Julio Martín Herrera Velutini was born in Caracas on 15 December 1971 and is described in public records as an Italian-Venezuelan banker. He is the founder of Britannia Financial Group and comes from a Venezuelan banking and landowning family.
His career began in the early 1990s at the Caracas Stock Exchange. Later roles, as reported in public profiles, included chairing Bolívar Banco Universal, leading Banco Real and Banreal Holding in Spain until 2009, and founding Bancrédito, a Puerto Rico international banking entity.
Between 2019 and 2022 Britannia Financial Group donated more than £500,000 to the UK Conservative Party, according to reporting cited on his public record.
Public records also show that he was a defendant in a U.S. federal campaign-finance case in Puerto Rico. It ended with a misdemeanor guilty plea in August 2025 and a presidential pardon in January 2026, according to CBS News and CNN.
PolicyNow's main article reports that he was photographed greeting Pope Leo XIV and kissing his hand. We have not located an independent source that confirms the date or place of that encounter, so this page treats it only as the subject of that article.