José Antonio Fernández Carbajal

Under his family's stewardship, FEMSA evolved from a Monterrey-based brewery into a diversified consumer empire with two dominant businesses: OXXO convenience stores and Coca-Cola bottling. OXXO is the crown jewel — Latin America's largest convenience store chain with over 20,000 locations across Mexico and growing presence in Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Brazil. The chain serves as both a retail outlet and a financial services platform for Mexico's unbanked population, offering bill payments, cash withdrawals, and prepaid services. Coca-Cola FEMSA is the world's largest independent Coca-Cola bottler, serving over 260 million consumers across Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Brazil, and other Latin American markets. Fernández's strategic evolution included divesting non-core assets — FEMSA sold its Heineken stake (originally acquired through beer brand FEMSA Cerveza) for approximately $8 billion, simplifying the holding structure. His key challenges include maintaining OXXO's same-store sales growth as the chain matures in Mexico, executing international expansion (particularly in Brazil), managing Coca-Cola FEMSA's volumes amid sugar taxes and health trends, and allocating the Heineken proceeds between growth investments and shareholder returns. OXXO same-store sales growth and new store openings pace are the most closely watched metrics.