U.S. Finally, Grey Gold is essentially a tale of globalization which originates in a developing country and thus will be of interest to those individuals who read business management/strategy publications and who at the same time are engaged in business internationally and/or are searching for opportunities in China, India or Latin America. I am confident that readers of Thomas Friedman, Michael Porter, Kim and Mauborgne (who in Blue Ocean Strategy characterized CEMEX as a company shifting its orientation from cement to becoming “a functional product to the gift of dreams”) and Jim Collins in Built to Last and Good to Great will find Grey Gold of interest on many different levels. Grey Gold has been written in Spanish and the manuscript runs approximately 175 thousand words long. The book contains seven chapters which have been divided into two sections titled “The CEMEX Way” and “Mexico’s Economic Opening”. For
publication in the English language market, Grey Gold will have to be translated but this would not be a difficult task. World Spanish language rights have been sold to Ed. Santillana, a Madrid based publisher. English and foreign language rights are still available. Chapter summaries in English are attached. Please feel free to contact me directly if there is any additional information you require.
Sincerely,
Rosanna Fuentes Berain rfuentesberain@yahoo.com (52-1-55) 419-6478