Weeks after winning the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her decades-long fight to restore democracy to Venezuela, opposition leader María Corina Machado is calling for what she describes as the most ambitious economic transformation in the nation’s history—a sweeping privatization aimed at reversing the policies of President Nicolás Maduro and what she calls “the disaster this socialist system has wrought.”
Appearing virtually on the Fortune Global Forum stage in Riyadh, Machado, currently in hiding from the Maduro regime, unveiled a bold vision to rebuild Venezuela’s shattered economy through large-scale private investment. “Venezuela will be the single biggest economic opportunity for decades to come in this region,” she told Fortune’s Diane Brady at the forum’s 2025 edition. “We’re talking about an opportunity, business opportunity, of more than $1.7 trillion. This is unique.” Machado has floated the $1.7 trillion figure before, an estimate produced by her economic advisory team.
