Javier Martinez Morodo, GBM & Bitso | How GBM's Digital Arm Was Born: An Intrapreneurship Playbook

The audio and video are in Spanish. These notes are a translation.

GBM is the leading digital investment platform in Mexico, with more than 4 million investors.

But just 10 years ago it was a more traditional brokerage house focused on institutional clients.

Today’s guest played a key role in GBM’s digital and cultural transformation.

Javier Morodo started his career at GBM as a trader at age 25 and, shortly after, became Director of Strategy.

We talked about the exponential growth of his career, the key decisions that allowed him to stand out and accelerate his path at GBM, and what the differences are between starting your own company or building inside a large company.

This episode was literally a manual of intrapreneurship.

Youtube Timestamps*

[1:10] - How to Build a Career

Javier joined GBM’s money desk at 25 and ended up founding GBM’s digital area and running the $5,000M asset manager at 30.

He told us about the progression of his career at GBM and which were the key moments for standing out and accelerating his trajectory at the company.

Such a fast professional rise is more similar to what would happen inside a startup than inside a large company.

What has he learned about how to accelerate his professional growth? What advice would he give people who are starting their careers?

It is increasingly common to see intrapreneurs leading new businesses inside corporations. But the incentives at startups and at corporations are very different.

How would he advise a friend to choose between starting their own company or building as an intrapreneur inside a large company?

[16:07] - Managing a Team

There are founders who left their jobs to start companies, after not being able to get financial or political support for those same business ideas inside their companies.

What are Javier’s tips on how to “pitch” new businesses to the leaders of their company?
How did he measure top management’s conviction? How did he know they were truly convinced about the projects they were inviting him to lead?

Building digital products is hard, even with the resources of a large company. Faced with those difficulties, long-term incentive alignment is key. At a startup, the possibility of receiving equity usually provides that.

What should an intrapreneur’s compensation plan look like in order to align their long-term incentives with those of the company?
How does he recommend setting objectives and managing the expectations of the company’s leaders?

In the process, there were moments when internal leaders at GBM doubted or questioned the project.

Javier told us what some of the hardest moments were and how he overcame them.

We have seen corporations hire strategy consultancies and put dozens of people to work overnight on their digital initiatives. The complete opposite of “lean startup.”

What does he think is the ideal team size and resources to start a digital initiative?
How does he think about assigning more resources and people? What do these initiatives and digital products have to deliver in order to receive more resources?
Javier told us what he learned during his time creating digital products at GMB

[52:45] - Experiences and Culture at a Large Company

The crowning of his chapter at GBM was leading the raise of the $150M round from Softbank.

Had he raised capital before? What did Javier learn during this stage?

When he joined, GBM had more than 40 years in the market and was an established company.

Over time, it has become more digital, and now a good % of its team are engineers and designers. It is the curious case of Benjamin Button applied to companies.

What were the key ingredients of that cultural transformation?

[1:00:06] - Rapid-Fire Questions

What advice would he have given himself if he could go back to the last night before his first day at GBM?
What has been the most influential book on his path through the world of startups?
If he traveled 10 years into the future, what is the wildest vision of what he is achieving?
What would he like to change about the world of startups in Latin America?