Ricardo Semler
THE NEXT CENTURY OF WORK
Visionary approach to employee-centric management.
Known around the globe for his innovative, employee-centric management style, Ricardo Semler is a true visionary who advises businesses on how they can significantly improve performance by restructuring relationships with their people.
His presentations invariably spark creative and productive thinking about how to lead and manage.
Ricardo Semler is president of Semco S/A, based in Brazil, and the author of two books: Maverick and The Seven-Day Weekend. Maverick has been published in 16 languages and sold over one million copies. The phenomenal success of the book demonstrates an eager interest in workable alternatives to conventional management wisdom. Hundreds of executives from other companies have visited Ricardo’s firm to study his success.
Ricardo has been profiled in more than 200 magazines and newspapers, including a special edition of Time highlighting future world leaders. He was named one of the “Global Leaders of Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum in Switzerland and purported to be a contributor to the international think tank, PR1ME.
Semco’s Success
Ricardo admits that his own company’s management agreements are not for everyone (managers determine their salaries, staff choose their bosses), but it is a success.
His Brazilian-based firm’s revenues have grown since he took over his father’s company at the age of 21. On the first day he fired 60% of all top managers then proceeded to build Semco from a company of 90 employees with an annual revenue of $4 million to one of 5,000 employees, a phenomenally low employee turnover rate of just 2%, a 47% growth rate and annual revenue of $212 million plus additional minority interests in companies that add up to over $9 billion in market value.
Many innovative industries have been started in the last 5 years:
ETH — one of the world’s important energy businesses the largest ethanol producer in the world.
BrasilAgro — a US $800 million farm development business that buys land, brings railways and infrastructure to remote agricultural areas and then sells smaller portions, in the vein of real estate condominiums.
Tarpon — a fund that specializes only in 5 stocks at a time was started together with Semco employees, and, in its 6th year manages $3.5 billion in assets, with an annual 37% return and a promiment place as one of Brazil’s most succesful and impressive funds.
Juritas — a nationwide law firm and services behemoth that uses advanced technology to deliver pre-priced legal work. This unique global venture, which is now the largest law firm in Brazil with 1,400 lawyers and paralegals, uses only digital technology to scan and format documents based on syntax and context, and then utilizes paralegals in several countries, in a 24/7 system, to verify the quality.
The latest venture, the most audacious so far, is one that merges private equity, NGO’s and development agencies in one single legal entity (with a balance of power between the three areas) that has been set up to develop projects in the Amazon. This is a unique experiment in management and development, and plans to raise US $1billion in ten years to prove that a new type of company is needed.
The Message
Ricardo urges audiences to take a realistic look at what works, what’s possible, and what makes sense in today’s world, given our technologies, the rapid pace of change and the increasing failure of current practice to adapt. Technology that was supposed to make life easier—laptops, cell phones, e-mail, pagers—has stolen our free time instead and destroyed the traditional nine-to-five workday. Why, for instance, haven’t we learned to go golfing on Monday morning when we’ve learned to take our work home on Friday night?
For bold innovators, Ricardo proposes a way to run a workplace that leads to greater productivity and greater flexibility for managers and employees alike. And for business leaders everywhere, he offers fresh alternatives to business as usual that inspire creative solutions to modern management problems.
Credentials
- President, Semco S/A
- Named Brazil’s “Business Leader of the Year” twice
- Named “Latin American Businessman of the Year” by America Economia (The Wall Street Journal’s Spanish language magazine)
- Vice President, Federation of Industries of Brazil
- Board member, SOS Atlantic Forest, Brazil’s foremost environmental defense organization
- Semco was selected by CIO magazine as the only Latin American company among the most successfully reengineered companies in the world, and the
- BBC included the company in its “Reengineering The Business” series. Harvard Business School alumnus
- Thinkers50 2005
[Thanks to leighbureau.com]
