Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 322-055. In June 2021, Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s president, surprised the world with the announcement that the country would adopt bitcoin as legal tender, becoming the first nation to do so. Bitcoin was mostly used for trading and had one of the most volatile track records among assets. Yet, crypto adoption as a medium of exchange was starting to gain pace worldwide. Bukele claimed it would be a boon for financial inclusion, investment, innovation, and economic development. El Salvador´s $27 billion economy suffered from persistently low growth, high public debt, and a strong dependence on remittances, which could potentially become cheaper and faster to access in bitcoins. The Bitcoin plan was met with both enthusiasm from Bitcoin supporters and skepticism from credit agencies and multilateral finance institutions, which believed it could bring macroeconomic instability to the local economy. Was bitcoin a viable currency for Salvadorans? Or, as some observers pointed out, was Bukele's plan another sign of weakened governance in his administration?
In spring 2023, Abiel Gutierrez and Andres Santos, co-founders of Comun, faced a critical decision at their fintech startup serving Latino immigrants. Having launched their product the previous year, they experienced rapid growth but encountered rising fraud and increasing regulatory barriers imposed by their banking partner, Piermont. These challenges threatened the company's core value proposition and the viability of its unit economics. Gutierrez and Santos were at a crossroads: Should they switch partners, a risky move given their limited financial runway, or stick with their current flawed infrastructure and risk stalling the company's growth? The case explores the complexities of partner reliance, regulatory hurdles, and the difficult strategic choices early-stage startups must navigate.
Since its founding in 2011, the Garza Sada brothers and their father positioned Topaz among leading family offices in Monterrey, Mexico, with several assets under management. Topaz aspired to have a transformative impact across multiple Mexican industries. An industry titan himself, founder Dionisio Garza Medina had previously forged a 30-year-plus career at Grupo Alfa, a publicly listed Mexican conglomerate, serving as its chairman and CEO, and positioning the group among global leaders in the auto parts and cooked food businesses. By the late 2010s, Topaz had multiple assets across the education, oil and gas, and real estate sectors, as well as investments in venture capital. In mid-2020, the group encountered unexpected challenges as Dionisio Garza Medina, the chairman and driving force behind Topaz´s decisions, suffered several strokes and took an extended leave of absence, leading his sons and wife, Balbina, to support the ailing Dionisio and to grow the business. After the strokes, the brothers adopted a previously designed yet untested governance structure, creating an executive committee whereby they agreed on business decisions and relying on an advisory board created earlier. Four years later, as the siblings reflected on the governance changes they had implemented, as well as Topaz’s structure and their respective roles, whereby Dionisio son was at the helm and brothers Luis and Pablo were respectively responsible for wealth management and real estate, they questioned: would it all work out? And how would they evaluate their success in advancing Topaz’s mission of generating transformation, impact, and leadership in the industries where it operated?
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Maria Fernanda Miguel is the Christopher P. Torto Executive Director for the Latin America Research Center (LARC). Her responsibilities include leading research activities for the LATAM region, and providing programmatic support to different areas of HBS including admissions, executive education, and immersion programs. Fernanda is based in Montevideo, Uruguay.
Prior to joining Harvard Business School, Fernanda was a Senior Director and Leader for LATAM Business Development at Merck and senior consultant at McKinsey & Co., serving as global Practice Manager for the Business Technology Office Health Care Practice.
She holds a degree in economics from the Argentine Catholic University, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a Master of Research from University of Bath.
Fernanda has been very active in non-profit activities, including fund rising at the Fundación Acción Hemato-oncologica – Argentine National Academy of Medicine, and acting as advisor to the Board of Directors of the Hospital Garrahan.