EP #5 Nicolas Bivero: The Best Remote Teams Aren't Built on Talent Alone

Speaker A: I had a question the other day by a new employee who was asking, like, what I would recommend for them as a way to be successful with a new client. I'm like, well, always raise your hand, always ask for clarification. Even if you think that is crystal clear what you're supposed to do or what was asked from you, just double check. And it sounds like you might bother the person, but under normal circumstances everybody's happy to like, okay, sure, yeah, this is, this is exactly what I want. Or actually, no, thank you for asking. There is a small difference on what I'm asking. So I think that those cultural gaps or cultural differences, that's what we're trying to bridge and we're trying to set up. And it's important to understand that if you have a team in the Philippines or you're thinking of setting up a team in the Philippines, you need to be aware there will be differences, you need to adjust to them. And then obviously it makes it even more complicated if you then have time zone differences and all that. So you need to find ways of mitigating the potential gap that there might be as quickly as possible and as smoothly as possible.

Speaker B: Uh, here in the Philippines, we've built our workplaces on something deeply cultural. Uh, deference, hierarchy, don't challenge the person at the top of the room. And it made sense once, but the workforce walking into your offices today didn't get the memo and they're not interested in signing it. Human centric leadership isn't an option anymore. It's the most commercially intelligent decision you can make right now. This is Lead Human, a podcast for senior leaders and anyone who wants to become one, who already sense that something needs to change and are ready to do something about it. My name is Eli Harrell, and on this show I sit down with people who lead teams in the Philippines who want to build something different. Not just better businesses, but better ways of leading the people inside them, better cultures, and a better future of work. Alright, let's get into it. In this episode, I sat down with Nico Bivero. He's the CEO and co founder of Penn Brothers. Penn Brothers is a remote staffing company that became the fastest growing company in the Philippines in 2024. And if you know anything about how competitive that space is, you know that that's not a small thing. But what I found most interesting about Nico isn't the growth number, it's how he thinks about what made that growth possible. He grew up in South America, studied in Switzerland, spent years building teams for a Japanese logistics company and has now called Manila home for 15 years. That combination of perspectives shows up in everything that he talks about. What I loved most about this conversation is a story that he shares about their onboarding process. How Covid exposed a gap that they didn't know they had, and how they built something called Hypercare to fix it. Client success rates went from about 50% to 86%. Not from intuition, but from actually looking at what their best people were already doing differently and building a system around it. That's the kind of thing I think every people leader needs to hear. We go deep on what it actually takes to make change stick inside a growing organization and why the answer is almost always slower than what we want it to be. We talk about cross cultural communication, the gaps that show up when Western clients work with Filipino teams for the first time, and why AI is making Penn Brothers more human, not less. Nico also shares something I think about a the long game mindset. Not quarter to quarter, but building something that compounds over 5, 10, 15 years and beyond and, and what it takes to actually live that out. When you're a self described impatient person. If you lead people, build teams, or care about where Filipino talent is headed, this one is for you. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Please do let us know what you think. Drop us a comment and please do rate the show. It helps us a lot. Nico, welcome to Lead Human. Thank you so much for being here.

Speaker A: Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure.

Speaker B: Same here. All right, so just kind of setting the context for anybody who, you know, doesn't know you too well yet. I'm curious what country you're originally from, but I think you studied in Switzerland. Switzerland, right. Is that correct?

Speaker A: Yeah, I did. I mean, I'm actually half European, half South American, so my mother is from Germany, but my father is from Venezuela. So I actually grew up mainly in South America with a few years of Germany in between. And as you just said, I had the opportunity of then studying in Switzerland. So, um, and spent about six years in Switzerland and it was an interesting experience, to be honest, coming from South America.

Speaker B: Fascinating. So quite an international upbringing and perspective already. You know, I'm curious about. I get asked this all the time, like, why the Philippines? What brought you here? But you know, in your background, a of people come here for business in the outsourcing industry, they come here for the cost play. Um, but it seems like you started at some point seeing this as not just a market, but a mission. And I'm Curious. Like, what did you see that other people.

Speaker A: Ms. Well, I mean, it comes from the fact that I didn't come here originally for um, what I'm doing nowadays, which is basically building remote teams and offshoring. I came originally to build actually local operations. So I was working for a Japanese company in Japan, based out of Japan. They are a very established old family owned, owned logistic company for oil and chemical. And what brought me to the Philippines for the first time, that was, I think 2005, was actually identifying Philippines as an opportunity for us from Japan to do business here, bringing the expertise we had in Japan to the Philippines. So our goal at that time was really, can we actually do something in the Philippines? And then when I came, because of the foreign direct investment laws and the restrictions for that particular business, which is domestic cabotage, so domestic shipping, we needed a local partner. We then started working with a local Filipino company and with a team of the Filipino company and that exposure starting in 2005, like working with this team, working with the people, seeing how good they were and how, you know, hardworking, dedicated, smart, uh, like professional and was something that was an eye opener to me. And over the years before I set up my own company, it was really that exposure, those building entities in the Philippines, building the Filipino teams, finding the right people in the Philippines, all Filipinos. I mean, I was always the only foreigner for the longest time that was in the Philippines for them, for the Japanese. So that's what actually opened my eyes and made me decide to start thinking about what we then are doing nowadays, which is the offshoring, the outsourcing kind of side of the business. But it was really that exposure to the Filipinos that um, and working with them, that was eye opening to me.

Speaker B: Nice. You've become known as a company that's people first. And I'm kind of curious if, you know, we'll double click on this quite a bit more later. But when it comes to, let's just say leadership in general or business in general, have you, did you always see it that way or was it kind of a journey that made you realize, like, it's better to run businesses that are focused on people first?

Speaker A: Well, I mean, uh, straight out of university, I don't think I had any opinion about it or any knowledge. So I think that came over time, definitely based on the experience of working both in Japan and in the Philippines and in other Asian countries. So my working experience is mainly in Asia. And the people first concept that we also apply in our own company really Came from understanding that if you really build the right teams and take care of them and making sure that they have a good working environment, a good deal, uh, that you help them also grow as professionals and make sure the team jives, then you can actually achieve so much more than just a team of a players that don't work together and don't drive or so there. So we, we really look. I mean, my experience was really that and the teams that we had built here in the Philippines were really teams that were excellent because of how we tried to make sure that we would jive as a team and the people were the more important. I mean, obviously profit is important as a company, but you won't get there if you don't take care of the people. And shipping is a very good example. You can have great people, but if you don't make them work together and if you don't have the right team structure, then the whole ship won't work, won't function. It will stop working pretty quickly, actually. It's quite impressive.

Speaker B: It's so obvious to me, but it's not always the way people run businesses or build culture. And also it's. Even if someone agrees with you and says, yeah, that makes total sense, at least from my observation. I think a lot of organizations don't prioritize it as much as maybe you do because they don't know how. Because it's hard. Like human. The people side of things is really hard. What have been some of the biggest challenges in building, you know, maintaining that kind of culture, like you said, taking care of people, making them feel like they have a real growth path. Like, how have you succeeded in building that as a priority?

Speaker A: Well, through time, honestly. And I think that's where it gets tricky for a lot of companies and for everybody. And it, uh, takes time and effort and repetition. And it's more about trusting the process and believing that if you put things in place and you work on them and you yourself also live them, then over time, um, that process will lead to those results that you're looking for. And I do understand sometimes companies don't have the time to really like make it happen. They need to like, use different tools or different performance management tools, let's put it this way, to make things happen, because the time is just not there. But I think if you look at it a little bit, and I guess that's part of the experience with the Japanese, the Japanese don't think about, hey, this quarter or this year, it's really like this long term, long yeah, long game, long term mentality. And I think that's something that I copied from them or I learned from them. It's really like, okay, we're not here just for this quarter, this year. We're trying to build something that is sustainable long term that will be around 5, 10, 15 years from now, or ideally even longer. So then when you have a little bit of that mindset, then sometimes I building it around, uh, more of this process, this long term approach, it works, but it takes time and it takes patience and it's frustrating many times over and over because it's not perfect and you need to keep experimenting with it.

Speaker B: Yeah, the journey of an entrepreneur learning how to, you know, continue just staying true to your values and your vision, even when time after time the attempt to get there didn't quite work and you gotta pivot or start again or redesign. And I love that. Can you just tell me a little bit more about, you said, living it yourself or modeling it? And I'm kind of curious, like how, you know, maybe tell me how you do that or at least how you feel that you do that and where have you had to learn or where was it not natural for you to model or live it so that, you know, you're not just talking something or creating something, but you're leading it?

Speaker A: Well, I mean, yeah, no, it's an interesting question. For me personally, it's something that I need to keep reminding myself. As I said, the concept of it's a marathon and not a sprint. I personally am not a patient person. So actually having to like, adjust to a more patient approach is definitely something that I had to learn. And I still work on it day in, day out. Um, it has partially also to do obviously that things here in Asia and in Japan, Philippines are done different than you would do it, for example, in the States. And so that patient is something that I had to learn and I'm still working on it. It's not perfect, but if you're saying on the one hand, hey guys, it's not about this quarter, it's about the long term picture, it's about what we really built over time, the processes, the systems that will really make us better and make improve the lives of our people and make the service that we provide to our clients better, then I as the CEO need to try to live that too. I cannot say that. And then next we go into a meeting and start being angry because, you know, the results of last week were not there, that you can't have it both ways. But for Me, it's not always easy because I am not a patient person to be very honest. So it takes, it takes effort. And that's what I mean with. You have to live it. Also, you can't preach one thing and then do something else. And I think that applies to a lot of things. You can't. Same with families. You can't say like, hey, you need to be XYZ and then do the opposite. It doesn't work.

Speaker B: Yeah, modeling in leadership has got to be the hardest part. And, and also having enough self awareness to realize when we need to make an adjustment. Hopefully people around us also, you know, external self awareness from feedback. No, but I love that example. That's a perfect example. Thank you for sharing that. So Pen Brothers has been, you know, one of the fastest growing companies in the Philippines and maybe even Southeast Asia for several years in a row. From what I know and from what I know, growth like that tends to create real pressure, especially on people's systems, I think. So I'm curious, like, what are some of the moments where the people first commitment might have been challenged or stretched or even slightly compromised for a moment and you know, kind of what pulled you back or how'd you get back on track?

Speaker A: Yeah, there's uh, it's a good question. There's a few thoughts that come to mind for that. I mean, it's actually interesting because I'm, um, having a, um, publishing a post next week in LinkedIn that actually speaks a little bit about that. I think one of the challenges, like any young company that we all have, is that we have limited resources. And so when you have limited resources, you try to do things with the limited resources you have. And that's not always perfect. Or in the post specifically talks about, and this has happened to me, that you have like one or two, you have some key people that are really good and you think everything is working fine, but then that key person gets sick or goes on maternity leave or something and then suddenly everything goes to shits because you realize, oh, I actually didn't build the systems. I just had really one or two or uh, really good people that were like sticker taping things together and making it work. So I think it's actually trying to really look at it and say, like, are my processes the right processes? Or, uh, do I have some really good people who are able to like cope with a shitty process? Try to understand where can we do things better? Keep looking, keep going back to. From time to time, like, okay, let me re. Look at it, let's reanalyze it. Are we doing the best. Is it the best process possible? Can we change the process to make it even better? Then also focus on the people. Like, is this the right structure? Are we having the right people in place? Do they have the right capacity? And also training, like, do we need to upskill them? Um, do we need to help them? Do we need to coach them? I mean, one of the things we did is really try to understand what additional coaching do we need to do. Not just me, but every, like the senior leadership team and then the next level and so on and so forth for their direct reports. And again, all of that takes time, unfortunately, or fortunately. I mean, depends on how you look at it. I'm not sure if I answered your question. I went a little bit in circles

Speaker B: there, but no, it's fine. It's all good. Just recapping that the question was about being able to make good on the promise that this is a people first place. Right. And when has that been challenged? And I think the first thing that came to your mind is realizing that you had some linchpin people that were really there, and then when they weren't, you realized, like, you had a process gap. Can you think of a specific, maybe just any example of a process that supports the people first environment that you realized needed to improve?

Speaker A: Yes. Um, one of those, I would say maybe during COVID we realized that it's the whole onboarding of both the employees and the clients. And Covid actually made that gap very clear. Because pre Covid, most of our clients were having everybody in the office. And so the actually onboarding of people was not as good as it is nowadays, but it was masked. We felt it was much better than it actually was because you have the people in the office and then, you know, you put them in a room, room, and so you can get things done smoother. Now when you start doing all of that remotely, because we had to during COVID And nowadays still, for the majority of our clients are still remote. You have to change the process. You need to be much more specific. You need to have better, let's say what you teach them, how you teach them everything needs to be much more specific. And that applies both to the. To the employee as well as also to the clients. Like onboarding clients in a much more detailed way. So because when you do both and you do it correctly, the likelihood of things then working out from the get go smoother and better, and the whole thing being successful is much higher. And then so that's A gap that we realized we had and we needed to fix that. And we're still. And it's a never ending story. I mean, there's always improvements that we're trying to do, but that was one example.

Speaker B: Okay, so I actually, I think that leads me into one of the other things I wanted to ask you about, which is I'm aware that you've built something called Hyperclear, which, as I understand it, is a cross cultural onboarding program for both clients. And so maybe this is the. I'm not sure if this is sort of the onboarding program you're talking about.

Speaker A: Yeah, the hyper care. Yeah, I mean, we called it that way because we want to really make sure that we take care on a very intense, very kind of almost like hand holding for a certain amount of time to make both the employee feel. Not just feel taken care of, that the employee is taken care of. And the likelihood of success of the employee onboarding him or herself to us and to the client is much higher, and vice versa. Also, the clients. Yeah, especially for clients who have never worked with Filipinos before.

Speaker B: That's the part I wanted to talk about. And of course, I know if you're not deep into building it yourself, but from what you know, for anyone out there who currently has a team in the Philippines, maybe a little bit new to it or is considering it, what are some of the challenges that you've seen coming from a Western culture? Feel free to mention specific cultures if you want, and the expectations that aren't always immediately met. And some of the challenges that you see when you start working with Filipinos and people from this culture.

Speaker A: Well, I mean, at the end of the day, like any culture, I mean, Filipinos are different than, let's say, Germans or Swiss or British or Americans. And so that cultural gap or that cultural difference is something that we need to be aware of and we need to explain it. And it cuts both ways, because let's say a Filipino that we employ, and now it's for him or her, the first time working for, let's take a British company. For them, it's also learning experience. They don't know how to perfectly communicate with the other culture. And I think England is a particular good example because also the way sometimes they phrase things is phrased in a very polite, very circumspect way that you think like, oh, everything is fine, but they're actually trying to tell you that it's not. And so there's immediately a, uh, disconnect there and vice versa. I mean, Also explaining this to the client and saying, like, listen, with Filipinos, or with, um, not just Filipinos, but with here in Asia. Be more specific. Be more direct. You know, ask for comprehension questions like, so those little nuances that are actually, you would think they are common sense, but they're not. Because if you have never done it, obviously you don't know about it.

Speaker B: So.

Speaker A: But they help a lot. I had a question the other day by a new employee who was asking, like, what I would recommend for them, uh, as a way to be successful with a new client. I'm like, well, always raise your hand. Always ask for clarification. Even if you think that is crystal clear what you're supposed to do or what was asked from you, just double check. And it sounds like you might bother the person. But under normal circumstances, everybody's happy to, like, okay, sure, yeah, this is. This is exactly what I want. Or actually, no, thank you for asking. I. There is a small difference on what I'm asking. So I think that those cultural gaps or cultural differences, that's what we're trying to bridge and we're trying to set up. And it's important to understand that if you have a team in the Philippines or you're setting. You're thinking of setting up a team in the Philippines, you need to be aware there will be differences. You need to adjust to them. And then obviously, it makes it even more complicated if you then have time zone differences and all that. So you need to find ways of mitigating the potential gap that there might be as quickly as possible and as smoothly as possible.

Speaker B: When did you guys started building the hyperclear onboarding? You know, very specific, intentional, um, process and model for that. You started building that after Covid or during.

Speaker A: During COVID I mean, at the, uh, tail end of COVID we started really focusing on that because it became clear in our data when we started looking at it that. And it was not across everybody, so it was quite interesting. So we started looking at data, and we realized that some of our customer success agents and also account executives, so on the sales side had higher success rates with new clients compared to others. Then we tried to understand what was the difference. And when we started checking that, we realized, well, those ones with the highest success rate were the ones who were taking more time to actually help the clients onboard themselves on how to work with Filipinos and were there to troubleshoot to help bridge that gap and vice versa, helping. Actually, one of them was very, uh, one or two were very proactive. They also helped the employees to help. And so we said, okay, if that's clearly working, how do we make a process out of this and use it for everybody by default? And um, it came from the data. To be very honest.

Speaker B: I love that. That's what I wanted to zero in on a little bit is sort of the data that showed you you needed it. And I have another question that I want to ask. But first, what does the data say about what that onboarding. You know, by building that, and I'm sure refining it over years, what kind of improvements in data, what KPIs have changed based on focusing on your onboarding, building a system. Yeah.

Speaker A: So historically speaking, roughly, this is not perfect because I would have to look at it correctly. But if I remember correctly, we had um, the account executives who were more hand holding and more involved in the first three months of a new client's experience had success rates of about 75 or more percent of the clients staying for six months and longer or a year. And then those ones who did less of that was um, more on a 50% like hit, using an American terminology. And so now, because we obviously made it the same for everybody and it's a standard process and it doesn't matter who the account executive is or who the customer support is or who the talent acquisition is. It's at 86% actually. So meaning to say that 86% of our new clients that hire a new employee, it is successful after six months, which is a much better rate. And it obviously makes them, um, feel much more comfortable. It leads usually to more growth because clients usually grow over time, um, retention and so on and so forth. Now it's becoming diminishing skill because it's never going to be 100%. We're talking about humans. You will never have 100% success rate with humans. Of course people can interview perfectly and not fit. People can interview badly and be a perfect fit. So it's not going to be 100% ever. It's, it's not a computer program. Let's be clear.

Speaker B: All right, so speaking of that, that's a perfect segue into the other question I wanted to ask is, um, you know, in your organization with interventions or projects like this, hyper clear, the main realization was that the process needed a lot of attention, needed a lot of improvement and building and then obviously consistent implementation. Right. But another part of success in anything in a business that requires what you. Exactly what you just said, humans, to be involved in that loop means we also need behavior change. We also need consistency of People showing up in that way. And what have you guys done internally to uh, you mentioned coaching earlier. What have you done? What works for you internally to be able to affect behavior change across large numbers of people. When you do need to change something like a process that requires people to also do their part.

Speaker A: I mean I think the way we have approached this most of the time is in two ways. It's also getting those people that you are asking to do to adjust to a change involved in the defining the change itself or working it out. So we usually don't change a process top down. Obviously maybe the impetus, the idea comes from somewhere during a strategic session. But then we involve the people who actually have to execute it in helping us uh, or helping the team define okay, let's m map out what would be a better process data, uh, by itself. And maybe that's also something copied from the Japanese. Gets much more a involvement but also buy in because people were part of that change. People were part of defining it. And maybe you don't agree with it, but at least you had a voice, you know, you had an input in the whole adjustment. Then it's like really training, coaching, evaluating based on the new process and making sure people get it and execute on it. But it's during the designing period it's actually getting their inputs, making them part of the design process. Which again takes longer, it's slower but it helps. And it's a little bit how the, how the Asian culture is different to let's say the western culture here in Asia. Uh, there is a lot of people participating takes longer. But then every. The execution, it's much easier. In Western cultures is many times it's more like okay, somebody decided something, now figure out how to do it. And then great decision has been made. But now the implementation takes longer because people are like okay, what exactly are we trying to do here?

Speaker B: That's really smart. Co creating change, getting buy in I think is a critical step that is often overlooked because yeah, as leaders, the more experienced we are, the quicker we see things and sometimes we see the, you know, a great way forward and we want to move quickly and moving quickly with people is not always the best thing. So for sure. I know, I really like that that you've achieved those things by involving people in co creating the change. Love it.

Speaker A: But we have improved. I mean achievement is uh, a strong word I think it's always work in progress.

Speaker B: Improvement is achievement. Doesn't mean you're perfect. Cool. Love it. Thank you. Let's talk a little bit about AI, and I know you mentioned that you're, you're using AI for first level interviews at scale, how do you see. I guess the two areas I'd like to talk about would be the importance of adoption and supporting adoption, uh, and then the risks to the people. First place that you've built, that you see with, you know, the changes that we're seeing.

Speaker A: Let me start with the second one. I think actually AI or at least the way we are using AI and are, uh, planning to use more AI capabilities is actually in favor of people first because then ideally you use AI the way we see it and the way we're trying to set it up in our setting it up already is like you use AI as a tool to help you with a lot of the routine work, a lot of the work that can be automated or done through the AI or with the support of the AI so that you then free up more time, let's say of the customer success or the hr, business partners or other parts of the organization to actually have more time to talk to people, to be there for people, to support people. I actually think what is happening with AI and the tools that are coming up or the tools that we're setting up, we use Google, so, Gemini, for example, different tools there are enabling our people to actually have more time to be closer to who is important, which is the employees and the clients. It's not perfect and obviously that needs to. We're playing around with different things and setting things up. But to give a simple example, and I think this applies to a lot of companies like your customer success, people now can have an AI tool that gives them very smoothly, very quickly an overview of the last six months conversations and the last big questions and whatnot. And that allows them then to spend more time actually dealing with that or talking to the client or being on the front end instead of having to like spend hours reviewing emails and messages and whatnot. So I think that's where AI as a tool, combining it with humans is very, very powerful. If anything, what we have noticed is that clients appreciate that in employees because you have more time for them. The interview is a good example too. I mean, it sounds counterintuitive because what we're doing is we widen the funnel of potential candidates by using an AI tool to interview. And it's an opt in, it's not a must. So you can also opt, um, out of it in the sense that, no, I don't want this, I want to actually interview. My first interview should be with a human which is fine, but for a lot of candidates it actually, the AI interview is, is a simplification of the lab because they can schedule it whenever they have time, they can do it at their leisure and so on and so forth. So it makes it easier. And for us obviously it gives us more candidates and we still do interviews afterwards. But it's interesting and again it's a tool that makes m, the life of the, both the potential, the candidates as well as also our uh, recruitment team easier. So I think AI in that sense for us as a company, company is really about how can we use it to simplify our life, our processes, make us more effective, efficient and free up uh, valuable time that can be used better somewhere else. For the industry itself, it's to be seen. I mean in our case, because what we hire are mid to senior level white collar employees. It's really combining people with AI tools and we see this across all of our clients. That's what's happening like an accountant that now uses an accounting tool which is very AI enabled. And obviously over time I believe clients want to have more recruits or candidates that actually know how to use AI from the get go and don't have to be trained. But I think that's going to be a shift that we will see across every industry.

Speaker B: Agree, based on your model, your clients would be more like, they would be taking ownership more of the, let's say AI adoption and helping people move up the value chain. I think from what I understand. But what are you doing to support that and how important do you think it is? Because like you just, you know, just, just, just to add one thing, you know, dovetailing off of what you just said is that by freeing up mundane tasks that can be automated theoretically then people should be able to find some more genius in themselves and you know, we can tap into that and therefore move people up the value chain. So I just wanted to clarify what I meant by the term. Go ahead, go ahead.

Speaker A: I think uh, that's the goal of all those AI tools. At the end of the day, in our case, what we rolled out at the beginning of this year is more basic AI training for everybody. Because we do still have candidates that come in, they come from a more traditional company. You know, they have great experiences, they have great uh, knowledge, they're very capable, but maybe haven't learned how to use Gemini or ChatGPT or other tools because it's obviously the level of exposure is different across everybody. So that's where we're helping people with um, basic Training, basic enablement. Now very basic level doesn't mean that we make them AI coders, you know, or AI specialists, that then really I think it comes down to the client's requirements and what the client is looking for and how the client itself enables their team. But it's something that we're still exploring. To be very honest, I don't think this is crystal clear to everybody and anybody. Yeah, at least not to us.

Speaker B: I don't think any of us can predict how things are going to change. I always find it fascinating how we see what technology can do in this moment, but then sometimes it doesn't really, um, you know, adoption doesn't happen for 15, 20 years. Like sometimes it's very shocking how slow we actually change the way we do things. And I know that this is a super speculative question, but if AI does keep eating entry level and mid level task work, which you said you're hiring senior white collar people so that maybe this doesn't apply so much to your business right now. But just on a zooming out, you know, more industry level question, what do you see as the real future for the Filipino workforce and what do we need to be doing to support those people to be ready?

Speaker A: Well, if that happens, and that is most likely going to happen at some point in time, over time, I uh, think not just Filipino workforce, but any workforce around the world. And we all need to become more, I guess, AI native, so to speak, and be able to use it and then find other creative ways of adding value to organizations that AI cannot do or cannot get to, be it the creative thinking or be it, uh, you know, problem solving on very complex tasks. So AI is a tool but cannot do it themselves. So things like that. But this is a good question. I mean, I think that really depends on where everything is going. And I think it will also come down to the degree of comfort companies and also governments have and certain things and regulations, I would assume. But again, this is me speculating that there are certain sectors where the government will not allow AI to just do whatever it wants or be used 100%, who knows? We will see.

Speaker B: Going to be interesting for sure. Probably the most interesting shift in human history. We get to witness it and hopefully steer it in a better direction, I hope.

Speaker A: Let's see. We're not good in that, to be very honest.

Speaker B: I talk about this a lot, but I read a book called Long Path by Ari Wallach a couple years, maybe five years ago, six years ago, and it's really about this topic of, you know, what could each of us be doing to steer things in a better direction? And as business leaders, I think we do have a good amount of influence that if we think of ourselves as, you know, yes, we're not sitting in those government positions, but. But at least having a clear idea of what do we think is a better direction for humans and how can we be part of that? I think it's an interesting stewardship to think about, but, uh, no, I appreciate your thoughts on these topics. So really appreciate, you know, people like yourself who chose to stay here for a long time now, and I see so much potential in people here. I want the Philippines to be known for not just talent, but leadership. I want to see more people from this place, like, see how they can step into leading others. I know you've said things about what you see in the talent pool here and in people here, but when I say that vision, you know, I want the Philippines to be known for not just talent, but leadership. What do you think are some of the challenges that we face and how we can support people in that vision? Assuming you. You like it and agree with it.

Speaker A: No, I do agree with it. I think it's a big problem, and it's a challenge because obviously we do have excellent people. I mean, Filipinos in general, and you can see that around the world. I mean, you have Filipinos on both very high leadership positions around the globe in companies and even in governments when they then became locals there. So I think it's really. How do we enable the Philippines to have those opportunities in the Philippines, you know, so that people don't go overseas, don't leave or come back. And I think that is really by growing the economy and raising the tide, so to speak, to everybody, you know, so that everybody does better. But specifically that those very leaders, uh, then have an incentive to come back and bring that expertise and that knowledge and that know how back to the Philippines. And it's happening. I mean, I actually was talking maybe last year or a year and a half ago to the general manager of a recruiting company, an international recruiting company. And. And what he was saying is that they actually had set up a whole team of recruiters that they did nothing but recruit Filipinos from overseas that had certain experiences, like exposures, and then bring them back here because the companies here were needing them. Both local companies as well as foreign companies. So that was interesting side note. And I think he mentioned at that time that had brought in. In a year that brought like 70 or 80 people back. Um, awesome. So interesting. And I think for that to continues to happen and to happen at the larger scale, it's really about creating more opportunities, growing the economy, bringing more foreign direct investments to the Philippines. And this is, I think, a challenge that we will have as private companies, as the industry itself, and also the government, you know, because it can't be done alone, like as a company alone. And you can't do it. It needs to be everybody together. Together with the public sector and the government.

Speaker B: All right. Well, I really appreciate this conversation. I appreciate your perspective. You do live here full time, you said, right in.

Speaker A: Yes, I do, in Manila.

Speaker B: Nice.

Speaker A: I've been here for 15 years. Yeah, it's been a long time.

Speaker B: Also, there are things I so much love about work, living here. And there, uh, are daily challenges where just every once in a while I'm like, m. But I love it here.

Speaker A: That's in every country.

Speaker B: Agree.

Speaker A: If you go to Germany and you ask Germans, they will tell you like, our Germany is going down the train. So it's same same.

Speaker B: It does totally depend on what you decide to look at. I agree. Well, in wrapping up, I guess just kind of a forward thinking question, uh, let's say 10 years from now, what's your vision that you see for Penn Brothers and maybe for the Philippines? Like, what would you like to see be true about? Let's start with your. What you're building here and what the impact is that you're having here in the Philippines.

Speaker A: It's a good question. I mean, I would look at it from two different angles. I mean, on the one hand is really having continuously what we have started to build an organization that really adds value to our clients so that, you know, when you talk to somebody and say like, oh yeah, Pen Brothers, we use them. Um, and we built an amazing team in the Philippines. And without that team in the Philippines, answers the second part. My company wouldn't be what it is. And we can see that already after 12 years with some of our clients. And that applies and also reversely to the Filipinos, like really being able to open opportunities to Filipinos that they are able to grow as humans and as professionals on the professional side through the exposure that they're getting through the clients that we're bringing. And that doesn't mean that we want to see somebody. This person has been with us for 20 years. Success that can be. And that could be great. If we see that person started here and ended up over here 20 or 15, 20 years later. And we have again, in the 12 years that we are around, we have a Few cases like that, which is amazing to see. But even if you see somebody, hey, this person was with us for certain amount of year, and now 10 years later, this person is a senior leader in a local company, that would be also something that I feel would signal success to us, like, really being able to build the capabilities of our employees and of the Philippines itself, to be very honest. Yeah.

Speaker B: Love it. Thank you for the work you're doing in that. Because I think the ripple effect of, you know, what you're doing, we never get to know all the positive effect, all the ripple effect, good and bad. But, you know, I really do appreciate people like you that are, you know, creating organizations that lift people up, help them see their own potential, live into it, and you just never know what that does for so many people down the road. So thank you for that. As we wrap up, two questions I like to ask at the end. One is, what's a message for leaders listening? Anything practical or powerful that you think they can carry into tomorrow?

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that's not my strength. Never, um, give up, keep pushing, keep trying. Um, again, I mean, I guess that's something.

Speaker B: Yep. I needed that about two or three hours ago. I was really. There's some challenges that were just kind of getting me overwhelmed. And, uh, yeah, sometimes we need that. The second.

Speaker A: The tough Friday morning, to be honest.

Speaker B: Yeah. Do you have a book you could recommend that you think is useful for people listening that's helped you in your journey, if any?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a good question. Not really a book. What I'm actually interested now. I, uh, listened to this podcast, and I don't want to promote a podcast, but it's actually called Acquired. So they have the history of a lot of companies. And I find that actually fascinating because you realize when you listen to it that you know your challenges. You're not the first one having those challenges. And even companies who were established 200 years ago went through that in a different way, but similar way. So I think from a historic business history perspective, that's a really good one. And I enjoy listening to it and listening to it also, because sometimes you hear it and you see, like, oh, so the person was at the right place at the right moment and was ready to take the opportunity. And I think that applies to all of us in business. It's like, I sometimes find it funny when I meet people and say, like, yeah, you know, my company, I. I had this perfect regime, knew exactly what I was going to do and how to get there, and I don't believe it. And m. I'm like, no, you didn't. Like, this is. This is. I very much doubt that. But, hey, I mean, so that would be something that I can recommend for those who like, business history acquired.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think I've heard of it, but I've never listened to it, so I will also myself go check it out. Um, thanks.

Speaker A: They're long episodes, so usually three to four hours, but would say about 80% of them is actually the history of the company. And usually those companies are fascinating companies now.

Speaker B: Okay, so it's kind of like a journalistic storytelling of the life of that company, correct?

Speaker A: Yeah. Of the founding and then how they grew and how they evolved and how they tackle challenges and so, um, on. So it's really interesting.

Speaker B: I will check it out. Thank you. Well, Nico, thank you so much for being here today. Really appreciate you for having me. Enjoyed the conversation, and I look forward to seeing you in person soon, I hope.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Let me know when you're Manila. But thank you for having me. It was great.

Speaker B: All right. Thank you. All right, that's the conversation for today. And you know what? If something in there hit good, sit with it. The most expensive leadership insight is the one you agree with and never act on. If this felt worth your time, pass it on to one leader in your life who needs to hear it. That's how this conversation grows. Thank you again for being here. Would love to hear your comments on the conversation again. I'm Eli Harrell, and this is what leadership looks like when humans come first. See you next time.