World Of Forbes: Stories Of Entrepreneurial Capitalism Across Our 39 International Editions

Across the planet, our 39 licensed editions span five continents, 25 languages and 13 time zones. They all share the same mission: celebrating entrepreneurial capitalism in all its forms.

BRAZIL

Forbes Brasil spotlights key players in the nation’s growing medical cannabis market, including Tegra Pharma, which has raised nearly $2 million to import CBD and THC products, and Dr. Cannabis, the digital marketplace run by Viviane Sedola.

---

BULGARIA

Earlier this year, Payhawk became Bulgaria’s first unicorn with a $215 million Series B led by Greenoaks Capital Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Hristo Borisov cofounded the fintech, which offers smart credit cards that allow finance departments to track expenses, in 2018.

---

CHILE

In May, Chilean retail conglomerate Cencosud announced it was buying supermarkets in the U.S. and Brazil (deals valued at $676 million and $98 million, respectively). Heike Paulmann Koepfer heads the business, started by her billionaire father, Horst Paulmann, in 1976.

---

COLOMBIA

Forbes Colombia’s list of the country’s 50 Most Powerful Women includes the government’s first female VP, Marta Lucía Ramírez (second from right), and actress Carolina Gaitán (left), who sings the hit “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from Disney’s Encanto.

---

COSTA RICA

Gonzalo Uribe leads Latin America operations for Kimberly-Clark, the packaged-goods giant. He oversees 13 factories in Costa Rica, El Salvador and beyond dedicated to manufacturing baby and feminine care products, wipes and tissues.

---

CYPRUS

As international powers have sanctioned Russia for violations against Ukraine, Cypriot shipping billionaire Polys Haji-Ioanno similarly wants penalties imposed on Turkey for its embargo that has banned Cyprus-to-Turkey maritime trade since 1987.

---

ECUADOR

Jorge Gómez Tejada reflects on Quito’s progress toward LGBTQ+ tolerance compared to a scary landscape—as he describes it—in the 1990s. He heads the Corporación de Promoción Universitaria, a research organization promoting higher education.

---

FRANCE

A pasta-serving robot has assembled more than 60,000 meals since restaurant startup Cala debuted it in late 2020. Cala (which has raised nearly $8 million in venture funding) opened a second Paris outpost in May.

---

GEORGIA

Forbes Georgia features Giorgi Diasamidze, 23, on its latest cover. He is general manager of Todua Clinic, a Tbilisi hospital founded in 1991 by his grandfather, Fridon Todua, that specializes in cancer treatment.

---

GREECE

Philip Morris International SVP Gregoire Verdeaux is tasked with phasing out cigarettes. PMI owns leading Greek manufacturer Papastratos, which has put more than $730 million into converting its Aspropyrgos factory to exclusively make heated tobacco products.

---

HUNGARY

May marked 30 years since Sándor Csányi took the helm of Hungary’s largest financial services firm, OTP Bank. The country’s richest man, 69, recently named his son Péter, currently chief digital officer, as one of his potential successors.

---

INDIA

In 2009, friends Samir Bodas (left) and Monish Darda started Icertis, a contracts management platform, and signed Microsoft as customer No. 1. Today, the Seattle-based business, with a valuation exceeding $5 billion, employs more than 1,500 people in India.

---

INDONESIA

Forbes Indonesia 30 Under 30 listmaker Syarif Rousyan Fikri cofounded West Java edtech platform Pahamify; its gamified education materials, which help students prepare for college, have been downloaded more than 1 million times.

---

ITALY

Vittorio Moretti, 81, tells the story of his 50-year-old family business, Terra Moretti, and how he’s preparing to pass it on to his three daughters, who oversee its three divisions: wineries, construction and resorts.

---

JAPAN

The six HORITA stationery stores in Fukui prefecture attract some 700,000 visitors per year. CEO Toshifumi Horita describes the family business, dating to 1950, as entertainment and community for all ages, offering art workshops, household goods and a cafe.

---

KAZAKHSTAN

Forbes Kazakhstan’s list of the 50 Richest Businessmen includes three millionaire board members of Kusto Group, an international holding company with sales exceeding $1 billion. Daulet Nurzhanov, head of its agricultural arm, talks about the wartime challenges for its Ukraine operations.

---

LATVIA

Workland, an Estonian company that operates 10 coworking spaces in the Baltics, is investing more than $1 million in a complex in Riga, Latvia’s capital, that can accommodate about 180 workers. It’s set to open this year.

---

MEXICO

Cochabamba-based Quantum makes electric vehicles that were first used to move cargo inside Bolivian mines; they’re due to hit streets in Mexico this year. Cars, priced up to $8,000, run on lithium batteries.

---

MONGOLIA

Amarbayar Amarsanaa is bringing tech experience to Ulaanbaatar via his business consultancy and an annual web developers conference, DevSummit. Since 2008, he has worked computer science jobs on the U.S. West Coast at the likes of Apple and Amazon.

---

MOZAMBIQUE

“My greatest longing for women in society is to see them completely emancipated, with the same opportunities as man, free from violence and discrimination.”

---

NETHERLANDS

As CEO of Fairphone, Eva Gouwens is committed to making smartphones that consumers keep longer, thus reducing waste, and to ensuring healthy conditions for low-wage workers. The Amsterdam manufacturer has sold 400,000 devices since 2013.

---

PERU

Started as a Lima-based ticket marketplace in 2014, Joinnus lists concerts, courses, festivals and more as far as Ecuador, Colombia and Mexico. Cofounder Carolina Botto is betting that adoption of hybrid events—selling in-person and virtual attendance—will boost capacity by a factor of four.

---

POLAND

In June 2021, Joanna Kimla launched a brand of nail polishes and cosmetics using natural ingredients such as sea bamboo and squalane oil, derived from sugarcane. Made in the Polish port city Gdańsk, her Inveray products are now sold in 16 countries.

---

PORTUGAL

Andy Brown joined GALP in 2021 as the first foreign CEO of the Lisbon-based energy company founded in 1999. The Brit’s charge is accelerating its green future, directing 50% of capital into biofuels and renewables by 2030 and decarbonization by 2050.

---

ROMANIA

Under the direction of CEO Achilleas Kanaris, Vodafone Romania has distributed some 80,000 packs of SIM cards to neighboring Ukraine during the war. A focus of the executive’s five-year plan is full deployment of 5G service across Romania.

---

SLOVAKIA

A self-employed public relations consultant in Bratislava, Zuzana Suchová (center, among women featured for their aid to Ukrainians) leads a fundraising campaign that has raised more than $1.8 million to support people fleeing the war.

---

SOUTH AFRICA

In April, Sello Moloko became chairman of Absa Group, the Johannesburg-based bank network operating in 12 African nations. One of his priorities, he says, will be funding small businesses and addressing youth unemployment.

---

SPAIN

Mango, the Spanish clothing retail chain that made a billionaire of founder Isak Andic, recently announced that it will invest about $105 million to grow its U.S. footprint from a half-dozen stores to 40 by 2024.

---

UAE

Financial health is “just as important as physical and mental health,” says Ambareen Musa, who raised $15 million for her Dubai-based financial comparison website, Souqalmal, before selling a majority of it this year. Its MoneyDoctor financial literacy curriculum is used by companies including Emirates Catering.

---

UKRAINE

Railway company Ukrzaliznytsia, a hardened symbol of inefficiency during peacetime, quickly mobilized into an effective wartime machine—evacuating up to 200,000 civilians per day, delivering humanitarian aid and transporting wounded soldiers.