Paul Vinelli

Los Oligarcas: De Donde Salieron Los Ricos?, César Indiano, Tegucigalpa, Honduras: Zafra Editores, 2014.

Vinelli died following heart surgery on February 18, 1997, at age 74 in Houston, Texas. He was buried in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, the city where he lived the last forty-seven years of his life.

Biografías Ilustradas: Doctor Paul Vinelli, Oscar Acosta and Vicente Machado Valle, Tegucigalpa Honduras: Evensa, 1997.

1996 -1997 – Ambassador for Honduras – Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

1993–1997 – Director, International Board of Visitors – Zamorano Agricultural School - 1997 – Founder, Alternate Governor, Director – Federación Latinoamericana de Bancos (FELABAN)

1991 – 1997 – Director – Banco Latinoamericano de Exportaciones y Importaciones (BLADEX)

1981 – Director, Board of Governors – Inter-American Development Bank

Vinelli was also noted for his role in the development of financial services and industry in Honduras. He helped create and was president of many companies, in the areas of paper, hotels, real estate, insurance, and others. He was a founder of Atlantic Bank Limited Belize. He was decorated by the governments of Chile, Honduras, Italy, Panama and the United States. In 1980, he was kidnapped by the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and held for 75 days.

On December 18, 1980, Vinelli was kidnapped while being driven to work. Three women and two men orchestrated the attack, killing his bodyguard and blinding his driver. He was kept in a safe house in Tegucigalpa for 75 days while the kidnappers negotiated the ransom with his family. He was released on March 2, 1981. It was later revealed that the organization who held him was the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) of El Salvador.

In the 1960s and 1970s Vinelli led a horizontal diversification of Banco Atlántida into a group that invested in multiple financial services, such as insurance (Seguros Atlántida) and information technology. The diversified model was later imitated by other major banks in Honduras. He also spearheaded a group of investors to create and grow a wide variety of companies, bringing advanced know-how to many industries. Some of the companies he helped start or grow were: Embotelladora La Reyna (Pepsi Cola bottling company), Hoteles de Honduras which owns the historic Hotel Honduras Maya, Cartonera Nacional, Convertidora Nacional de Papél y Cartón (paper/cardboard), Lotificadora San Fernando, Lotificadora Industrial, Rancho El Coco (real estate).

1960–1962 – President of board of directors, instrumental in the building of current location – American School of Tegucigalpa

In 1957 he joined Banco Atlántida, then one of the largest banks in Honduras, which during the 1960s and 1970s was a correspondent bank of Chase Manhattan Bank. He was CEO from 1978 to 1995, and chairman of the board from 1978 until his death in 1997. He helped establish the School of Economics at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras where he taught for twenty-five years. In 1996 he was named Honduran Ambassador to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

In 1957 he returned to Honduras. By the end of that year he joined Banco Atlántida, one of the largest private banks in the country, as Assistant to the CEO. He remained with the bank for forty years. From 1978 to 1995 he was CEO and chairman of the board, and then remained chairman of the board from 1995 until his death at age 74 in 1997.

Vinelli remained in Honduras as Economic Advisor to the governments of Juan Manuel Gálvez and then Julio Lozano Díaz. In October 1956, Lozano was overthrown by a military junta. At the time, one of Vinelli's responsibilities was to manage the budget of the country. He had a disagreement with the new military leadership over expenses and they exiled him. He moved to the United States for several months.

The National Congress of Honduras approved the legislation in February 1950, and soon afterwards the IMF moved Vinelli and his family to Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Vinelli worked with a Honduran commission appointed by Gálvez, an advisor from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and bankers from Guatemala and El Salvador. The team, led by Vinelli, created the two banks in three months; they opened for business in July 1950. Inaugurating a Central Bank was a major step in the monetary area for Honduras: until 1950, lempiras and dollars were interchangeable as currency, and lempiras were issued by two private banks. After July 1, 1950, The Central Bank became the only issuer of the lempira. This monetary sovereignty resulted in the government of Honduras having what economists call seigniorage, the profits from which allowed the Central Bank later to finance operations of the Honduran government.

Vinelli attended the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank annual meetings from 1950 to 1996. From 1968 to 1996 he was an alternate governor and then director of the Federación Latinoamericana de Bancos (FELABAN). The international banking contacts he made at these meetings were beneficial not only to Banco Atlántida but also to the government of Honduras, who he continued to advise in different capacities over his lifetime.

Vinelli joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as an economist in 1948. In 1949, Honduran president Juan Manuel Gálvez asked the IMF to assist his government with writing new banking and tax legislation and the parameters for establishing a Central Bank and a National Bank for Agricultural Development. The purpose of these banks was to regulate the exchange policy, monetary policy and credit policy of Honduras. Vinelli was the lead economist on that mission and worked with members of the Honduran Ministry of Finance in drafting the legislation.

In 1946, he served six months in the U.S. Army. He was released from service as World War II wound down and the need for soldiers was greatly reduced. From 1946 to 1948, he worked as a Trust Investment Advisor and later a Security Analyst at American Security & Trust Company in Washington, D.C.

After completing his studies in Michigan, in 1944 Vinelli was hired by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, D.C. He was an economist in the Division of Research and Statistics, International Section. He wrote several papers while there, including New Taxation Trends in Latin America.

Vinelli attended 8th grade at The North School and then went on to Portland High School. While there, he changed his name to Paul Vinelli. He then attended University of Michigan from 1940 to 1944, graduating with an A.B. in Romance languages and an M.A. in economics.

Vinelli was born Paolo Vinella in Naples, Italy, the third and youngest child of Angelo Vinella and Addolorata Casavola. When he was five, the family moved to Salerno, Italy. They immigrated to the United States in 1935, establishing a grocery business in Portland, Maine.

Paul Vinelli (November 7, 1922 – February 18, 1997) was an Italian-American-Honduran economist and banker. He was sent to Honduras in 1949 by the International Monetary Fund to advise the government on banking and tax legislation. He was instrumental in the creation of the Central Bank of Honduras and the National Bank for Agricultural Development in 1950. He remained working as an economic advisor to the Honduran government for six years. In future years he continued to be one of the strongest guides of Honduran economic policy.