Prefer to read this in Spanish? You can find the full Spanish version here
January 2002. Pearson sent me on a three-month rotation to their headquarters in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. It ended up being nearly a year.
I left as a lanky 23-year-old and came back having developed my own gravitational pull — breadcrumbs orbited around me.
But I didn't just bring back extra weight. I brought back experiences that have stayed with me ever since. Today I want to focus on the first real lesson in leadership I ever received — and probably the one that has shaped me the most.
I joined the finance team covering Latin America, reporting to the regional CFO, Rodrigo Martins, and his number two, Ana Lugo. The region was anything but quiet — Jack Bauer would have had an anxiety attack.
Rodrigo must have been around 33. He was sharp, and it showed. He led the regional teams while Ana and I were HQ support. Both Rodrigo and Ana were relatively new to the company. I had been there a few months. A fresh team all round.
I remember how people teased Rodrigo about driving a Buick — “an old man's car”, not exactly fitting for a successful bachelor in his early thirties. "You need to think about your image," people told him. Rodrigo never argued. He smiled, ignored it, and moved on with an admirable flair.
He had lunch with Ana and me almost every day, even though we were junior and the senior crowd usually sat together. Rodrigo did not care, we were his team and he prioritised that over political games.
I remember how he was offered a much bigger office, a sign of status for most. He turned it down. Instead, he negotiated to stay in his smaller office in exchange for a second one for Ana. Again, team before ego.
I was new and clueless, and Rodrigo would sit with me in his office and refuse to let me start any task, no matter how urgent, until I had understood not the how, but the why. "If you understand why you're doing something, one day you might find a better way to do it."
I remember his patience. The time he gave me. How he coordinated with my other mentor, Kevin Quinn — another amazing person I learned a lot from. How he flew me to the region so I could understand local realities and the difference between HQ theory and in-market realities.
He couldn't have cared less about appearances, image, or optics. But he cared deeply about his team. The amount of time he invested in me — as if I were his personal student — knowing full well I would be heading back to the UK, and still giving up hours only for my benefit.
I never once saw him treat a senior executive any differently from the most junior new hire.
During several of the crises we faced in those months, we stayed late into the night trying to reconcile regional accounts, chasing discrepancies, investigating inconsistencies. Rodrigo never asked us to stay. Not once. Ana had young children. I was a youngster making the most out of my time in NY.
He didn't need to. Pizza at 10pm, and the three of us smiling in the office. If there was anything I could do to help, no other option ever crossed my mind.
There was no promotion or bonus waiting at the end of that effort. Within months I would be back in the UK with new managers and a new role. But the incentive was greater than any of that — helping someone who gave so much.
When you are willing to do whatever it takes for someone without being asked, my friend, you are looking at a real leader.
I don't think he ever realised the influence he had. I doubt that to this day he knows how inspiring he was to me.
At the end of 2002 I flew back to the UK — me, and the other Santi I had absorbed during that year. I didn't see Rodrigo again for ten years. Eventually we met on a trip to São Paulo, where he invited me for dinner. I haven't seen him since.
And yet, today, 25 years later, when I think about leadership — no fanfare, no applause, no noise. Quiet, real, human leadership — I think of Rodrigo. And I smile.
And you — who do you think of?
I'm listening,
Santi