Founder, Banco Garantia, GP Investimentos
About The Leader
About The Leader
Jorge Lemann has been a successful leader who has derived inspiration from his failures and has worked through his thinking for driving successful business growth in companies he acquires
Jorge Lemann was born in Rio de Janeiro to Swiss parents working in dairy manufacturing
He was a national-level tennis player and earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Harvard University.
He has been the founder of multiple financial institutions such as Banco Garantia, GP Investimentos and is also an investor in consumer companies like AmBev, Burger King, Kraft Heinz
His Purpose
Lemann always believed in taking risks and bold steps and then hiring talented people to put them in the driver's seat to create long term impact.
Jorge Paulo Lemann always considered himself to be an average business person and a better tennis player. Learning from his life experience as a professional tennis player, Lemann developed an unique leadership style.
He claimed that "Life is like tennis: you lose a lot and after each loss, you analyze and improve."
He liked taking risks. He believed riskier bets do pay well if you hire good people to run the business and create a platform they need to drive the required results.
During his initial years, he made most of his fortunes investing in loss-making entities and turning them around to reap the benefits of better balance sheets.
Case for Change
Case for Change
In businesses and personal life there are lot of setbacks... Life is like tennis: you lose a lot and after each loss, you analyze and improve."
Growth Gap
Growth Gap
By understanding the potential to learn from failures leaders can quickly adapt to situations and turn them around leading to highly sustainable and long term growth
Investment Portfolio
Investment Portfolio
Most of the investments which Lehmann did was in good brands with bad operational efficiency. By mastering the art of learning from past failures and driving growth
His Leadership Qualities
His Leadership Qualities
Lemann had enormous ability to understand his mistakes, learn from them and turn them around to drive business success using the power of aligned and motivated teams
Learning from Failures
Learning from Failures
In his professional and personal life, Lemann had a lot of setbacks. In his initial days at Harvard, he struggled academically. His first major investment business was disappointing despite having a management team with good reputations. In the long term, however, he has persevered to become successful.
Key Actions
Key Actions
Every time Lemann would face failure or identify mistakes, he would approach these problems as he would conduct a post-game analysis of a tennis match. He would investigate the reasons for the mistake and then devise updated strategies to make necessary changes.
Leadership Behaviors
Leadership Behaviors
Never giving up
Self-confidence and determination
Lesson Learned
Lesson Learned
Drawing inspiration from his time at Harvard where he had to overcome some significant personal challenges, he understood that no job is too hard to complete successfully.
Despite his loss in the first investment firm he setup with his friend, he returned back to setup new financial investment opportunities and invested his own money into the new investment opportunities.
Long Term Planning
Long Term Planning
In beginning of his career, Lemann did not think in the long-term and didn't set many goals with action plans to achieve them. Over the years, learning from his failures made him understand that better and more long-term planning would help him deal with shifts in business models and consumer behavior.
Key Actions
Key Actions
Lemann introduced planning for future trends and taking actions based on those plans. Recently, he has changed his focus from production to the consumer side & has led digitalization efforts. He believes to ensure future growth, companies need to understand their consumers better and use digital channels to learn about them.
Leadership Behaviors
Leadership Behaviors
Building a strong growth portfolio
Long-term growth planning
Lesson Learned
Lesson Learned
He had understood in an early age playing tennis that being better prepared could help him create better strategies for competition
As he realized that the sales success from the first 25 years of his business couldn’t be repeated, he and his team looked at how trends are changing and devised new strategies to move closer to the market and use consumer insights to create new products
Hire Diverse & High Performing Employees
Hire Diverse & High Performing Employees
From his early failure at starting an Investment company led mainly by with Ivy League grads, he understood the need to hire highly skilled diverse candidates who bought complementary skills to the firm. He found that hiring the best candidates and providing them with freedom could lead to success and growth.
Key Actions
Key Actions
While hiring for a particular role at one of his companies, Lemann would generally interview a lot of candidates. He would look for a positive attitude and inter-personal skills that could complement the skills of other team members. He would look for team players.
Leadership Behaviors
Leadership Behaviors
Fast-tracking motivated, diverse & capable talent
Hiring for culture
Lesson Learned
Lesson Learned
He understood that for every employee to add value to the team, he needed to have complementary skills and have the motivation to take ownership of their duties.
From the failures of his first startup, he understood that a team made of people with similar skills does not add maximum value to the business. Hiring "A-teams" comprised of diverse talent has been one of the major reasons why Lemann as been able to turn around many companies that he has acquired.
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