Buenos Aires... Two Years Down the road...

It’s amazing that the best thoughts (well… OK… apparently good thoughts) come on whenever there is a period of waiting. Whatever we await creates a time void, which tends to self fill with little vignettes and remembrances of moments. However, when this happens, we also know that at any moment, that which we awaited, will come in and pull the curtain on whatever images have been conjured.

Such is the moment and such are the thoughts which are filling my mind at this time, while waiting for a conference call which has been delayed some 45 minutes. My head, for some unknown reason is back in Argentina again; not necessarily where we left off last time, but on some events which took place later on, about 2 years down the road.

We finished the first full year of the company on a very good note. Actually we were ahead of schedule both, in production and in market penetration. The regional (outside Buenos Aires) markets had responded very well to our “local boy” saturation campaigns and in most, we had the definite upper hand. In the meantime, our puny (size wise) presence in Buenos Aires itself, was doing very well and we had ensconced ourselves in a solid 5^th place within the metro area. This was nothing to scoff at, there were some 14 companies selling this product in the metro area and many of them had the advantage of size and, supposedly, name over us. But… they did not have our small group of opportunistic guerrilla tacticians. We were willing to try most anything and, often, did. Despite the fact that the product sold was a serious issue dealing with a very real problem, we always stressed the lighter side, not forgetting reality. In a country and society which desperately needed some smile relief at the time, this approach did work well.

Year two was to be dedicated to shore up what we had as a distribution system, and to bring in new bank partners in order to expand our market penetration (we did not have a captive sales force, we only sold through selected offices of member banks). Also, to bring in a locally strong bank (BsAs) was a specific objective. Three banks were targeted and in the end, two came in. One a small private bank with 4 local offices (this doubled our initial count) but the other one had branches in every neighborhood… YES!!!!. With this bank in our fold, we were able to eventually come up to a solid third place within the metro area; this was beyond our wildest initial expectations, and we had cause to celebrate. That year’s Christmas dinner was a special one; closed to the board members, only for employee rank and file. We were not that many, probably around 25 people, totally dedicated to the company and the dream. We hired out a room in one of the better riverside restaurants and had a blast that night.

But, as wisely (whoever this Mr. wisely may have been, he shows up a lot…) said somewhere: “failure is an orphan; success has many parents”. Once the success of the company became documented and it was clear that the enterprise was rapidly becoming a money “machine”, all kinds of political in-laws came out of the woodwork. All the board members who never bothered to come to the company before (didn’t want to be “contaminated” if it failed) and many senior bank officers who would have never even bothered to come by, began to show up and to have an interest. Good, you may say. If this had been an honest interest, well and good.

However, those who did have the honest interest had been there all along, with shirtsleeves rolled up and getting their hands dirty in the initial stages. The ones coming in now, only wanted to bask in the glory of perceived success. The changes were not good; by coming into the board, the new bank officers took the place of some of the original crew, for there was only one spot per bank on the board. This created an unbalanced overview, because those who knew what really had to be done became a minority, having to convince those who had no idea how to manage our structures every time a move had to be made. They definitely had ideas of their own as to how to do it, however; whether they applied or not seemed to be irrelevant.   This has never happened before, right??

Yet, the company was doing very well and would continue to do well for a while. The structures were in place and they proved to be solid, surviving the weakening shots taken by the new board. Most were unintentional, just born out of sheer lack of understanding coupled with a deep feeling of self sufficiency. However, I found out later on, that some of these “shots” were totally intentional, meant as a diversion to mask other issues happening in some of the banks. Like an embezzlement of 1Mio$ by one of our esteemed (and more vocal) board members from his bank. Last I heard, he was seen going north to either Paraguay or Brasil, money in his hands.  Life goes on, right? Can’t get the right way… then go for the left way… Hmmm!

Sometime early in the third year, our dear Argentinean-Swiss actuary died of a massive coronary, becoming one more stat in his own notebooks. We had to come up with a sub, and this was not an easy matter in that market at that time. One of the board members suggested we hire, as a VP, one lady who had several years experience in another local life company as an actuary in training, and also in administration. I happened to be busy at the time and was away from the offices for a couple of weeks, visiting the different outlaying offices so, it fell on the Admin VP to accept or not. He was a great guy and a proven asset, but did not have the guts to stand up to a senior board member who was pressuring for the acceptance of this person, so he gave in and she came on board.

Everything in life runs in cycles and it has become a firm belief of mine this is so. The company and my stay in Bs As were coming on to the final stages of their cycle(s), and the entrance of this person into the fold marked a defining moment.

This was early in the year, when we were very busy implementing the year’s market plans, resulting in many meetings as well as many outside seminars and such. Being in different parts of the country gave us a definite marketing advantage over the metro seeded companies, but the other side of the coin was the required travel time in order to visit all selling points. This responsibility fell squarely on my shoulders, since I was the marketing and public face of the company. So, for at least the following two months I would be away as much as 65-75% of the time. As matters unfolded, this had been coldly calculated by the board member (not one of the original ones) who recommended the newcomer. I later learned that he always felt he should have been given my position by the board. The fact he had never worked in a life insurance environment, did not mean much to his overdeveloped ego.

Our new “actuary” became his eyes and ears in the company, creating a negative environment of which I did not become aware, unfortunately, until it was already too late… After the initial market push, my family and I were scheduled to go back to the States for vacation, and would be away for one full month. This gave our friends almost 4 months in which to work behind the scenes, especially with those board members who had worked themselves into the board as “johnny-come-latelies” but, who now represented a majority.

I guess enough for now… the call is here and I must go. The rest of the story (Where have I heard that phrase before??) will come sometime in the next few days…

Be Well… Be Back!!