Entrepreneur by nature.
Executive by discipline.
Builder by vocation.
Co-Founder & CSO · VRAL Games
Chairman & CFO · La Dolce Vita
Serial Entrepreneur · Miami Beach
Joe-Victor Behar's story doesn't begin in a boardroom or a business school. It begins much earlier — at the age of 11, when most children were playing, he was already fascinated by business: making his first small investments in the stock exchange, building mini entrepreneurial initiatives in his teenage years, and spending hours not just playing Sim City to build virtual cities, but using early databases and Lotus — the precursor to Excel — on an Apple II and the first Mac. A deep love for technology, data, and the mechanics of business was already there, long before anyone called it a career. After outstanding high school results and with a clear dream of becoming a businessman and an executive, he began university — and simultaneously stepped onto the floor of a toy store his father had opened with friends, for his sister and as a potential retail venture. That was 1992. He was learning the trade from the ground up, one customer at a time. That choice to start at the bottom and earn every step upward would define everything that followed.
By the late 1990s, he had founded Software Universe, his own specialty retail chain in Italy. In 2001, that company was acquired by EB Games — one of the world's largest gaming retailers — and Joe-Victor became Managing Director of EB Games Italy. What was contractually a two-year commitment became nearly a decade: because the Italian operation, under his leadership, became the best-performing branch in Europe for profitability and ROI. EB Games extended his contract. Then GameStop acquired EB Games in 2005 for $1.44 billion — and extended it again.
By the time he chose to leave in 2010 — on his own terms, after personally selecting his successor — GameStop Italy had grown to over +$350M in annual sales, $30M+ in annual EBIT, and more than 2,000 employees. He had led the company through two distinct multinational management cultures, absorbing and integrating the best of both. He left not because he had to. Because he was ready for the next chapter.
"We built not just results, but a team of exceptional human and professional value — and a partnership of trust with all our suppliers. Without both, no ambitious goal would have been possible."
That next chapter unfolded in Miami Beach — a city that had been his dream destination since his very first trip to the United States at the age of 13. He had fallen deeply in love with America from that first visit, traveling extensively across the country with his parents and later with friends, discovering a culture of ambition, meritocracy, and possibility that resonated with everything he believed in. Of all the cities in America, Miami was the one that spoke to him most: a rare melting pot of cultures, a bridge between Europe and the Americas, a place with the entrepreneurial energy of a startup city and the sophistication of an international metropolis. It was never just a practical choice. It was a dream, pursued deliberately and with patience. In the years that followed, he would launch ventures across food, e-commerce, real estate, luxury interiors, and immersive technology — always as a builder, never as a passenger.
Today, he serves as Co-Founder, Chairman and CSO of VRAL Games and as Board Chairman and CFO of La Dolce Vita — the luxury Italian interiors company whose partnership with Automobili Lamborghini represents the pinnacle of Italian design exported to the American market. His business ecosystem spans operating companies, real estate holdings, and strategic investments across multiple sectors and jurisdictions.
A Philosophy of Building "The responsibility of an executive, a founder, and a manager is to build a company that can eventually walk on its own. After the early years, the company must grow large enough to continue delivering results even without its founders. Our mission is much like raising a child: at a certain point, the child must be able to walk their own path, continue growing, and carry forward the values that have been cemented into the very pillars of the organization — values that have become an inseparable part of what the company is." — Joe-Victor Behar
Some professional partnerships last a project. A rare few last a lifetime. The collaboration between Joe-Victor Behar and Massimo Colella is one of the latter. It began when they co-founded EB Games Italy in 2001, survived the acquisition by GameStop and the transition through two multinational corporations, and then continued — after both had left that world — into entirely new sectors: luxury Italian interiors, VR gaming, and beyond. What makes this partnership exceptional is not its longevity but its architecture: Massimo brings the commercial vision, creative force, and design sensibility; Joe-Victor brings the financial rigor, strategic structure, and operational discipline. Two minds that complete rather than compete. Two careers that, in retrospect, were always meant to run in parallel.
From store associate to Managing Director (i.e. CEO) of a +$350M company. From a single retail store in Italy to a portfolio of ventures across gaming, luxury interiors, real estate, and technology. Every step forward was earned — through performance, not position.
These are not corporate principles written for a brochure. They are the distillation of thirty years of experience, three cultures, two continents, and one lifelong commitment to doing things right — in business, in family, and in life.
Humility is not weakness — it is the condition that makes every other value possible. It is the recognition that every result is the product of a team, a moment, and relationships built over time. Without humility, learning stops — and with it, growth.
Values are never invented. They are inherited, tested, and forged — through family, through culture, through the people who shape you before you even realize they are doing so. Mine are the product of an extraordinary convergence: a Sephardic Jewish family with roots in Rhodes and Egypt, that rebuilt itself multiple times across generations and continents with dignity, resilience, and faith. The history of a family that, like many Jewish families, knows what it means to start over — and does so without bitterness, only with determination.
My father, Louis Behar — CFO and Managing Director of a major Italian corporation — never gave me a business lecture. He did something more powerful: he showed me, every day, what it means to lead with integrity. Financial rigor, respect for people, long-term thinking, the refusal to cut corners. I absorbed these values not as lessons but as a way of being. They became my professional DNA.
These Italian roots then met the American values of merit, ambition, and construction — absorbed through years of working alongside exceptional executives: Lou Triche at EB Games, Richard D. Fontaine and James R. Kirk at GameStop. Three different leaders who showed me how world-class multinational organizations are built and run. The combination of my father's values and their professional example created something I could not have found in either world alone. And running as a constant thread through all of it: the partnership with Massimo Colella — whose extraordinary resilience, full alignment in dreams and business values, and unwavering commitment have been among the most important constants of my professional life. A partner in the truest sense of the word.
And beneath all of this, at the deepest level: the teachings of the Torah and Talmud. Justice. Equity. The obligation to do what is right, even when no one is watching. The belief that every human being deserves to be treated with dignity. These are not abstract principles — they are the foundation on which everything else rests. My Italian identity, my Jewish identity, my American identity: three cultures that, when I look closely, share the same core. Work. Family. Community. Excellence. Doing right by others. I am the product of their synthesis — and I carry that synthesis with gratitude.
Wealth is not a destination. It is a tool. The goal is to be able to give — more, and better, with each passing year. Not to have one's name on a building. Not to be recognized at a dinner. But because the highest form of tzedakah — charity in the Jewish tradition — is the anonymous gift: the one that changes a life without leaving a trace of the giver.
In the meantime, the daily goal is simpler: to make the people around me happy. To surround myself with positive, smiling people — because their happiness genuinely makes me happy. And to ensure that everything — every business decision, every relationship, every action — is done correctly, fairly, and in alignment with what is truly good. God's teachings are not constraints. They are the compass that keeps everything aligned.
I remain deeply grateful to every good person who has crossed my path. That gratitude is itself a value — the recognition that no success is built alone, and that the right response to good fortune is to pay it forward, quietly, and without keeping score.
A portfolio built over three decades across six sectors and two continents. Each venture reflects the same philosophy: identify an opportunity where authenticity, quality, and entrepreneurial discipline can create lasting value.
Whether you are exploring a partnership, a board opportunity, or simply want to start a conversation — I am always open to connecting with people of substance and vision.
Miami Beach, Florida · Italy · The World