“Ninety percent of businesses fail. If you want to be part of the 10 percent that make it, or part of that .001 percent who are able to change the world or able to create thousands of jobs, you (need to) outwork everybody,”
Marcelo Claure
About
Marcelo Claure is a global entrepreneur and investor. He is a Partner and Co-Chairman of Brightstar Capital Partners, a multi-billion investment firm focused on deploying AI to transform businesses.
He also serves as CEO of Claure Group, a multi-billion-dollar investment firm deploying proprietary capital across various sectors, Chairman of Bicycle Capital, Latin America’s leading growth equity fund, Vice Chairman of SHEIN, the world’s largest on-demand e-commerce platform, and Co-Chair of the D^3 Institute at Harvard, a global research center providing insights on how to use AI and digital technologies to advance business and society. Claure is also an active board member and the largest independent shareholder of T-Mobile.
A passionate soccer investor, Claure owns Club Bolívar (Bolivia) and co-owns Girona FC (Spain) and New York City FC (USA) with City Football Group.
Previously, he was CEO of SoftBank Group International, where he managed a portfolio of over $450 billion in assets. He also led the turnaround of Sprint as CEO and its landmark merger with T-Mobile, creating the world’s most valuable telecom company. He began his career by founding Brightstar, which under his leadership became the world’s largest wireless distribution and services company before he sold it to SoftBank.
Why Should You Listen
to Marcelo?
What You’ll Learn
How to scale fast, lead through disruption, and spot global opportunities before everyone else.
Why You’ll Love Him
He’s built and rebuilt giants, and isn’t afraid to say what real leadership takes.
What’s Unusual
Marcelo’s philosophy is pure BBF: don’t wait for disruption, be the one who provokes it.
Beyond the Hype: How Society and Established Players Will Win with AI
While most conferences focus on the trillion-dollar AI supply market, far fewer explore the even larger opportunity ahead: how incumbent businesses will apply AI and capture most of the value. This session goes beyond hype cycles and model releases to reveal how established companies—with scale, data, distribution, and customers—are poised to become the real winners of the AI era.
Drawing on experience from SoftBank to Brightstar Capital Partners, the Claure Group, and the board of T-Mobile, Marcelo Claure will share how his team executed one of the only successful large-scale AI transformations in the industry. Attendees will learn what differentiates companies that talk about AI from those that use it to reshape cost structures, accelerate growth, and build lasting competitive advantage.
Driving innovation, AI advancement, and transformational growth across global markets
Marcelo has received numerous awards throughout his career, including induction to Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Hall of Fame, recognition as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and the Great Immigrants Recipient by the Carnegie Corporation, an award given to extraordinary immigrants who have made notable contributions to the progress of American society. Additionally, he is an investor in most of the leading AI and longevity-first companies, such as OpenAI, SpaceX, Anthropic, Databricks, K-Health, Altos Labs, and Oura. He is also the largest independent shareholder of T-Mobile and the lead Board Member involved in its AI and digital transformation—the largest publicly announced program of its kind—which is expected to increase profitability by $10 billion by 2027.
Get to Know Marcelo
Meet the other BBF
2026 Speakers
