At age twenty, Julio was studying architecture while holding part time jobs at the renowned architect Oscar Niemeyer's studio and at Banco do Brasil, the government owned bank. A year later, Julio and Rita got married. As he likes to say, "back then there was no fooling around, you either got married or you got married".

Shortly after their first child, Leila, was born, Julio, who dropped out of college because of his increasing responsibilities at Banco do Brasil, began to broker small real estate deals. He had an uncanny ability to match his clients with the perfect apartment or house, with the most appropriate address and budget. Soon, Julio had other brokers working with him, and shortly after, working for him. At that point, both family and the business were growing together, with the arrival of the second child, Claudio, and with Julio quitting his job at Banco do Brasil to concentrate on real estate.

Julio began then to broker large sales, naming his company as Julio Bogoricin Imóveis. He had a talent for knowing which areas of the city had the best potential to grow and what kind of people would like to live in those areas. Based on his selling expertise, he got involved in projects from the blueprint all the way to the final sale. Julio was also known to carry catalogs of all the projects he was involved with, so that when someone came to ask him about a certain property, he always had alternatives to propose. That is something that may sound basic in our age of Internet and big data, but that at the time was a revolutionary sales practice.

With Rita always by his side, Julio grew his company into what was once the largest real estate brokerage firm in the country, giving jobs to thousands of people and helping the development of a booming real estate market in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. All this while raising a beautiful family of three children and eight grandchildren.

Today, Julio and Rita live in New York, focusing their attention on private matters, mostly their family. They continue to be avid Zionists. They are also proud members the Jewish Latin Center.

He also drives the EM flagship publications. On several occasions, he has left his country coverage duties temporarily to participate in advisory projects with some governments and quasi-sovereign entities in Latin America, Middle East and Asia. His previous professional engagements include teaching at the Department of Economics of New York University (1993-1997), researcher at the Operations Evaluation Department of the World Bank (1994), and economic analyst at Grupo Apoyo, an economic think-tank in Lima, Peru (1989-1992). Luis obtained his Ph.D. in Economics from New York University in 1998 and his B.A. in Economics from Universidad de Lima in 1990.

At VBP, Ms. Schuftan was responsible for evaluating and implementing strategic alternatives for leading industrial conglomerates as well as originating and executing M&A transactions in the Andean region, Mexico and the Southern Cone. Ms. Schuftan holds a B.A. from Tufts University. Ms. Schuftan has been living in New York for the past 10 years, where she has been active in the local Latin Jewish community. She has also been a member of the Jewish Latin Center's committee since its inception.