Alberto “Beto”Perez

Pérez was raised in Cali, Colombia, by a single mother and was working three jobs by age 14 to support his family. His passion was dancing, but he could not afford dance lessons. After he won a national lambada contest in Colombia, he was accepted to one of Cali's best academies to study dance while he taught step aerobics in return.

In 1999, Pérez moved to Miami, Florida "in search of the American Dream". Besides teaching aerobics classes, he tried to promote his fitness and dance routines with music at numerous venues. In 2001, Beto asked Williams Island fitness director (Brenda Anderson) to take a chance on promoting his dance routines in a class at the center. In 2003 after his first infomercial and with financial and technical assistance from Alberto Perlman and Alberto Aghion, workshops resulted that were based on Zumba routines. His routines, initially distributed as DVDs, gained momentum that resulted in an international following.

In 2006 Pérez established Zumba Fitness LLC, an organization that sells Zumba videos and products and charges licensing fees to its network of instructors (ZIN™ – Zumba Instructors' Network). It employs more than 200 employees. An estimated 14 million people across more than 160,000 locations in 185 countries participate in Zumba, performing dance-based exercise routines to music primarily provided by the company.

Zumba Fitness has also released its fashion line of Zumbawear. The company manufactures Zumbawear for age-specific groups, including seniors, mothers and children. Besides the general Zumba Fitness brand, fashion lines include styles for Zumba Toning, Aqua Zumba, Zumba Sentao, Zumba Gold, Zumba Gold-Toning, Zumba Kids and Zumba Kids Jr, Zumba Step and Strong By Zumba. Its instruction programs are popular in community centers, youth activity centers, tourist venues, schools and retirement communities, among other venues.

On the eve of March 15, 2020, his 50th birthday, Pérez announced on his Facebook page that his daughter Antonella had been born on January 11, 2020.