Mario Alonso is an experienced corporate leader with significant expertise in project oversight, team building, and financial management. His career began with managing a chain of over 3,000 pawn shops owned by the Alonso family in Mexico, where he gained profound insights into secured lending on both a large-scale and individual basis. During the 2008 financial crisis, Mario foresaw opportunities and organized investment vehicles, including a real estate fund, to acquire distressed properties through foreclosure auctions and private sales. From 2008 to 2015, he oversaw the successful purchase, rehabilitation, and sale of more than 350 real estate assets.
His responsibilities included overseeing real estate valuations, acquisition and recovery processes, eviction operations, construction and rehabilitation projects, permits and inspections, rental management, and sales on a substantial scale. Managing the Alonso family’s wealth, Mario directed investments across diverse industries, including F&B operations in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood and transportation ventures spanning Texas, among other holdings. From 2016 to 2021, Mario cofounded and led L1BRE, a technology startup backed by venture capital. L1BRE developed proprietary ride-hailing software and achieved the distinction of becoming Latin America’s first startup to attain “unicorn status.”