José Luis Díaz-varela

Biography

 José Luis Díaz-Varela was born in 1937 in Monforte de Lemos (Lugo), where he lived in his early years until he moved to La Coruña to study. In the nineteen-fifties, when he was 18 years old, he emigrated to Venezuela with his family. There, he worked in different companies before joining Industrial Kern, S.A., where he became the right-hand man of its owner, the Austrian businessman Heinz Kern. In 1962, José Luis Díaz-Varela decided to return to Spain to start his own business. He chose Barcelona, a port city with a great industrial fabric and tradition in the chemical, pharmaceutical and veterinary industry, as the site to establish Industrial Kern Española, S.A., now Indukern. Heinz Kern became his partner and contributed most of the initial capital. In 1976, José Luis acquired the company yet retained the company name as a tribute to Heinz Kern. A natural entrepreneur, Díaz-Varela founded the veterinary company Calier in 1968 and the pharmaceutical company Kern Pharma in 1999. Today, the Indukern Group, which includes Indukern, Calier and Kern Pharma, is run by his children Raúl (1968), Tamara (1971) and Daniel (1973), the second generation of the Díaz-Varela family.

Research Interest

 A natural entrepreneur, Díaz-Varela founded the veterinary company Calier in 1968 and the pharmaceutical company Kern Pharma in 1999.