Orlando Bravo

There were very few jobs available in the alternatives industry back then.

It's grown so much.

And at the end, a couple of people gave me an opportunity to be in the Latin America group.

But Carl Thomas hired me and said, if you want to do tech, you know, come on in and I'll open up an office in San Francisco.

And we started then.

big time.

I'm actually going to Puerto Rico next week for a foundation event.

My experience thus far has been one of opportunity.

I'm very self-aware of that.

Even when I look at our organization today, Toma Bravo, we were one of the first to do a software buyout deal during the dot-com bubble collapse.

Even though we were one of the first to do tech buyouts, and we were one of the people or one of the groups that created this category that has been very profitable for LPs, and it's the biggest category in buyouts, and will continue to grow and continue to take share, I've never created anything new.

I got the opportunity to learn from one of the best investors in the world, Carl Thoma.

I got the opportunity to learn from the best operator I'll ever meet, Marcel Bernard, the most important person that has ever worked at our company.

During the 70s, he ran different divisions of Motorola.

We grabbed both concepts and just applied them to an industry that we really, really liked.

Yeah, and by the way, to end with Puerto Rico, therefore, since I was given so many opportunities, our whole business is based on giving opportunities to existing management, to our people, promoting from within and in Puerto Rico to try to change the opportunity set so the more people participate and have an equal chance.

That's kind of what I try to do there.

In terms of what happened during the bubble, one important lesson is to focus on the business

And the numbers that are right in front of you instead of being Too affected by the noise.

These are general things that are Going on right now.