About
João Appolinário was born in 1960 in São Caetano do Sul, on the outskirts of São Paulo, and today he is best known as the founder, president, and public face of Polishop, Brazil’s omnichannel retail giant. Brazilian media often calls him the “homem da TV” and even the “rei da TV” because Polishop buys more than 140 hours of infomercial airtime every single day, an advertising footprint unmatched in the country. He has been one of the resident investors (“sharks”) on Shark Tank Brasil since the show’s launch in October 2016, sharing the panel with other high‑profile entrepreneurs. Estimates place his personal fortune around R$ 2 billion, built on Polishop’s annual revenue in the billion‑real range—even after recent turbulence.
While 2024 saw news of Polishop’s judicial recovery plea in the face of a conflict with a former operations director, Appolinário held firm and established a challenging agenda: move 90 percent of revenue to in‑house brands by 2030. The firm is still open for business, trading, and growing in a franchise format while its creator continues to introduce new products and mentor up-and-coming business leaders.
Before Fame
Entrepreneurship was practically the family language in the Appolinário household. When João was six, his family moved to the city of São Paulo, where his father turned a large backyard lot into a six‑story building and an auto dealership. Growing up in that environment gave João an up‑close apprenticeship in sales, stock management, and bold risk‑taking.
His first solo ventures were less glamorous than the glossy Polishop studios we see today. As a teenager he poured savings into a roller‑skating rink in Guarujá—fashionable at the time but a flop when the craze faded. A small clothing partnership with a cousin also fizzled out. Those misfires nudged him back to the family dealership, where he honed negotiating skills before a stint abroad exposed him to televised direct marketing. Returning to Brazil, he spotted an opening to sell the Seven Day Diet kit by telephone and late‑night TV. The bet paid off: hundreds of thousands of kits sold in three years generated the capital that seeded Polishop at the turn of the millennium.
Trivia
- Nicknames that stuck: “homem da TV” and “rei da TV” reference both his personal charisma on‑screen and Polishop’s record infomercial volume.
- Screen time to spare: Polishop’s advertising schedule tops 140 hours of Brazilian television every day, a figure that still astonishes media analysts.
- Digital influence: Favikon’s 2025 ranking of top Brazilian CEOs on social media placed Appolinário among the 20 most influential, applauding his plain‑spoken posts about learning from failure and taking care of customers.
- Beauty and the brand: In 2015 he acquired a decade‑long license to run the Miss Brasil pageant, using the event to spotlight Polishop’s Be Emotion cosmetics line.
- Crisis managed: The 2024 recovery filing, triggered by pandemic hang‑over costs and a shareholder spat, was settled after dilution of the dissenting partner’s stake; debts have since been renegotiated and store expansion resumed.
Family Life
Business acumen runs deep in the clan. João’s wife, Ana Paula Appolinário, is herself an investor and partner in a jewelry venture, illustrating the household rule that every conversation can spark a startup. The couple’s three sons—João Appolinário Neto, Pedro, and Antonio—were raised on dinner‑table lessons about margins and marketing. The eldest, João Neto, entered Forbes Brasil’s Under 30 list in 2024 after scaling a beauty‑salon franchise that now counts nearly twenty locations nationwide. Pedro explores e‑commerce gadgets, while Antonio focuses on health‑food kiosks, and all three lean on their father’s ready advice (and occasionally his Rolodex). Articles in Brazilian business magazines have celebrated the “DNA empreendedor” that links the generations and keeps family chats decidedly commercial.
Beyond the immediate circle, Appolinário often credits his late father’s dealership days for teaching him the value of persistence and customer experience—values he now passes along through free online mentoring sessions and periodic in‑person workshops advertised on his Instagram profile.
Associated With
On Shark Tank Brasil, Appolinário shares investing duties with a rotating roster of Brazilian heavy‑hitters: Camila Farani of G2 Capital, Chilli Beans founder Caito Maia, serial beauty entrepreneur Cristiana Arcangeli, and, in later seasons, Monique Evelle and Petz CEO Sergio Zimerman. The back‑and‑forth between their distinct styles—Farani’s data‑driven questioning, Maia’s brand flair, Arcangeli’s product intuition, Evelle’s social‑impact focus, and Zimerman’s retail rigor—has become a case study in complementary leadership.
Outside the studio, he maintains long‑standing ties to industry bodies such as Brazil’s Instituto para Desenvolvimento do Varejo (IDV) and the World Federation of Direct Selling Associations, reinforcing a network that spans traditional retail, direct sales, and emerging digital channels.
