Gabriel Masfurroll: "Life is holistic and knowing how to lose is winning"

Gabriel Masfurroll is an entrepreneur and philanthropist. Co-founder of Grupo Clínicas Mi (Clínica Tres Torres in Barcelona and Clínica NovAliança in Lleida). "Life is holistic and everything is connected. Harmony has guided my life," he asserts in true Steve Jobs style.

Masfurroll has been the founder of USP-Hospitales, vice-president of Barça, president of the Social Council of the UAB, member of the global Council of Kreab, and partner of 2PlayBook, Stockcrowd, Liberia Community, Opinat, or Quantfy, among others. He has also worked at Sant Pau ---where he met Cristina, the love of his life---, the Puigvert Foundation, Quirón, or Sanitas, among others. In total, he has visited more than 1,000 hospitals around the world, he loves to travel, and even took a sabbatical year to do so.

He is a vintage, curious, and hyperactive entrepreneur who strongly believes in destiny. His life has been and is a long-distance swimmer's race where each stroke is a vital experience accompanied by new learnings. "Sport has taught me to make very difficult decisions," he explains. He lost his father to Alzheimer's and lost a son with Down syndrome, and now he suffers from colon cancer, but far from giving up, he continues swimming a couple of hours a day. It is his personal catharsis. Loud and clear: "Life goes on and one has to look at everything positively."

He participated in the creation of the Catalan Foundation for Down Syndrome, the Aura Foundation, and the Barça Foundation. He has also received the Creu de Sant Jordi and the entrepreneur of the year award from Emprendedores magazine or EY. Stepping into his office is like walking through a museum of football history where there are plenty of books, jerseys, or photographs of Cruyff, Messi, or Maradona, as well as Paco de Lucia's guitar. Music of health, sport, and life.

--- At Costa i Llobera, you discovered your passion for swimming.

--- I was good at it and they gave me a scholarship to train and compete. I lived a double life as a student and athlete that lasted for more than a decade.

--- Son and grandson of businesswomen.

--- I have had an eccentric and not very vocational life. I come from a family of businesswomen who started from scratch in Manresa and ended up selling in the United States. They invited my grandmother to the parade when man reached the Moon! A lady from Manresa with a small workshop who ended up being a great fashion designer. Both had to ask their husbands for permission to travel due to the law and the era, but the men in my family were the back office.

--- What does it mean to be an entrepreneur?

--- I learned it at home, and it clashes a lot with the current perception. Today we call them entrepreneurs because the word "empresario" (businessman/entrepreneur) is demonized, but entrepreneur and "empresario" are different things. An entrepreneur has drive and wants to create things. You can be a good entrepreneur and a bad "empresario." And vice versa. The entrepreneurial "empresario" is one who grows the company and makes it sustainable over time.

"You can be a good entrepreneur and a bad 'empresario,' and you can be a good 'empresario' and a bad entrepreneur"

--- We must create an environment with the team, suppliers, shareholders, or clients. We must grow together and create wealth for everyone and for society. If the company grows, then it also pays more taxes and helps society progress. I don't quite understand the current ecosystem where companies are created quickly and sold as soon as possible.

--- Let's go back to the pool and the classrooms.

--- I studied Economics because I imagined myself running the family business, but then came the era of the famous oil crisis, and many companies like ours closed down. My brothers and I took on the family debts. I found work at Sant Pau hospital where I met my wife, who was a nurse. All of this has marked my life.

--- "Life is about connecting the dots," you often recall from Steve Jobs' famous speech.

--- I believe a lot in destiny, and my whole life has been marked by decisions that have led me to where I am now.

--- You assure that "reality has surpassed dreams." What were your dreams like?

--- My dreams of adolescence and emancipation were very simple… To find a good job to be happy, enjoy, progress, create a family, give our children a good education, and end life with dignity.

--- What is your reality like?

--- I have lived a very intense life because I am very curious and quite hyperactive. I have always tried to make everything related, and it is precisely this interrelation that has enriched my life.

--- What is your life like?

--- Holistic. A full life is a holistic life.

--- "To heal and to care" is the philosophy of Clínicas Mi.

---I have visited more than 1,000 hospitals around the world. When you enter a hospital as a patient, you are surely worried, anxious, and stressed. And your environment too. When you enter a hospital as a patient, you want a solution and to be cured, but the emotional component of being cared for is as important as being cured. I have colon cancer, and I am being treated and cared for.

"A full life is a holistic life"

--- That life goes on and one has to look at it positively. I have been screwed for months by chemotherapy, but making it public is my personal catharsis and my way of destigmatizing the word cancer.

--- What was the first thing you thought?

--- When they tell you that you have cancer, the impact is strong and others already see you in the other neighborhood. It's not like that. Medicine has advanced a lot. I don't want to be frivolous because I also have my bad moments, I have fallen many times and I have cried my heart out, but I am positive so let's go! I have lived it from the other side and I have seen all the diseases because a hospital is not an office and you have to step on it and get to know doctors and patients as well as treatments and technology in depth.

--- Humanize medicine.

--- I am a vintage and I remember when we were young and we said that if it wasn't good it meant it was artificial. Now we have turned it around and it turns out that artificial intelligence will be ahead of human intelligence. Impossible. Human intelligence is crucial and irreplaceable for better or for worse.

"Making public that I have cancer is my personal catharsis and a way to destigmatize this word"

--- It is the evolution of a family that has transformed into entrepreneurs. I have entrepreneurial DNA, I trained as a healthcare professional and I worked in many sectors of the healthcare field until I created the company USP Hospitales. First we were only two people and we ended up being 7,000 workers in different countries.

--- Every success has its toll.

--- I reached my limit of chaos and brutal stress, so I sold it and took a sabbatical year.

--- A sabbatical year.

--- I enrolled in an IESE program and visited many universities. My children recommended that I not stay at home and I went all over the world. I met many people my age who had already made their lives and in fact, we still write to each other often and meet once a year. It's fantastic. I did a switchoff and changed the course of my life.

--- What was the new course of life?

--- New projects, foundations, boards of directors… My eldest son [Gaby] has had a strong hospital vocation since he was very young. He studied Law at Esade, but he didn't want to work as a lawyer and started a career at USP. One day the opportunity arose to buy Clínica Tres Torres and he proposed we do it together.

"With USP Hospitales I reached my limit of chaos and stress, so I sold it and took a sabbatical year"

--- I told him yes, but on the condition that the project would be his, so I only act as a mentor and I am non-executive chairman of the board of directors. After a while, the NovAliança Clinic project in Lleida also came out. I am the big shot of Clínicas Mi [Laughs]. Now I have slowed down a bit because I have to concentrate on recovering from cancer.

--- Much encouragement and much strength…

--- There are people who think everything is easy when you are an entrepreneur. Cristina and I started with nothing and with debts from the family business, but we got married and took the risk of living together and getting ahead. For 10 years we couldn't make ends meet and had to take out overdrafts with very high interest rates. Alex was born with Down syndrome.

--- How did it change your life?

--- It wasn't in our plans and we didn't have a penny, but it really changed our lives. The world of Down syndrome was very underdeveloped then, and together with Ramon Trias Fargas or Montserrat Trueta we decided to create the Catalan Foundation for Down Syndrome, which is now one of the most important in the world. After 10 years on the board, I decided to make way for new people. When the orange is squeezed…

"There are people who think everything is easy when you are an entrepreneur"

--- When Alex died, we had a very hard time, and when Alex was born, it was a significant shock. Problems are problems until you accept them, and then they are just another circumstance of life. We started to investigate, we divided the roles, and Cristina dedicated herself a lot to Alex's early stimulation, while I dedicated myself to creating instruments to improve Down syndrome. There are two years of my life that I cannot remember.

--- What happened?

--- I was directing the Clínica Quirón in Barcelona, and we were gathered in Vallromanes to prepare the budget for the following year. It was December 28th, and they called me to tell me to come down because Alex was not well. "Come down, come down, come down"... It didn't sound good at all. When I arrived at the clinic, they told me that Alex had died. I vomited, and from then on, there are two dark years of mourning where I remember nothing. Alex's story was intimate, but we created the foundation to break the vicious circle that was leading us nowhere.

--- A foundation that helps and helps you.

--- With the foundation, it's as if he had returned, and even our grandchildren talk about their uncle. Alex is not alive, but he is alive for us. Thanks to him, we have been able to help many people, and we also promoted the famous LISMI, which is a very good law, but it has not been complied with.

--- You have fought a lot for social responsibility: protected childhood, people with different abilities, and groups at risk of exclusion.

--- My problem is that I don't know how to say no, and I would like someone to explain to me what free time is. [Laughs]. Everything is holistic. In 1989, they offered me to direct the Jiménez Díaz Foundation, and we made the decision together. We always decide everything as a team, and this is very important.

"With the foundation, it's as if Alex had returned, and thanks to him, we have been able to help many people"

--- I see it very similarly. Population growth is exponential. When I was young there were about 39 million inhabitants in Spain and now there are almost 50. It is a very important demand and there is also a lot of immigration. The healthcare sector cannot multiply, the State can do what it can do and that is why I am a great supporter of public-private collaboration.

--- ¿More and better public-private collaboration?

--- The word entrepreneur and public-private collaboration are very demonized. We are a very Latin country with a series of prejudices that are difficult to solve. Private medicine does a very good job in Catalunya and has existed for more than 100 years. People believe and trust. We must not break, but help and regulate well the relationship between the public and private sectors.

--- ¿How?

--- That they work hand in hand, that they do not invade each other and that they work together. In Lleida we found a hospital that was dying and we have made it all new. Many people from Catsalut are enjoying it and the demand is so strong that it exceeds the supply. We must organize all together and get rid of these prejudices. ¿How? Doing things well.

"The word entrepreneur and public-private collaboration are very demonized. The public and private sectors have to work hand in hand and work together"

--- There are people who do things badly both in the public sector and in the private sector. I did the first strategic plan for a public hospital in Spain with Vall de Hebrón in 1989. I know the public and private sectors well.

--- How do you see the city of Barcelona?

--- I come from a gray, sad, and dull Barcelona. It was a city by the sea but it didn't see the sea. Barcelona transformed with the Olympic Games and became one of the best cities in the world. We had that pride and we have gone for the worse in every sense.

--- Why?

--- I love this city very much. Thanks to swimming, I traveled all over the world and imagined myself living in many places, but I wouldn't trade Barcelona for any other place. Now we are striving to do it badly… Until the 2008 crisis, we lived off 1992 when we were the center of the world.

--- You can't live your whole life off the Olympic Games from 30 years ago.

--- We started to falter with the economic crisis and the city has been getting worse ever since. Barcelona is no longer as safe and not as clean… Many things could be done because it is an extraordinary city. Barcelona does not need to be refounded, but it does need to be renewed and without making strange inventions.

--- What inventions?

--- We must not touch Cerdà's Barcelona and right now we are destroying it. The Cerdà Plan was globally recognized and now we are making hellish inventions. Driving through Barcelona is a chaos worthy of the Wild West. Either the laws are for everyone or… We are not doing well. The political structure of the world is multipolar and here we are in a process of anarchy.

"Barcelona does not need to be refounded, but it does need to be renewed without strange inventions. Driving through the city is a chaos worthy of the Wild West and it is better not to touch Cerdà's Barcelona"

--- We have elections at the end of May and it is impossible to see how a municipal government can be formed. The parties do not like each other, whether right-wing or left-wing. We want an organized and well-managed city. Barcelona is like a large community of owners. We have to take advantage of our beloved city with common sense, which can improve a lot, but right now it is a low-cost city. I feel very bad about all this, especially for our children and grandchildren, but for what I have left in the convent…

--- What unites an entrepreneur and an athlete?

--- I don't know what unites them, but I do know what has served me. Swimming has given me strength and tools that have served me very well in life. I started swimming later than the rest of my teammates and the first few years I always lost all competitions and I discussed it with my father.

--- What did your father tell you?

--- You have two options: throw in the towel or strive to overcome it. Learning to lose is winning and it is very good. I miss my father very much because he was an extraordinary person and died very young with Alzheimer's. I remember he talked to me a lot about the importance of constancy, tenacity, effort, and discipline. All this has served me later throughout my life and sport has also taught me to make very difficult decisions. Harmony has guided my life.

--- The previous interviewee of Persona a Persona, Salvador Alemany, asks you the following question: What have you taken from the Barça experience for hospital management and vice versa?

--- Paraphrasing Peter Drucker and as a university professor told me, the most difficult company to manage in the whole world is a hospital. I replied that I had never managed a football club. It has ego, vanity, and the paradigm of irrationality and uncontrolled emotions. This cannot be fixed.

"Managing a football club is more difficult than managing a hospital due to ego, vanity, and the paradigm of irrationality and uncontrolled emotions"

--- What should the club be converted into? --- I'm not talking about a public limited company, but rather for Barça to have a model similar to La Caixa. That is, to create a foundation with the roots and values of the club that owns at least 51% of the company that manages the club, and that this foundation can in turn establish alliances to help the club grow. I promoted the Barça Foundation, but I left because its budget made no sense. Barça has a nineteenth-century governance and is condemned to go through a significant journey in the desert if things are not done well. We are already late.

"Barça has nineteenth-century governance and should have a model similar to La Caixa with a foundation that owns at least 51% of the company that manages the club"

--- Let me be bad... An entrepreneur is someone who has an idea, creates something, and digs into their own pocket. Nowadays there are many people who are called entrepreneurs and they are not.

--- And what are they?

--- Senior executives who haven't dug into their own pockets or risked their livelihood to create a company.

"An entrepreneur is someone who has an idea, creates something, and digs into their own pocket. Nowadays there are many people who are called entrepreneurs and they are not"

--- Of businessmen? Many! Juan Roig, Amancio Ortega, Catalan businessmen… Businessmen are those who create wealth and executives have a lot of knowledge to lead companies but they are not businessmen. We must differentiate between entrepreneurs, great executives and businessmen. There are businessmen who are not good executives and good executives who could never be businessmen.

SEVEN LIVES

1. Role model: My father and my wife 2. Book: The Little Prince, by Saint-Exupéry 3. Movie: The Bridge on the River Kwai, by David Lean 4. Song: Imagine, by John Lennon, and T'estimo, by Lluís Llach 5. Favorite spot: Where my loved ones are 6. Life motto: Live and let live 7. Dream: To see my grandchildren grow up