Inside the Private Equity Engine Powering Latin America’s Next Chapter

Discussion with Diego Chona

With more than a decade of experience at Patria Investments, one of Latin America’s largest alternative asset managers, Diego Chona has helped shape the firm’s private equity strategy in Latin America. He spearheaded over 21 investments in Colombia which serve more than 3.5 million people and grew the private equity team from just two professionals to over sixteen, while employing more than 18,000 people in its portfolio companies. Today, Patria manages $46 billion in assets across private equity, infrastructure, credit, real estate, and more. 6 billion of those have been invested in Colombia. In this article, Chona explores how Patria is turning the operational and regulatory complexities of Latin American markets into long-term value creation. From building market leaders in Colombia to earning the trust of the world’s largest institutional investors, this article unpacks how private equity can become a force for regional development, resilient returns, and impactful transformation.

Winning Global Trust While Navigating Local Realities

Patria’s ability to attract global capital to Latin America is no accident. The firm has established deep relationships with some of the world’s most sophisticated institutional investors—including 10 of the 20 largest pension funds globally, six of the top 10 U.S. pension funds, and a half-dozen sovereign wealth funds. In addition, the firm is about to have its initial closing on its first local Colombian Private Equity + Infrastructure with very important institutional investors such as pension funds, insurance companies and multilaterals participating. Yet Chona is quick to highlight that securing capital is only half the equation. The real challenge lies in translating those global expectations into consistent returns.

“Our strategy has been to invest in sectors that are very resilient—sectors that grow with the economy, such as healthcare and food—as well as in areas where we have a competitive advantage, like agribusiness. We focus on building companies that are leaders in those sectors,” he explains.

Moreover, Patria has learned to balance global investor expectations with regional realities. Chona points out that “resilience is key” when navigating the complexities of emerging markets. This pragmatic mindset has allowed Patria to build investor trust and secure repeat capital commitments despite changing political and macroeconomic cycles.

By focusing on need-driven sectors and governance-oriented growth strategies, Patria ensures that global investors are not just taking on risk, but actively participating in transformation. It’s an alignment of capital and impact that resonates across both developed and developing markets.

From Local Insight to Regional Impact

One of Patria’s core strengths is its ability to create cross-border synergies in Latin America, elevating local champions into regional leaders. Rather than viewing each national market in isolation, Chona emphasizes a platform-building model that integrates country-level expertise into broader, LATAM-wide value chains. “What we try to do is bring the leaders from each country into a broader LATAM platform. This allows us to create companies with very consistent growth, and eventually, a clear path to liquidity,” says Chona.

This approach fosters operational integration, cultural cohesion, and shared best practices—factors that are critical to scaling in heterogeneous markets. By embedding country leaders into cross-border platforms, Patria enables companies to benefit from both local insight and regional ambition.

This model can be seen in sectors such as fitness, agricultural inputs and logistics, where the firm has supported companies in expanding their presence beyond national borders and already has listed 2 latam investments in Nasdaq and Bovespa. The goal isn’t just growth—it’s scalable, defensible leadership. By prioritizing synergy across borders, Patria sets the stage for platform-level resilience and long-term valuation.

Turning Operational Hurdles Into Strategic Advantage

For many global investors, Latin America is seen as a complex, high-risk environment. For Patria, this complexity is a moat. The firm deliberately targets sectors with high regulatory or operational barriers—healthcare, education, agribusiness, digital infrastructure—because these are the areas where thoughtful capital and active management can make the greatest difference. “Of course, we might be operating in sectors that have complexities, but we see this as an opportunity. We like to be involved in the operations, go deep into the companies, and transform the way they do business,” Chona notes.

Unlike passive investors, Patria embraces the operational grind. It enters underserved regions, builds infrastructure, recruits specialized teams, and works hand-in-hand with entrepreneurs to create impact from the ground up. These are not plug-and-play investments—they are multi-year engagements that require resilience and creativity.

By solving structural bottlenecks—from supply chain issues to service accessibility—the firm not only builds stronger companies but also reduces risk over time. What others see as friction, Patria sees as a foundation for long-term strategic advantage.

Why Colombia Became a Cornerstone of Patria’s Vision

Since its first investment in Colombia, Patria has deployed over $700 million in private equity capital, making the country its second-largest market after Brazil. More importantly, it has built a portfolio of category leaders that now employ over 18,000 people across the country.

“We have the largest gym chain through SmartFit, the largest agricultural input distribution company with Lavoro, the top cybersecurity firm in Colombia called SEK, and the largest hospital chain with Zentria,” Chona says. These aren’t just financial assets; they’re national infrastructure pillars.

What sets Patria apart is its deep regional engagement. By investing in underserved areas across Colombia and actively managing projects with a hands-on, entrepreneurial mindset, the firm brings capital, capability, and operational rigor to regions often ignored by traditional investors. It’s a model that demands more but delivers more—in both impact and returns.

Chona also emphasizes that trust is foundational. We like to work with the best entrepreneurs for whom “We had to prove we were true partners, not just investors,” he explains. That trust-building process, paired with strategic knowledge transfer, has become a cornerstone of Patria’s value creation model in Colombia.

Impact That Scales With Strategy

Patria’s approach to private equity goes beyond financial performance. It embraces impact as a core strategic lever—particularly in sectors like healthcare, agribusiness,  and logistics. Rather than treating social benefit as a byproduct, the firm embeds it into the core value proposition.

“We realized there was a lack of hospital supply in certain regions of Colombia,” Chona shares. Today, Patria’s Zentria platform serves 3.5 million Colombians—around 7% of the population—with an integrated model of hospitals and primary care that emphasizes early diagnosis and treatment.

In agribusiness, Patria’s Lavoro arm supports over 67,000 small and medium-sized farmers with crop planning, inputs, and post-harvest commercialization. Meanwhile, SmartFit provides affordable, high-quality fitness services to over 500,000 people. These impact stories are not isolated—they’re core to Patria’s value creation thesis.

Each initiative contributes to human capital development, supply chain resilience, and regional economic inclusion. In doing so, Patria demonstrates that private equity—when done with intention—can be a powerful catalyst for scalable, inclusive growth.

Unlocking Colombia’s Future With Global and Local Capital

As Latin America garners more attention in a geopolitically fractured world, Patria sees Colombia as a long-term growth engine. Chona points to the country’s 50+ million citizens, rising consumption, and relative macroeconomic stability as key indicators of future potential. “Today, we’re working with local pension funds, insurance companies, family offices—even retail investors. We want them to invest with us,” he says. 

“We already have the trust of global investors—from some of the largest pension funds and sovereign wealth funds in the world—so our goal is to bring local capital into that same momentum.” The idea is to blend international credibility with local commitment, creating a shared ecosystem for capital deployment and national development. Patria is now focused on deepening its partnerships with domestic capital pools. Chona believes this dual commitment—global and local—can unlock more sustainable, impact-oriented investments that benefit from patient capital and long-term alignment.

By combining financial rigor with entrepreneurial drive, Patria offers a roadmap for how private equity can thrive in complex markets. For global executives seeking high-impact opportunities in emerging economies, Latin America’s next chapter may well be written in Bogotá, Medellín, and beyond—with firms like Patria leading the charge.

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