Emiliano Salinas cuts ties with NXIVM

Mexican businessman Emiliano Salinas announced that he has cut ties with NXIVM, the questioned self-improvement organization from upstate New York.

On April 12, Emiliano Salinas and his business partner Alejandro Betancourt cut ties with the Executive Success Programs (ESP) methodology and NXIVM. The two immediately ended their operational management services agreement with the company.

Between 2002 to 2015, Emiliano Salinas operated in Mexico as a licensee of the ESP methodology. ESP is owned by NXIVM Corporation from the US.

NXIVM, pronounced “nex-ee-um” is an Albany, New York-based organization run by Keith Raniere, who was recently arrested on charges stemming from alleged sexual abuses within an informal organization named DOS, formed by a small group of followers of Raniere's methodologies. Prosecutors said that up to 50 of the women recruited into Raniere's group -- which was not run through NXIVM, but independently by Raniere and a group of women --  were branded with his initials, put on restrictive diets to stay thin and were allegedly forced to have sex with him.

In 2015 NXIVM established a direct presence in Mexico. They opened a subsidiary called NXIVM MEXICO, S.A. de C.V., which took control of the ESP Programs in Mexico. No evidence has surfaced yet indicating that Emiliano Salinas has ever had an ownership stake or interest in NXIVM MEXICO.

Salinas has indicated that between 2015 and April 2018, he and his business partner Alejandro Betancourt, through a local Mexican company of their own, only supplied training for students and operational management services in Mexico for the owners of the ESP methodology.

Salinas (full name: Carlos Emiliano Salinas Occelli) is a Mexican businessman, venture capitalist and anti-violence and anti-corruption activist. His father is Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the former President of Mexico. Salinas, born in 1976, is currently the Vice President of Prorsus Capital, a venture capital firm.

In 2011, Salinas participated in the TEDxSanMigueldeAllende conference as a speaker. He discussed issues such as the current climate of violence in Mexico, how Mexican society responds to it and the need for regular citizens to move to peaceful, community-based action. His talk was the first talk posted on TED.com that was delivered in a language other than English.