J. Ricardo Poma ’67

Ricardo died Aug. 24, 2025, at his home in El Salvador, from kidney cancer.

He graduated from Hackley School. At Princeton, Ricardo roomed with Richard O’Connell at 423 Cuyler. An Ivy Club member, he played freshman soccer and was a leader of the Latin America Conference Committee. He majored in basic engineering.

Ricardo received his MBA from Harvard in 1970 and began his career in successive posts with the family company Grupo Poma. He managed and expanded its divisions and philanthropic foundations, operating across 10 Central and Latin America countries and the United States. As president and CEO, the portfolio of businesses included Real Hotels; automotive dealerships in Central America, EXCEL Corp, a real estate development and construction company, and a metal and glass industrial company.

Ricardo was a director of International Bank of Miami, Harvard Advisory 
Council, International Leadership Board 
of Cleveland Clinic, Bain Capital Fund, 
and Telefonica de Centroamerica. In 1993, he founded the Higher School of Economics and Business in El Salvador. For many 
years he led the Poma Foundation for Health and Human Development.

Ricardo received many honors, including the Order of Civil Merit from the king of Spain in 2015, and the corporate Citizen Award from the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington in 2019.

Ricardo is survived by four children with his first wife; three sons and daughter Alejandrina Salaverria-Mejia ’94; and a daughter with his second wife.