Episode 42: Establishing a Culture of Excellence
Featuring Federico Robbio| CO-Founder + President at belatrix
In this episode, Federico Robbio speaks to how his experience in strategy, finance, human capital, and recruitment was a key factor to help Belatrix to grow from 0 to 800 employees in 5 countries, with their own cash flow, having a continuous growth of 35% and solid profits. He also played a key role in developing the innovation culture through the creation of teams, human capital, and recruitment practices leading the industry and was recognized several times by being top 10 at Great Place to Work. If you are an entrepreneur in a growth phase where you’re evaluating expanding operations in different geographies and are wondering what the secret sauce is to build a contagious company culture, Federico shares his secret for success in this episode.
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EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
(03.25) Claudia asks, “How did it all start?”
(03.40) Federico says, “I started with my brother and father. We were all working different places. We always loved working together. We were young entrepreneurs when we were kids. During a major crisis in 2002 in Argentina, we founded our company. My brother, Alex, called me to start an adventure. We all wanted to be independent, so we did it.”
(06.00) Claudia asks, “What was the most challenging thing when scaling the team? Also, how did you build the culture?”
(06.25) Federico answers, “The challenges depend on the size of the company. At the beginning, it was difficult because it is hard to convince people to work for you. You don't have a strong brand and you look financially unstable. To solve this, I found it really important that the founders keep involved in the recruitment process. As a founder, you can transmit the vision and the culture. This helped us a lot at the beginning. Then, when you start growing, it is easier to convince people. However, there is a point of time where the amount of talent was not enough. You need to look for talent in different places.”
(09.38) Claudia asks, “How did you improve the culture? How important is it to be innovative and keep developing the company?
(09.45) Federico says, “It is an IT company. We were always concerned about being updated. If you don't learn or don't get a new line of services, you are out of business. From the beginning, we bring people from different technical backgrounds and train them 100 hours for different techniques in order to grow and maintain technically. Also, we have Labs and Centers of Excellence where we help people do research in different topics.”
(19.01) Claudia asks, “Having been in different positions, which role was the most stressful? If you can share some advice for our audience.
(19.14) Federico says, “Being an entrepreneur is really stressful. The beginning is really stressful because it is difficult to find an investor. Therefore, it was stressful to pay 800 salaries each month. However, we never failed. We had to be really careful. Also, when you grow fast, you have to be really careful. That was a significant stress. Lastly, the hiring process.”
(29.50)Claudia asks, “What’s some of the best business advice you’ve ever received?”
(30.01) Federico says, “You usually think things in short terms. Our mentor and Endeavor always made us think in the long term. Also, leadership means mainly helping and serving people. Another thing is to fire yourselves.”
ABOUT FEDERICO ROBBIO
Currently, Federico is an advisor and mentor, helping companies to accelerate growth through general strategy, finance, human capital, recruiting, and marketing. He is one of the Co-founders and CMO of a small chain of pharmacies called Farmacias de Maipú, located in Mendoza, Argentina.
Previously back in 2002, he was President of Talent and Finances at Belatrix Software, a company we bootstrapped from 0 to over 800 employees in 5 countries (US, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, and Spain). He sold Belatrix Software to Globant [NYSE:GLOB] in 2019.
With Belatrix he gained the trust of startups to Fortune 500’s including major names like Disney, PWC, Adobe, and AOL, by helping companies successfully achieve their digital technology-related business goals at greater speed and cost-effectiveness through their unique “software innovation as a service” approach.
Along with Federico’s partners, he was selected as an Endeavor Entrepreneur in 2013. They were recognized as Entrepreneurs of The Year by E&Y In 2017 and won the PYME (small and medium-sized businesses in Spanish) award in 2018 in the digital transformation category, this award was organized by Clarin, the largest media company in Argentina.
From 2013 to 2016 he was a member of the board of directors of Cessi (Software Chamber of Argentina), from where he was able to deeply understand the technology sector in Argentina.
His experience in strategy, finance, human capital, and recruitment was a key factor to help Belatrix to grow from 0 to 800 employees in 5 countries, with their own cash flow, having a continuous growth of 35% and solid profits. He also played a key role in developing the innovation culture through the creation of teams, human capital, and recruitment practices leading the industry and was recognized several times by being top 10 at Great Place to Work. Federico played a pivotal role in expanding the company through Latam in cities like Mendoza, Buenos Aires, Lima, and Bogotá.
He studied Industrial Engineering at Universidad Nacional de Cuyo (Mendoza, Argentina) and have an MBA from University Francisco de Vitoria (Madrid, Spain). Federico also had the opportunity to study Entrepreneurial Ventures at Harvard Business School and a Global Innovation Program, Business, and Management at Stanford University among other important training programs.