"Our origins are those of a modest, middle-class family: daily effort, modesty, and doing much more than is said"--- Francesc Julià Gelabert started selling mattresses in Costa Brava hotels in 1983 and the warehouse was an old chicken coop in Sils.I used to work here during the summers of ESO and Bachillerato. Back then, it used to annoy me, but over time I've learned to appreciate it. It's important to see life from all possible angles and be aware of your origins.--- How are your roots?The first day I entered Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) I was wearing a tracksuit because that's how I had always gone to high school and I almost felt ashamed of coming from a town, speaking and understanding the world in a different way. After a while, I understood that there were people who came from more controlled bubble environments, but that I had the ability to adapt to life.--- Pride of Girona. I learned that coming from a town in Girona is not a handicap. On the contrary! It is a great vital asset for being different.--- What else would you tell your teenage self?--- I made a list of reflections during the pandemic and thought about where we were as a company. It was a decalogue of maxims to follow that have allowed me to get here. In fact, it helps me explain the culture and spirit of Kave Home to new hires. I would tell my teenage self many things...
"Coming from a town in Girona is not a handicap. On the contrary! It is a great vital asset for being different"--- You will say.First of all, that I would do the technological baccalaureate and study Engineering. [Laughs]. I was a semi-professional at Bàsquet Girona, they paid me to play and I learned that you should worry if your coach doesn't tell you what you're not doing well or how you can improve. It means that you are not in the right place or that there is someone who does not value you or suffer enough for you.--- Advice better than praise.I don't want to generalize, but I'm clear that the player who got the most telling-offs from the coach was the one who played best. The coach has the will to make the player improve, and if he doesn't, it means he gives up on the player as a lost cause.
"Everything extra you do will serve to create future opportunities for you. Always do more than what you are told you should do"--- With number 1 on his list of reflections: Go the extra mile. AlwaysEverything extra you do will serve to create a universe for your future, whether with a group of friends, work, or an association. You have to change your perspective: everything extra you give at any time or in any environment helps you create future opportunities.--- What kind of future opportunities?You learn more things and if they value it in your environment, then perfect. If not, everything you have learned you will take somewhere else. Better never to think about not doing more because the company doesn't value it. Do and demonstrate before demanding.--- To do and demonstrate, before demanding.The society has become a bit perverted and now we demand before doing anything. There has to be a certain balance because if one gives and does not receive, the relationship breaks.--- The theory of givers, takers and matchers, which we often recall with businesswoman Mar Alarcón.It's a very simple philosophy: always do more than what you're told you have to do. That way, everything you've learned won't be useless and you'll create future opportunities. It's very important not to miss opportunities.
"Try to be the one who knows the least in the room"--- Dodge mediocrity, as Xavier Marcet says.Your future knowledge is very limited if you surround yourself with people you have under control. I really like Xavier Marcet. He came here for Julià Grup's 40th anniversary and told us to stop living from 6 PM onwards.--- Stop living from 6 p.m.If you want to live starting at 6 PM, you have a big problem because it means you are not doing what you should be doing and you need to make some changes. Living starting at 6 PM is a shitty life. Find a project that you are passionate about where you not only do a job, but where you also grow as a person.
"Living starting at 6 PM is a shitty life. You are not doing what you should be doing and you must make some changes"--- With number 7: Water all plants. Constantly.That one I like a lot and it means always having time for personal relationships. Life is extended for all people who have a well-built and trusting social environment. One of my great mentors at Kave is Johan Van Staalduinen who often told me: "You have to have mental space and willingness to water the plants." Write to a good friend, call family...--- He started working at the fintech Kantox, before it was acquired by BNP Paribas.From a young age, you experience the family business as a weekend activity. Kantox was my first professional job. In Economics, you mainly have professional opportunities in consulting, investment banking, fast-moving consumer goods, research, and dissemination. I did the Akademia program at the Bankinter Innovation Foundation, in which I had to create a startup with each chapter of the program.--- Learning by doing.--- I joined AIESEC and they put me in contact with startups from all over the ecosystem, through Barcelona Activa or Business Shuttle. I had an obsession with the world of consulting and I met the co-founders of Kantox who are Philippe Gelis and Antonio Rami. They came from Deloitte, we got along very well and they offered me to work with them.
"When you are looking for your first professional experiences, you should not think about logos or companies, but about who your mentor will be. A large part of success depends on your mentor"
--- He said yes. --- It was the best decision of my life. At Kantox I learned that when you are looking for your first professional experiences, you should not think about logos or companies, but about who your mentor will be. A large part of success depends on the mentor. Who will support you, who will train you and who will help you develop? Your mentor.
"I was about to not join the family business because of ego. When ego gets ahead of reality, impact, or strategy, then everything starts to go wrong"--- How did you convince your ego?I thought: What do I do? I'll be the son of… I want to do things my way and make my own path. I would go to sleep and ask myself: What is bigger, your ego or the intelligence to analyze the opportunities you have on the table? I convinced my ego because of the context.--- Kave 1 - Ego 0.Kave Home became the first option due to its projection, even if it was initially the lowest offer. I saw very clearly that Kave would make aboomwith or without me and I wanted to be part of it and be able to guide and scale it. When ego gets ahead of reality, impact, or strategy, then everything starts to go wrong. I took a few months sabbatical to isolate my mind. I knew that when I came in here it would be 24/7 and 365 days. There was no turning back.--- Family before business or business before family?The family comes before the company. My father would never make a decision in favor of the company that went against the family. However, the company is like a third sibling in the family. Difficult question... The company will never be the family's NGO.
"The family comes before the company, but the company will never be the family's NGO"--- What kind of NGO?The company will not hire someone from the family because they have lost their job. Everything must be separated very well. If someone in the family has a problem, I will stop working and accompany them wherever they need to go. The company is agnostic to the family in its execution and operations. My father dedicated himself to creating a very strict family protocol to separate company and family.--- Order and priorities.One of the great problems of the Catalan family business is when several generations enter, there is political family and it ends up becoming a public administration. It was very clear that the two ecosystems had to be separated, while respecting the order of priorities.--- How is the relationship with your father?My father is a great visionary and makes us think forward. He has a great ability to go from macro to micro, to understand where the world is going and to bring it down to detail despite there being a very large variability. My father has always led by example: the first to arrive and the last to leave.--- Any anecdote?My father opened his first store in Seoul (Korea). They prepared a big ceremony for him, but he found a table that was not well adjusted, he got on the floor and asked for a screwdriver and an Allen wrench. He fixed it and showed the store manager how to pass the snail. This example defines him very well.
"My father is a great visionary and makes us think forward. He has always led by example: the first to enter and the last to leave. His generosity has made everything very easy"--- How is the transition and handover being done?--- For a generational transition to be successful, it must be very generous. My father is very much so and leaves space for those of us who come behind to grow and develop. My father is a great mentor who accompanies us and makes the transition as smooth as possible. Not everything is rosy; there are also difficult moments because we have very similar characters and mindsets. There are points of friction, but our personal and professional relationship has strengthened us a lot.
--- What is his legacy? --- His generosity has made everything very easy. The company's culture and values are my father's culture and values. His legacy is his way of thinking and interacting with people. The company lives what my father emanates. --- Shared vision? --- The company is a legacy project. My father has never understood the company as a project for generating family or personal wealth; he has always had the will for a legacy, and everything the company has generated he has reinvested. That's how he has transmitted it to me. He needs little to live and likes to be able to generate an impact and believe that from Girona he can transform a global sector as large as interior design. --- Believing is power. --- From here we can transmit our way of understanding the product, service, and quality. All of this can be exported, and we can be benchmarks in customs and ways of doing things. It should not just be a region that imports its customs and ways of doing things. We are guided by the will for global impact. --- Do you think globally and act locally? --- The word glocal summarizes Kave Home's philosophy quite well. We are very proud of where we come from, of the land that saw us born and allows us to do what we do. We want to be a company of global leadership and impact. You cannot shut yourself off from what you are and where you come from, but you also cannot lose sight of it because then nothing makes sense. This balance is very interesting.
"They call us the UN of Girona. It seemed unthinkable that an industrial park in a town like Sils with more than 5,000 inhabitants would have more than 20 nationalities"--- Balance and tightrope walking. --- They call us the UN of Girona. It seemed unthinkable that an industrial park in a town like Sils with more than 5,000 inhabitants would have more than 20 nationalities. We are creating and participating in the multiculturalism of the province. --- Multiculturalism. --- To understand and export the virtues of where we come from and the philosophy and values of the territory throughout the world with the will to be a global leader. This makes us much more sensitive to local idiosyncrasies. We cannot just copy paste what we have here because there are a series of messages, products, and values that we want to export and they must mix with the local cocktail to create real value proposals. --- What should future people leaders and managers have? --- The first thing is to be a good person, beyond the connotations. You only need to look someone in the eyes for five seconds to know if they are a good person or not. The second is to be humble and generous to be a good team player. Projects are achieved by aligning and coordinating multidisciplinary people. You cannot be a good leader if you are not a good team player.
"To be a good leader you have to be a good person, a good team player, and be naive"--- Leading and playing as a team. --- You also have to be a little naive. Others can say "no" to you, but it should not come from you. Naive, realistic, but naive. The personality and the possibility of doing it must come from you. Only the naive change the world. People with talent and knowledge are also needed. --- "Impatient with actions, patient with results," he explains. --- Be focused on achieving results. Go from theory to practice and to the trenches. To be a good leader you must get down to business and know how to wear two hats. Leaders must think about vision, strategy, and the future years ahead. Extrapolate, go up and down to the detail of the execution. We are not a Ministry that optimizes its operations by a specific percentage per year, but rather we build and scale what we do. We need transmission and execution. --- "We must reclaim the chicken coops of Girona," he insists. Like the garages of Silicon Valley. --- I am very much from the territory and I feel Catalan. Countries are solid and solvent when they are not monopolized or do not focus only on one area or city. If David Martin from Tradeinn lived in Barcelona... But he works from an industrial park and it seems nothing happens. We feel very much from Girona, despite being from the province.
"A good leader must get down to business and know how to wear two hats"--- How do you see Girona? --- It is a territory with a strong family and industrial presence. There are many large companies that do not have visibility because they work in industries that are not very "sexy" such as meat, chemical, or machinery, among others. These are people very involved in social projects in the territory and who have a foundation linked to the company because they want to give back everything that the territory has given them. --- What has the territory given them? --- Values that must be capitalized on and continue to be built. Girona has opened up to the world in recent years. The Roca brothers have managed to put Girona on the world stage and we must thank them for that. The same with Marc Gasol. We should name a street or a square after them. --- The Roca square and the Gasol street. --- What they have done for our city is priceless. Girona has also positioned itself as the global capital of cycle tourism. Now there is a lot of international tourism and many people who want to invest and settle in the city as a first or second residence. Girona has great attractions and we, the inhabitants, are opening our doors. Sometimes we need people from outside to corroborate it and that's how we realize the potential we have.
"Girona has the Roca brothers, Marc Gasol, cycle tourism, Girona Hub or Didac Lee. We are experiencing a moment of sporting and business euphoria"--- Give me some more examples. --- The Girona Hub welcomes entrepreneurs who want to start a business from Girona and who do not need to go to Barcelona to create innovation beyond services, tourism, or industry. Didac Lee is a good example. We are experiencing a moment of sporting and business euphoria in the city. --- Is the administration a brake or a facilitator of economic activity? --- The administration has never been a catalyst, but rather a brake. We had the Kave Home platform project that was supposed to last 2 years, but it has been extended to 5 years due to urbanization, environmental, or Generalitat permits. --- What would you ask of the public administration? --- I do not ask for tax advantages, non-repayable financing, or facilities. I only ask the Administration not to put spokes in the wheels beyond the essential procedures and operations. I ask the Administration to put itself in the shoes of the entrepreneur. --- What is the skin of the Catalan entrepreneur like? --- Catalonia is a country that grows, evolves, and generates value for its fabric of family businesses, SMEs, and large companies that are not multinationals. We are talking about the private capital of Catalan families who invest and generate value in the territory and only want clear rules of the game and an administration that is in favor of business and not against it.
"I ask the Administration to put itself in the shoes of the entrepreneur. Creating country and future structures without the private sector is a big strategic mistake"--- Feelings? --- I have the feeling that generating business and launching new projects in Catalonia is frowned upon. I have the feeling that the entrepreneur fights against everyone and especially against the bad image. I am no longer talking about working on the social narrative or the media, but at least that the Administration sees the entrepreneur as an ally for the creation of wealth and jobs.
THIRST FOR LIFE:
- Role model: My father
- Book: Nobility of spirit, by Rob Riemen
- Movie: The Godfather, by Francis Ford Coppola
- Song: Louisiana o els camps de cotó
- Favorite spot: Port de la Selva
- Life motto: First understand, and then be understood
- Dream: To continue having fun creating global impact value from Catalonia, accompanied by my loved ones
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