Samuel Doria Medina

Samuel Jorge Doria Medina Auza is a Bolivian politician and former businessman. From 1987 until 2014 he was the president and main shareholder in SOBOCE, the largest cement manufacturer in Bolivia.

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Early life

Samuel Doria Medina was born on 4 December 1958 in La Paz at the Virgen de Copacabana Clinic on 20th Avenue. He graduated high school at the Nuestra Señora de Luján School, a Marist Brothers school, where in 1976 he witnessed the Argentine coup d'etat in Luján. He then studied economics and business administration at Universidad Católica Boliviana, and then earned his master's in economics at Arizona State University in the United States and his PhD in economics with a speciality in public finance from the London School of Economics in the United Kingdom. From a young age he was active in politics, joining the Movement of the Revolutionary Left.

Businesses

Apart from cement, Doria Medina operates hotel chains and holds the Bolivian franchise for Burger King.

Politics

In the 1990s, Doria Medina served as minister of planning during the presidency of Jaime Paz Zamora.
He is the leader of the National Unity Front and represented the party alongside Carlos Fernando Dabdoub Arrien in the December 2005 presidential election. In that election, Doria Medina finished 3rd with 7.8% of the national vote. He ran again in the 2009 elections and won 5.65% of the vote. Doria Medina ran once again in the 2014 elections; coming out second with 25.1% of the vote. He ran again for president in the 2025 elections but placed third in the first round and failed to advance to the runoff.
He has sought to position himself and his party as a moderate third force in Bolivian politics.

Personal life

Doria Medina married Nidia Monje Postigo in 1983 and has six children.
On 21 January 2005, Medina was travelling aboard a Cessna 208 Caravan, operated by Línea Aérea Amaszonas, that crashed into the Huaricollo Mountain Range, near the Colquiri mine. All eleven occupants on board the aircraft survived the accident, though many were injured.