Sebastián Piñera

Miguel Juan Sebastián Piñera Echenique (Spanish: [miˈɣel ˈxwan seβasˈtjam piˈɲeɾa etʃeˈnike] ^ⓘ; 1 December 1949 – 6 February 2024) was a Chilean businessman and politician who served as president of Chile from 2010 to 2014 and again from 2018 to 2022. The son of a Christian Democratic politician and diplomat, he studied business administration at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and economics at Harvard University. At the time of his death, he had an estimated net worth of US$2.7 billion, according to Forbes, making him the third richest person in Chile and the 1177th richest person in the world.

A member of the liberal-conservative National Renewal party, he served as a senator for the East Santiago district from 1990 to 1998, running for the presidency in the 2005 election, which he lost to Michelle Bachelet, and again, successfully, in 2010. As a result, he became Chile's first conservative president to be democratically elected since 1958, and the first to hold the office since the departure of Augusto Pinochet in 1990.

The legacy of Piñera's two administrations include the reconstruction following the 2010 Chile earthquake, the rescue of 33 trapped miners in 2010, a rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the legalization of same-sex marriage in Chile in 2021–2022. After leaving office in 2022 Piñera developed amicable relations with the new left-wing president Gabriel Boric, who had previously been a harsh critic of him. Piñera died in a helicopter crash on Lake Ranco on 6 February 2024 at age 74.