Alicia Castillo Holley

Alicia Castillo Holley is an international author and speaker who coined the term “Wealthing” as a systematic approach to creating wealth. She has been an advocate for change in the way education and businesses are conducted around the world.

Born in Venezuela to fascinating parents, she grew up first in a rice growing region -Acarigua- and later in a small town – El Limon. She spent a year in upstate New York as an exchange student in 1976, and came back to El Limon, until 1994, when she left her country. She has lived in Boston, US; Nyon, Switzerland; Santiago, Chile; Houston, US; and Perth, Australia, and travels around the world twice a year on speaking engagements.

She started her professional career as a young scientist, presenting her first paper at 16, becoming class valedictorian and working with plant cells. In 1989, she entered the corporate world leading as the head of product development department at Plantagro, a Bayer-Shell Joint Venture. In 1993, she took a self-funded sabatical to work for the Opera House and a year later moved to the USA to study a Master’s Degree in Business Administration a Babson College. Having lost all of her savings to the Venezuelan Bank Crisis, she arrived in Logan airport with two kids, two boxes and two suitcases. In 1997 she started Chile’s first Center for Entrepreneurship, and in 2000, Chile’s first privately held seed capital fund. In 2005 she semi-retired and focuses on researching, speaking, writing and philanthropy. She is an avid reader and traveler.

Alicia has started 9 companies and 1 non-profit and consulted and coached hundreds of business owners and scientists. She is married and has two children: Daniel Chapellin and Sara Chapellin – also an author.