Loading summary
Transcript38 lines
- [00:00]
A
So every time I talk about my life is like I've been always a minority in many senses, no. So I'm very familiar being competitive, being different. And I would recommend find something that you are very good at and try to focus your energy and your team energy in that special feature of your company.
- [00:29]
B
One of the things that I love most about HubSpot's Global Partner Program is how it connects CEOs from across the world, each bringing their own unique perspective on growth, leadership and innovation. On today's episode, I'm joined by one of our top partner leaders whose insights on building and scaling a business in Latin America are truly exceptional. Meet Cecilia hayafuji, founder and CEO of Havoc, an elite HubSpot partner based in Buenos Aires. With nearly four decades of experience leading international tech and partner teams, Cecilia has built HAL into a powerhouse for mid market companies across Latin America. I'm Sarah McDevitt and this is owning the outcome. Cecilia, welcome to the show.
- [01:19]
A
Hey Sarah, thank you very much for your time and I'm so honored to join this podcast. Thank you very much. I'm from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Chilling season now. Thank you all for hearing me.
- [01:34]
B
Well, we're very glad to have you here Cecilia. First of all tell me about hal. Give us a sense of how you started the company, what you're focused on now, you know who's on your team and who are your ideal customers.
- [01:46]
A
Well I had to go back like four decades back. It's a lot Halborn as a consequence of many, many years trying to solve customers challenges especially in the mid market arena because I consider myself a specialist of mid market type companies because of the size, because of the level of complexity, type of complexity, etc. And I spent like two decades in the multinational Microsoft and then a global partners always focused in a software companies. One of those days I, I started implementing a marketing automation. It was in 2013, 2012 or so it was marketo and it was so difficult but so, so amazing as a project, as a project lead and I saw the future of software. Great, great future for me, for myself Again it was born as an idea. After being an employee of the IT market in Latin America running marketing sales, rev ops partners, et cetera, et cetera. So HAL is a consequence of four decades of experience I would say I spent imagine it was I was in the launch of Windows 95 software used to be sold in boxes used to hear claims from customers saying my box came without the manuals and I did the manuals and the CDs et cetera et cetera. So from that to here to software as a services and agile, more agile economy and software industry, I would say.
- [03:43]
B
So Zia, I'm fascinated by you as well as a person and I would love to hear a little bit about your journey to CEO. You, you've been in tech for. I refuse to believe it, Cecilia. Almost four decades, is that right?
- [03:59]
A
Yes, yes. And for four decades sounds a lot, but actually it was just like a flash to me. No, it was so fast because it is a fast moving industry and we are always trying to this feeling of I need to catch up, I'm late this formal type of sense and I love it. I consider myself like a early adopter, but I'm not an early adopter. I feel like I step behind always because the market goes so fast. No companies, vendors move so fast. You see HubSpot every day. You see this notification the bell has a news about new features or changes or whatever. And it's great and I love it. And four decades is a lot, but it's nothing. At the same time, I think the biggest challenge for companies is not to catch up, but to always compete lean, to always be agile and to be focused in results. That is where my expertise may help, I think.
- [05:18]
B
And what about you Cecilia? How did you. How did you become the CEO? What did your. Your career for you personally look like?
- [05:25]
A
I've started like nothing to do with my actual position. I started at when I was 18 as a Japanese Spanish translator for an IT company. It was the the only home computer producer in Argentina. And all the manuals again a physical manuals. I used to come in Japanese so I me to translate all the circuits and chips. I mean the manuals was everything in Japanese. That was my first job. The second job was again Japanese Spanish translator for other company electron producer. Nothing to do with the it, but it was about software. So I still continue with my Japanese and Spanish translator. And then I been invited to join Microsoft Argentina when we used to be like three full time employees. And that's how I officially entered the IT market. And I always say to my employees in HUL company that I have 35 years of being employee and only five or six or seven being CEO. So I know, I think I know very well what it feels being an employee and what the no and what the pains are for an employee. I don't forget. I try not to forget what it means. Be always empathetic because it is not easy to deal with an organization. Your salary, your bonuses, etc, etc. So try to keep them happy always.
- [07:20]
B
That's very important. That's very important.
- [07:22]
A
Yeah.
- [07:22]
B
I mean, absolutely. Yeah. In a world of AI, it's important that we become more human and really lean into those things. So now you're an elite partner in latam. What's unique about that journey of scaling to become an elite partner in latam? And how have you been so successful?
- [07:45]
A
Well, I'd like to be more successful, but it is possible. But I think as a CEO we have a huge challenge in Latin America which is the always unstable economies because we don't have two years in a row that is economically stable. That is the case of Argentina, not to mention other countries in LATAM. Even Colombia, where HubSpot has LATAM offices, even Chile, which is one of the most mature economies has some movements, no ups and lows. So I think first of all is understanding it's hard data noise, not a sensation, not a subject, I mean a personal opinion. It's a hard data that our economies are hard to manage. So this is our business as usual. Not to forget that our main my role as a CEO is to be financially safe, always. First of all, we don't have credits, we don't have loans, so we grow only organically. That means if I have the money I can hire more people person, I can do marketing, etc. Etc. So if I don't produce enough money by myself, that is impossible to grow. It is impossible. No bank will give you even a cent in this type of economies. No in this type of countries. So I would say as a CEO is being in the strategy and at the same time checking the cash flow every week. I would say it's like being very no in the both sides at the same time. I'm multitasking, asking is short term, midterm, long term, very long term. I would say in this type of economics is really important not only because of the financial aspect but because you want to keep the talents. You don't want to have a high rotation because as in any company, the attrition could be very bad for your business. Second is one of the careers I've studied is psychology. So the second point is I think is human being how to keep connection with customers and employees always transparently. I mean open door is a very old word but it's keep in touch all the time with the customer. I visit a lot of customer every week. I have one to one with all the employees at least once every three months. Three months. Because it's the way I have the sense a real sense of what is going on in my organization.
- [10:47]
B
What you talked about there just gives me even more admiration for our LATAM partners. That's very challenging from a business environment point of view when you're having to scale your success and your scale depends on what you achieve in the moment and that's incredibly difficult as you develop your business. What are your main focus areas right now when you're engaging with customers?
- [11:13]
A
AI, of course, first is AI. Focus is not AI because it's something that all the companies are trying to adopt but because it is totally related to productivity, it is related to this. Again, companies also has this fomo. I don't want to be losing competitiveness or I don't want to be the last1 adopting AI. What happens in countries like Argentina is that every time we have an economic crisis we lose like three or five years of technology update. So we are three to five years behind the world somehow. So catching up is not easy. You need to be very, very focused in what your priorities are and that's where a partner has a great role or has a impact in companies. Because we as partners know exactly or more or less, let's say how the return of investment might be, how can we help companies to become more productive, etc.
- [12:38]
B
And what about internally, what are you focused on for the company?
- [12:42]
A
AI adoption trainings and you know, I'm very happy because every week I see I have my schedule and colors, customers are orange because of HubSpot, love it, Internet internal meetings are powerful, etc. Etc. I'm very happy to see that in my schedule every week I have more discussions around AI than any other topic. That's a great difference compared to what happened in Hull Co. Internally like six months ago where we used to have like these recurring meetings about many things but not AI. So we are AI focused today.
- [13:28]
B
So cd, what has changed within kind of the market and for yourselves where the AI adoption has become a focus?
- [13:37]
A
I hate losing. I very, very competitive and I is not only, you know, because HubSpot has these four offerings that it was a great idea to start from something but every time I see one of Those documents from HubSpot I think that anyone can copy and paste and it's great to receive something as a first idea. It's like a brainstorming. But I want to always want to be different. No, to add additional value.
- [14:16]
B
Well, first of all, first of all I'm going to give you a high five, a virtual high five for the fact that you're competitive and you hate to Lose. I love that. That's why you're a CEO and you're being successful. But when you talk about that there's lots of tools out there in AI. Why do you think customers choose HubSpot? I mean, you're on the front line, you're speaking to customers every day. You understand their problems deeply. That's why they're working with you. Why do you think they're choosing HubSpot? Because they could pick other tools.
- [14:45]
A
HubSpot is unique in many senses. Again, I've been like for decades in the IT industry, so I've heard many different speeches from different vendors. The old ones like Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, et cetera, et cetera. HubSpot is unique. The way you manage partners, the way you go to the customers, the way your salespersons approach each project, the way you, you talk about implementation, everything is very unique. I think when I hear, well actually I've been hearing customers for four decades and their pain is deployment. As a cto, the first pain is deployment and return of investment. Today with software as a service is an agile and easy, fast and unified, et cetera, et cetera. I think HubSpot is going far beyond the other vendors in terms of going straight to that pain, which is return of investment. And partners has a lot to do with that. No, because if the partners in the middle between HubSpot and the end customer, the partner is very slow or is not impeccable delivering services, again, that the customer experience won't be good. No. So we play a key role. We have 98% of project run in time and manner. 98% is tremendous. But we delivered that because again CTOs or probably CMOs, CSO, any person that is putting the sign on the purchase order is very worried about the outcome of any project.
- [16:43]
B
And that I think you speak to the power of HubSpot and partners working together because you have a powerful tool. But if it's not deployed correctly and really implemented correctly, you don't get the adoption. And we've actually seen that we have some of our highest AI adoption in laram. Why do you think that is? What is it? And do you think that we could be doing anything more to help companies adopt AI?
- [17:12]
A
I have two guesses here. One is probably in Latin America because of the economic stray, because our budgets are very limited, unstable economy, et cetera, et cetera. Probably technology that the return of investment is high, is very welcome always. No, because has nothing to do with if the AI replaces humans or not. It's another discussion if I adopt AI today probably. I probably save a lot of money in Latin America and the poorest countries. I would say no. The second point is, the second guess is that Latin America, we are spiritually early adopters. We love them, we love to be the first. I'm not the only one that hate losing. We are competitive. We want to be the first one doing something new. Could be technology, could be sport, whatever, a new brand of tennis shoes or whatever. We like the new stuff in any arena.
- [18:26]
B
We talked about this before that you have seen tech through many shifts from, you know, you talked about the software coming in the box to the cloud to mobile and now AI. And you talked about your customers. When it comes to customers, what. What do you think is the same about the way the customers are behaving in this kind of AI first world? What do you think will stay the same and what do you think might change?
- [18:53]
A
If I think about again, Windows 95 switching to, I don't know, to, you know, graphic interface. Do you remember these words? I. The first discussion I remember is user interface or graphic interface was not a thing until Windows 95 came to our lives. Companies used to be the comfort zone was the green screen. No. And talking about the graphic interface and everything was so new that the managers used to see this innovation as threat. I think always happen the same. Anything that is new is, you know, it's uncomfortable for any, any person. This is normal, I think absolutely human. No, from any perspective. And if I think about AI today, I would say is not different. The first reaction is, I don't know, I. I think I don't need this in my company, in my life is please don't let this AI stuff get into my life, getting into my company. That is not like a first reaction. Second reaction is formal. Third reaction is I need to join this wave sooner or later. So it's a kind of reaction reactive. But in the middle you always have these early adopters who say, let's try this, let's see what happens. Like a B testing. No, what happens with and without AI? That's one perspective. The second one is again, AI comes after many, many changes we've seen in the IT market. So it's not the first time. We all know that Internet changed our lives, so we are not resistant this time. We know that this is a change of paradigm. This will change the way we work, the way we search on our mobile, everything. So I think that the level of resistance is getting lower and lower.
- [21:13]
B
Yeah, no, I 100% agree with you, but some things will Remain the same and human nature will likely remain the same. Let's pretend, Cecilia, it's just me and you. And I want some advice for being a new latam partner that wants to scale to elite. Where should I invest and how should I structure my team? What kind of prospects should I go after? Give me your secret, Cecilia.
- [21:40]
A
But Coca Cola never shared their formula, so nah, I don't have such a huge secret. I think again is 99% inspiration. No, again, working hard, 1% of inspiration. But I think that the big difference is how to be different. I always be a minority in my life. I was the first mother in the company I used to work. I was the only woman in the company I used to work. I was Japanese in an occidental community, etc. Etc. So every time I talk about my life is like I've been always a minority in many senses. No. So I'm very familiar being competitive, being different. And I would recommend find something that you are very good at and try to focus your energy and your team energy in that special feature of your company.
- [22:49]
B
That's a good secret, Cecilia. That's good advice. That's good lived experience. So I'm on board with that.
- [22:55]
A
Okay. And the second thing is a process supporting that because in this competitive industry like it, you may lose some talents. And we are losing talents every now and then actually, because you have companies paying more than you. I don't have such a huge financial background, so it is very common. But if you have a process, you can run the business with a more or less smoothly, not depending on persons, but depending on processes. No.
- [23:33]
B
What about for you? What's the thing that you're most excited about as you look ahead into the future for the business and yourself?
- [23:40]
A
I think the impact we may have as partners is going to be more and more important, bigger and bigger. Because vendors produce great products or more or less great products. In the case of HubSpot, you are putting a lot of innovation every day. So that is very important for us as a partner.
- [24:07]
B
And.
- [24:07]
A
But our impact is growing at the same path. I mean pace. No, because if we keep doing the same, but Hubs for runs innovate faster and faster, we are going to go behind more and more. Probably some competitors will win more deals compared to us.
- [24:34]
B
But.
- [24:34]
A
But I think the way HubSpot is innovating, the way HubSpot is growing the market, the way you are growing the size of the cake is very impressive. Very impressive. And that's the most important thing that I as a partner watch every day. It's not how I invest my money in my company, but it's how HubSpot is growing. Because you are my umbrella.
- [25:07]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So, Cezia, thank you so much for joining us today. But more importantly, I want to thank you for representing Latam Partners on a global stage. Don't forget that we love hearing feedback on owning the outcome. So let us know what you think and remember to tell your friends to subscribe.
- [25:27]
A
Thank you. I will. Thank you very much. It was very, very interesting talking to you and thank you very much. Hope to see you soon.
- [25:37]
B
Thanks to see you.