Hi, I’m Gabriel.
A long story short
Here you are going to find strategies and resources for companies and entrepreneurs to succeed internationally. I also share some of my professional and personal experiences, hoping it can be useful or funny. Preferably both.
We can also connect on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
I’m an international investments expert and lawyer, a lifelong learner (in 2020 I started learning to code, what’s your tip about programming?), and an amateur tennis player.
What I do
I run ENDÉAMOND Partners, a boutique advisory firm with offices in Bangkok (Thailand), Ho Chi Min City (Vietnam), and Curitiba (Brazil) providing two lines of services:
a) Investment Research, where we identify investment opportunities in private equity, listed equities, distressed debt, and real estate assets in Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore;
b) Advisory, developing and implementing market entry into Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore for foreign companies (only the ones where proprietary technology is at the core of their business).
I started it alone in 2017. We are a multinational and multicultural team of 17 guys working at our projects across and from Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Curitiba, New York, Zurich, and even in El Bolson, in the Patagonian Argentine, where our head of design lives.
I’m also the editor of the weekly newsletter ENDÉAMOND iNSIGHTS.
In addition, I’ve been fortunate enough to chair the board of the International Trade and Development Research Institute – INTER and serve on the advisory board of ACP, in Brazil.
From Law School to Yoga School
I graduated in Law 1997 from the Federal University of Parana (UFPR), then ranked among the top 3 schools in Brazil, and worked as a litigation lawyer for approximately 17 years.
Throughout my career, I’ve been fortunate to deal with and work for senior Brazilian authorities, including former presidents, governors, senators and members of the Parliament, justices from the Supreme Court, senior officials from national agencies, and also from multilateral institutions, especially from the World Bank and the IDB – Inter-American Development Bank.
Facing the COVID19 crisis is not as painful as facing the Brazilian Judiciary system, though. Believe me. Getting an LLM in International Law in 2012 was the way I found to rely on fewer contentious cases and more on legal consulting. And so I did.
Drafting contracts, however, was as exciting as sticking all and each one of letters on a newspaper page with a needle.
The next step was starting to learn yoga, of course. I started it in October 2013 and by August 2016 had completed 95% of the path to becoming an official Art of Living Foundation (AOL) teacher.
Between October 2014 and July 2016, I dedicated roughly 5 hours a day to my service as an AOL volunteer and less than 6 hours a week to my profitable work. Those are among the most meaningful days of my life.
Yes, surely I also did other things at that time. Mostly I studied everything I wanted to but was entrapped by the illusion my law firm was my life, and played tennis. This is a chapter to write about in the future. Maybe not, if I’m prudent.
Learning and teaching yoga philosophy, exercises (asanas) and breathing techniques across the country to people from different ages, cultural backgrounds, social classes, was rewarding in a way I can’t put words on.
At that time I was already forty, but I feel it was only then I “completed” my formation as a human being (sort of saying, as we all know we are never complete as human beings, right?).
For various reasons, I realised becoming a yoga teacher wasn’t my best option. Yet, it opened my mind and gave me the courage to leave my comfortable life in Brazil and travel the world, heading -> East.
The long journey to the East (it wasn’t that long, but I haven’t found a better title to this section)
After having strolled down by the beauties of Spain, Morocco, France, Nepal (where I had the privilege to climb 19,000-foot peaks in the Himalayan range), and Malaysia, I landed in Bangkok on 5 December 2016.
On April 2017 a headline blew my mind:
“Bangkok Claims Title as World’s Most Visited City: 2016 Mastercard Global Destination Cities Index”
What?! Is Bangkok a destination more popular than New York and Paris?
Here are the exact numbers I read that Sunday afternoon while having tea and appreciating the view to the Benjasiri Park:
- Bangkok – 21.47 million.
- London – 19.88 million.
- Paris – 18.03 million.
- Dubai – 15.27 million.
- New York – 12.75 million.
- Singapore – 12.11 million.
- Kuala Lumpur – 12.02 million.
- Istanbul – 11.95 million.
That same afternoon I got access to the following data:
| Est. growth in market size (%) between 2016-2021 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Greater Southeast Asia | U.S. | China | |
| E-commerce | 261% | 23% | 196% |
| Digital entertainment | 145% | n/a | 54% |
| Online travel | 90% | 15% | 172% |
Source: Association of South-East Asian Nations. ASEAN
Since then, Bangkok has topped the Mastercard Global Destination Cities Index for four years in a row.
That set of information in April 2017 made me decide to start a consulting company in Bangkok.
Every time I think of starting it as a foreigner, alone, without speaking the local language and 3 years later being fortunate enough to lead an inspiring team of 17 professionals, and to help our clients to generate more than $ 35 million with projects in Vietnam and Thailand, I come to the same repetitive conclusion:
“If I can do that, imagine what a very well established foreign company or investor can do here.”
LEARNING, TEACHING, AND EDITING
A couple of years ago, I asked my dad how it was dealing with me when I was a child. He told me I was easy going, yet I had an idiosyncratic behaviour: commonly our helper invited all of us siblings to play at the park next to our house, but I preferred to stay at home reading the Larrouse Encyclopedia.
It took me a long time to accept I’m more of a nerd than a rockstar. Sometimes it still hurts knowing I’m not the new Keith Richards, though.
Having had the good luck of lecturing in Brazil, Thailand, and Vietnam, and delivered projects to companies from Brazil, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and the United States, sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the awareness of how ignorant I am in comparison to the massive amount of excellent knowledge available about decision-making, finance, strategy, wisdom, geopolitics, let alone fiction.
I see a couple of global authorities making statements completely disassociated from data, from reality, from any theory that makes sense. Yet, most of these infamous characters consider they know everything that should be known. Then, when the consequences of their mistakes arises, they blame third parties.
I prefer to depart from the premise that each topic has many dimensions and some of them are beyond my comprehension at that moment. I need to equip myself with adequate tools to approach that. Preferably listen to my team, eventually to external advisors.
When I was doing the “Model Thinking” course from the University of Michigan, with professor Scott Page, often came to my thought that not only thinkers and businessmen, but also politicians should be capacitated to deal with large and complex projects (perhaps also with day to day decisions;).
There is a page here dedicated to my intellectual heroes. Please drop me an email if you find something interesting, dumb, or inaccurate there.
One of the main goals of my blog is sharing some of the great podcasts, texts, and videos I regularly bump into. I hope you enjoy it as well.
BRING YOUR RACQUET
When I’m not working, I love to play tennis, cook, and fly around the beauties of Asia and the Mediterranean.
Thank you so much for taking the time to visit. I will be thrilled if we can connect and establish a fruitful dialogue.
Cheers!
Gabriel
