Count Alexandre de Lesseps is a French entrepreneur, investor, investment banker, and microfinance pioneer who has a net worth of $50 million.

Alexandre de Lesseps built his business career across film production, consumer products, Asian investments, private equity, hotels, and microfinance. Although he belongs to the prominent de Lesseps family and is a descendant of Ferdinand de Lesseps, who led the development of the Suez Canal, Alexandre accumulated the bulk of his personal fortune through his own investments. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, he invested heavily in Hong Kong and other Asian companies, building a substantial portfolio that he sold in 1993. He later became an important early figure in commercial microfinance through BlueOrchard Finance, which invested in institutions making small loans to borrowers in developing countries. His later ventures included Coral Capital, Pandaw Investment Holdings, Leopard Capital, and an investment in Havana's historic Saratoga Hotel. Alexandre became familiar to American television audiences through his marriage to LuAnn de Lesseps, who became one of the original stars of "The Real Housewives of New York City." They were married from 1993 until 2009 and have two children together.

Alexandre de Lesseps was born in Paris, France, in 1949. He grew up internationally because of his father's diplomatic career. His father, Victor Jacques de Lesseps, served as a French diplomat, including assignments in Africa, and Alexandre spent part of his childhood in Khartoum, Sudan.

He was educated in France before attending Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. During his university years in the United States, de Lesseps was exposed to the political and social movements of the late 1960s.

His family name was already internationally famous. Alexandre is a descendant of Ferdinand de Lesseps, the 19th-century French diplomat and entrepreneur who led the effort to construct the Suez Canal connecting the Mediterranean and Red seas. Ferdinand later attempted to develop the Panama Canal.

Alexandre began his professional career in film while serving in the French military, where he worked in a film unit. He subsequently moved into television production and worked with production companies in France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States.

His entertainment career eventually took him to Los Angeles. By the 1980s, de Lesseps was serving as chief executive of Intertel USA and was also involved with Tanit Productions.

He soon began expanding into other industries. In 1986, de Lesseps founded Les Laboratoires de l'Atlantique, a French personal-care products company. His growing interest in international finance eventually pulled him away from film production and toward investing.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, de Lesseps built the bulk of his fortune through investments in Hong Kong and other Asian companies.

The timing proved particularly favorable. Asian markets were experiencing rapid economic growth, and de Lesseps accumulated stakes in companies across the region. He later described this period as the point at which he made his fortune.

In 1993, de Lesseps sold his Asian holdings. The sale allowed him to preserve the wealth he had accumulated before the region experienced severe financial turmoil later in the decade.

Rather than retire from investing, he continued deploying capital through investment firms focused heavily on emerging and frontier markets. His later activities included Pandaw Investment Holdings and Coral Capital, a London-based investment operation.

One of the defining areas of de Lesseps' later career was microfinance, the practice of providing small loans and other financial services to people and small businesses with limited access to conventional banking.

Around the beginning of the 2000s, de Lesseps became involved with Geneva-based BlueOrchard Finance. The company had been established by specialists with experience in United Nations microfinance programs and developed investment funds that provided capital to microfinance institutions operating in developing countries.

De Lesseps became a co-owner and director of BlueOrchard and one of the company's more visible advocates. By 2003, BlueOrchard was managing a fund that provided approximately $50 million in short-term financing to microcredit institutions in more than 20 countries across Latin America, Asia, and other emerging markets.

The concept appealed to de Lesseps because it combined commercial investing with economic development. Rather than treating microfinance exclusively as charity, he argued that investors could earn returns while providing capital to entrepreneurs and families excluded from conventional banking systems.

His work helped position microfinance as an investable asset class rather than solely a philanthropic activity.

De Lesseps continued investing in frontier and emerging markets after his involvement with BlueOrchard. He became a director of Leopard Capital in 2012, a private-equity firm focused on developing economies including Cambodia and Haiti.

He was also involved with Pandaw Investment Holdings in Hong Kong, which pursued investments connected to Myanmar, and served as chairman of Coral Capital until 2013.

De Lesseps was among the investors involved in the redevelopment of Havana's historic Saratoga Hotel. The luxury property reopened in the early 2000s following extensive restoration.

Taken together, his career involved an unusually broad range of ventures across Europe, Asia, the Caribbean, and the United States.

De Lesseps' involvement with Myanmar extended beyond investing. In 1988, he helped establish the Myanmar Children's Association with Mark Tippetts and Ricardo Sicre.

The organization funded educational and humanitarian projects in Myanmar, including a school in the Pa-O region of Shan State. It later supported construction of a maternity clinic and residential facilities for orphaned children near Inle Lake.

The organization also helped finance education for students who went on to attend university and supported other facilities serving children in the region.

In recognition of his humanitarian and development work, de Lesseps received the Fulbright Humanitarian Award at the United Nations in 2004.

The de Lesseps family has a history in French diplomacy stretching back generations. Its most famous member remains Ferdinand de Lesseps, whose campaign to build the Suez Canal culminated in the waterway's opening in 1869.

Ferdinand later became associated with an unsuccessful attempt to construct a sea-level canal across Panama. The project collapsed amid engineering problems, disease, financial losses, and scandal, although a canal across Panama was eventually completed years later under U.S. control using a different design.

The modern family's aristocratic styling also traces back to earlier generations of de Lesseps diplomats who received noble titles in France. Alexandre has long been publicly known as Count Alexandre de Lesseps.

Alexandre met LuAnn Nadeau in Europe, and the two married in 1993. LuAnn became his fourth wife and, through the marriage, became socially known as Countess de Lesseps.

They had two children together, daughter Victoria and son Noel. Victoria later became a visual artist, while Noel has also pursued creative work.

The family spent time living in Europe and the United States, including New York and the Hamptons. During the marriage, Alexandre and LuAnn owned a substantial Bridgehampton property that was eventually sold for a reported $8 million.

LuAnn's marriage to Alexandre became part of her public identity when she joined the original cast of Bravo's "The Real Housewives of New York City" in 2008.

The couple separated after approximately 16 years of marriage and divorced in 2009. LuAnn continued using the Countess title socially and professionally following the divorce and built much of her early "RHONY" persona around the etiquette and lifestyle associated with her years as Countess de Lesseps.

After his divorce from LuAnn, Alexandre continued pursuing international investments and development projects. His later professional activities remained concentrated largely in emerging and frontier markets rather than the public companies and consumer businesses that dominate traditional Wall Street investing.

Unlike his former wife, Alexandre has maintained a relatively low public profile and has rarely sought mainstream celebrity attention. Most public information about his career has centered on his microfinance activities, international investments, humanitarian work, and association with the de Lesseps family.

His professional life has stretched from European television production and Hollywood to Asian investment markets, private equity, and microfinance, giving him a business history considerably broader than the "Count" title for which he became best known to American reality television viewers.