Latin America

Mexico City, Montevideo, São Paulo

HBS has had a longstanding footprint in Latin America for over 20 years. The Latin America Research Center (LARC) opened in 2000 to satisfy strong interest on the part of the HBS faculty in this dynamic region. As a result, the LARC’s work has greatly increased the volume of in-depth research and course materials that focus on business management issues specific to Latin American companies. This has also enabled HBS to strengthen its relationships with important companies and organizations, fostering increased student engagement in the region. Since its inception, the LARC has supported HBS faculty in developing most of the HBS research cases and projects on management and economic issues in Latin America. To further encourage research being carried out in this region, HBS established a research center in São Paulo, Brazil, coupled with an office in Mexico City.

Locations

Mexico City Office
Mexico City, Mexico

Latin America Research Center - Montevideo
Av. Italia 6201
Edificio Los Robles, Planta Baja
Parque Tecnológico del LATU
11500, Montevideo
Uruguay

Latin America Research Center - São Paulo
São Paulo, Brazil
Tel: +55 11 3549 9590

News & Highlights

MAY 2023
COMPANY VISIT

Professor Michael Chu Meets with Ceibal

Professors Michael Chu and John Kim co-authored a case in 2022 about Ceibal, an organization within the Ministry of Education of Uruguay, devoted to educational innovation. In May 2023, Professor Chu visited Ceibal and held a stimulating case discussion with Ceibal's management, encouraging them to pursue their mission and be a key factor to leverage the country's opportunities in the global context.

APRIL 2023
ALUMNI EVENT

Professor Christina Wing's Visit to Brazil

In April, Professor Christina Wing traveled to Brazil to develop a case study on a family business. She also seized the opportunity to meet with OPM participants. Additionally, as part of her trip, the Latin America Research Center and Young Presidents' Organization collaborated to organize a breakfast meeting with young leaders. The purpose of this gathering was to explore strategies for effectively preparing companies for the challenges and opportunities of the next generation.

JULY 2022
EVENT

Conversation with Professor Michael Chu and Marcelo Escobar

In July, Professor Michael Chu and Marcelo Escobar, president of Banco Sol in Bolivia, talked to entrepreneurs in Santa Cruz de la Sierra about the impact of technology in financial services. Escobar leveraged his extensive experience in Latin America, venture capital, and base of pyramid markets.

June 2022
EVENT

A Conversation with Professor Michael Chu and Professor John Kim

In Montevideo, Uruguay, in June 2022, a group of alumni and business leaders gathered with Professors Michael Chu and John Kim to talk about the importance of education as a driver for growth and human development in the world and the current and future challenges and opportunities of the educational systems globally and specifically in Uruguay.

JUNE 2022
EVENTS

Co-hosted Event with HBS Club of Brazil: Innovation on Boards

In June 2022, Celso Ienaga, Claudia Elisa, Michel Abadi and Renato Cunha (MBA’15) talked about the importance of innovation in boards of directors, how to measure innovation impact, and changes that generates growth opportunities (i.e. the Covid-19 pandemic). More than 70 alumni and friends attended the event.

New Research on the Region

November 2023
Case

Votorantim: Uniting Family and Business Across Generations

By: Christina R. Wing, Carla Larangeira and Pedro Levindo

Over a 105-year span, the Ermírio de Moraes family built Votorantim, one of Latin America’s largest industrial conglomerates, and among Brazil’s topmost businesses, also credited for helping “build” the country over decades. By early 2023, Votorantim included diversified operations in 19 countries worldwide, with a net income above $1 billion. The conglomerate was privately owned by the Ermírio de Moraes family, with its ownership evenly split across four family branches. Over time, the family established a corporate governance structure with separate boards for ownership, business, and family affairs, leaving business operations to a professional management team. At the heart of this governance structure was the family board, viewed by many family members as the “glue and honey” bringing them together. Despite running multiple initiatives, Luciana Domit chair of the family board and a fifth-generation member, acknowledged, it was becoming increasingly hard to get its over 170 family members to spend time together and to engage in the activities they promoted. As the family enlarged and interests diverged, fostering its long-term unity could become more challenging. Were the family board’s current strategies and overall governance structure at Votorantim conducive towards keeping the family united in its values and preserving its legacy? Or would a transformation be needed if the Ermírio de Moraeses were committed to remaining at the forefront of the Votorantim’s governance structure?

October 2023 (Revised October 2023)
Case

UnDosTres

By: Álvaro Rodríguez Arregui, Max Hancock and Amy Klopfenstein

Arpit Gupta, Naveen Sharma, and Vikram Deswal co-founded the mobile payment app UnDosTres in Mexico City in 2015. In the past, Gupta had worked at Paytm, an India-based payment app valued at over $1 billion. In Mexico, the co-founders hoped to recreate Paytm’s success. The co-founders quickly learned that in Mexico, the Paytm playbook could only get them so far. To grow UnDosTres, they needed to think fast and adapt to Mexico’s unique business environment.

October 2023
Case

Foodology: Creating a Virtual Restaurant Group in Latin America

By: Rembrand Koning, Jorge Tamayo and Jenyfeer Martínez Buitrago

In April 2020, Daniela Izquierdo (HBS, 2019) and Juan Guillermo Azuero (HBS, 2019), awaited the results of Harvard Business School’s Alumni New Venture Competition. Operating since September 2019, Foodology, a Colombian food-tech startup in the cloud kitchen segment, did not include dining areas, focusing solely on food preparation for delivery. Two months earlier, the co-founders had submitted their application to the competition, outlining their plans to transform Foodology into the go-to platform for scaling restaurant brands in Latin America by creating virtual restaurant brands and exclusively serving customers from cloud kitchens. The case explores the numerous challenges the startup must confront to demonstrate its ability to turn their business ideas into reality.

See more research