#67: Backing SMEs with growth capital and a people-first approach in CEE | Talk with Emilia Mamajova - Managing Partner @ Everita Capital

Speaker A: We invest into what we believe makes sense from, of course, financial perspective. We want to maximize the returns from those investments. But looking at the sectors we invest in, we choose sectors where we see that they can have a potential positive impact or, uh, they contribute meaningfully to, you know, to people's lives or society. So this is something, what I consider a luxury, having that, uh, that option to choose what I spend my time on.

Speaker B: Hey everyone. Welcome to the Opera sky podc. My name is Ricardo Bonegas and I will be your host on this podcast. We would like to share valuable knowledge, lessons learned, and stories from entrepreneurs, investors and managers while running their businesses. We strive to ask, uh, the right questions and discover insight from our guests so you can apply them in your business and life right after each episode. Thanks for joining us. And let's get started.

Speaker C: Hi everyone. Today we are talking with Emilia Mamayova. She is the managing partner at, uh, Eberita Capital and founding partner of Spira Investment. We will be talking about private equity and growth capital for SMEs. Welcome Emilia.

Speaker A: Thank you for the invitation.

Speaker C: I want to know about your stories. Before Spira, before Everita, uh, how did you come to work into investment M and finance and what inspired you to start that journey?

Speaker A: Well, I think it was triggered by the fact that I studied finance and banking at the university. But the reason I went to study finance was not very, like, big, uh, decision on my side that this is the, you know, the field I want to pursue. I just didn't know what to study. And this seemed like an area that was, uh, getting traction, you know, at the time when I went to university and the new businesses, like entrepreneurship was like, um, you know, starting to show first results. And it looked like a nice area to pursue, but I knew nothing about it. And I think actually I got inspired by, uh, my neighbor because she was two years older than me, and she went to study finance at this new faculty of finance, uh, in Banska Bistrica in central Slovakia. And she was so excited about it and so happy that I got completely kind of manipulated by her to follow and go to the same faculty. So that was kind of a big influence from, uh, by a friend and slave neighbor, you know, so, and then I started my career basically in Uruguay in banking, uh, which was a one year internship in ABN Emerald Bank. And, uh, this was supposed to be my field because my last two years of the university were focused on banking. But, uh, although I was in private banking, which is a very interesting part of banking, especially in Uruguay, which is similar uh, to Switzerland, you know, in sense of like um, the money allocation in central in, in South America. So it was a very interesting position. But I realized banking was probably not my calling. So after a year I came back and I joined Penta Investments, which was also a coincidence because I uh, had a friend from university who worked there and he suggested to me to come and apply for a job of an investment analyst. So I did that. So as you can see this was not very deliberate uh, decision that I woke up and said this is what I want to be. But I got very much influenced by uh, circle of friends.

Speaker C: Well, I mean I think we all have similar stories. I think in my case I studied software engineering because by coincidence of life, a teacher started, started to give these lessons at uh, the school, at the high school, which wasn't a common approach. It was just that he wanted to bring what he was learning himself at the university and he was teaching us programming and that uh, inspired me to start working in software engineering and now uh, of course building products and stuff like that. Right. So I think at the end of the day we are kind of also build based on our environment and of course then we find thanks to that what we like the most. Right. Or what we enjoy the most.

Speaker A: Absolutely, yeah.

Speaker C: That's good. Uh, now I know that because of Espira and Evarita, you have been working into helping more diverse teens and supporting management teams who of course not only have men in their cap table or in their management, but also who are women in their cap table and management. Right. So how this process started for you to focus into private equity and also into investing into more diverse managements in companies.

Speaker A: So it was a longer journey to that point because when I joined Penta in 2004, I was the first woman on their investment team. There were over 20 men on the team and it was a great experience. I learned a lot. It was basically working uh, from acquisitions to exits and including supporting the companies through a lot of different developmental stages. The work was so diverse that I never thought that investment analyst role covers doing the interviewing top management for their jobs and um, doing tenders for advertising agencies and discussing with architects how to do a perfect workflow in uh, in hospitals. And uh, you know, it's like counting cargo vagons when the privatization of the railway Congo was happening. So it was like such a broad scope of work that uh, that I went through in Penta. But I was the only woman on investment team. So obviously my role models, if you can call it this way, were always Men. And I never thought twice about it. It just was like natural thing, you know. And I think I had the same opportunities as uh, as all the other colleagues, uh, and succeed. Uh, from there I moved to two other firms and in each of those firms, in Bensono Capital and in Pine Bridge Investments, again, there were few more women. There was always at least one woman extra. But it was always a big minority within the investment team. And what I realized over the years was that uh, there were in a lot of companies on the market that had women in leadership roles, whether they were managers or co owners or founders of businesses. But we somehow didn't have them in the portfolio of our funds or family offices. And um, I thought that there was some kind of a network effect, you know, because most of the investors are men and they tend to find deals through their male networks which tend to be again companies managed mostly by men. And it's, I don't think it's so intentional probably most of the times it just happens naturally, you know. And because I had female networks and I could find the companies that had also women, I realized they were not very familiar what it means to have an investor on board, how the investor can help these companies develop. And I thought it was uh, a totally untapped market opportunity to go more proactively after these companies and helping them uh, scale up their business. So I had this thesis uh, when I was in Pinebridge, which was a global asset manager investing 500 million euros in Central Europe. And we were doing deals, 20 to 50 million equity tickets for growth companies. And I was supposed to identify deals in that size segment in Czech Republic and Slovakia. But as you can imagine, if you have a 50 million euro ticket for a minority position in a profitable growing business, it's not going to be a small company. So there were not that many targets that were relevant for us, but I saw many targets in a smaller size segment. So that was another kind of aha moment for me. Like okay, so here are these companies with female in management teams and there are also small companies that um, don't have access to the gross capital investors. So I decided to go and test the market whether a fund targeting 1 to 3 million euro equity tickets would find a place in the market, you know, whether there's enough interesting investment opportunities. And also I wanted to see how many of those companies would have diverse leadership team because this I saw I could have an easy access to build trust with these female entrepreneurs and help them navigate how they can develop their business faster. So this I did I spent maybe half a year doing research and meeting a lot of entrepreneurs and getting data for the like macro data for the number of companies and representation in the boards, etc. So I had a pretty good picture of how the market looks like. I did a screening of um, portfolios of private equity funds that existed at that time. It was in 16. And I saw that really the penetration of diverse leadership teams in portfolio of those funds was relatively low. I think was like uh, maybe 10, 11% of their portfolio. Whereas the market was showing there's one third of the companies in SME segment that have diversity. So it's not such a niche market. And I thought, okay, this is an interesting space, so let's try and raise a fund to pursue this opportunity. So I got a very strong conviction uh, that there is a market opportunity and I was trying to kind of figure out how I can go after it and raise the fund and partner with another co founder who would, you know, have the same vision as me. And one more point, what was important for me to get really going was that I pitched this idea to several colleagues, like peers from the private equity industry. So people who are managing other funds or private equity professionals, and I wanted their feedback because they knew the industry, they knew the market, they were the ones um, doing much larger transactions. And I was showing how many companies exist and there's, you know, our target is 65,000 companies. In the target markets. If we were doing deals that start at maybe 10 million euro tickets, there would be 15,000 companies. You know, so it's a much larger pool of companies to choose from. So when I pitched this uh, to several of my like business friends and some of them said, okay, sounds great, if you go ahead, I'll be happy to invest, that was for me, um, kind of uh, a green light that um, even people who are from the industry see the same kind of gap as I do.

Speaker C: Good. And have you seen any. Do you think right now is easier to get funding because of this thesis or, or compared to the previous years when you started. Right. Because right now diversity is a topic that a lot of people this talking. But also there are studies now proving that of course if you have a, uh, diverse team work and management is much better. Right. For results. So how do you see that experience that now is easier from that perspective? Of course there are other variables in the market for sure right now. But yeah, um, it's maybe a more valid point right now about diversity than it was like in 2016 as you mentioned. Right.

Speaker A: When we were Raising Aspira. We were explaining a lot why diversity is better, that diversity leads to higher creativity, innovation, you know, employee satisfaction, et cetera. And we had like a lot of slides in our pitch presentation showing some studies, et cetera, some first data that existed in that space. Now everybody knows diversity has its benefits, so we are not really pitching why we should do diversity. What we are pitching and what I think was the same also back then, but uh, maybe with a less of an emphasis, is the fact that this, this is still a market opportunity, that there is no other. There's much less competition in this deal size segment. So when we're looking at SMEs, there's only one other institutional fund for Czech Republic and Slovakia which is doing something in a similar size as us, although we are not targeting exactly same companies. So you have less competition. If you have less competition, you get buying, uh, more reasonable valuations for these companies. And keeping this diversity angle is also doing a proactive sourcing through female networks. And this is something that I personally thought that everybody else was going to do it after we started. But even years later, um, I'm glad to see some women got hired in some of the funds, but I don't see any of those funds getting more proactive with this kind of a, uh, strategy. So we are still the only ones who are targeting proactively female entrepreneurs and female managers. And I still see this as a, as an advantage, you know, in sourcing and in appreciating what already works in those companies. Because if they have already recognized that diversity leads to better results, we don't come in preaching to them to change how they operate or to hire more women or do some dramatic changes. Nothing is enforced from our side. We're basically basically just building on what already exists in those companies. And, and I think the younger the companies, the less of a topic this is, you know, because I think the younger generation is just not really so thinking about whether they hire a woman or a man. You know, maybe it's uh, it's changing for the better.

Speaker C: Thanks for sharing that. Now I will move a bit towards your, your way of investing and your thesis that you mentioned you want in companies already in 3 million, uh, euros in revenue at least. And of course I want to know what is your goal with investing into these type of companies and what kind of transformation you are planning to help them to achieve after they come with you and your private equity firm?

Speaker A: Yes. So as you said, we're not investing in startups, so we are more of a, on A private equity side doing mostly gross capital investments. This means these companies have to be profitable on EBITDA level. They as you said, minimum 3 million euros. But we would be happy to see a little bit more, to have more stability. And our thesis is to come as a partner for the, for those founders and help them scale their business to the next stage. So this is uh, uh, this is the stage in which we think we can be the highest value at partner. We are looking for companies across multiple sectors including healthcare, education, business services, consumer goods. We can do some niche manufacturing, but really something very specialized. And uh, what we bring to those companies is we know that the transition they have to go through in order to become larger organizations is going to be difficult and it includes a lot of changes that have to happen from like a founder, family run business into something that's more of a, I wouldn't say corporation necessarily, but something that's more institutionalized, you know, and we are a partner who helps them institutionalize. So there's no processes or functions that purely depend on the founder but the company becomes governed on a more like a long term basis which means we are trying to develop the talent internally in the company, make sure that the roles of those people are clearly identified. They know what their KPIs are and what the objectives are and they have a potential to grow within the company. This is not always the case with some, you know, founder run businesses where people are just um, self, self learners. You know, they learn on the job but they don't really get any formal kind of guidance or feedback or goals. You know it's maybe in some startups it's more natural to have all those KPIs set up but in SME companies not often we see that. So that's um, that's one aspect of it. Then what happens is also the processes in the organization. When the company is small you don't need that much. But once it gets bigger, if your back office is not really running smoothly, you cannot scale the front office because this is holding you back. So, so digitalization for the efficiency processes, uh, making sure, making sure that the workflow is really most efficient possible. The communication, the transparency of where the company is and where they're going, what the goals are so that everybody's on board and understands what's the company's mission. So there are a lot of like areas that we. And um, then, then there are functional areas that each company has some strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes their strength is sales and marketing, but maybe finance is a little Bit weaker. So we help to set up reporting, budgeting, you know, more like strengthen the financial uh, aspects of the business. In some other companies it might be sales that is weaker. So we try to bring also external industry experts to help them develop their sales team, online marketing and sometimes it's operational efficiency. So depending on what are ah, the weaker parts of the business or what are the stages through which they are going, we're trying to either use our knowledge from seeing other businesses going through something similar or bringing external experts who can guide the management team or the founder through those more transitional phases.

Speaker C: Can you give us an example of one specific company in your portfolio of sbita that you held and just to give the audience as well some ideas towards the type of companies you're collaborating. Of course I know that you mentioned the different industries but if we can go into one specific company that you have collaborated with before.

Speaker A: Yes, I can give you an example. For example we had a call center which used to be a subsidiary of a corporation based in the UK and we did a uh, management bio transaction which means the management uh, participated with us on the acquisition, means they co invested with us and became co owners of the business. And because historically their sales was supposed to be growing into the internal sales, it means supporting the group they were part of. They didn't have a strong sales and marketing department because that was not what was expected from them. But when we invested and they became an independent uh, call center, they had to define what is their usp, what are they best at, who is the ideal customer for them, uh, and set up the whole sales and marketing organization around it. So this is something that we help them develop also with the help of external industry expert who came from the same industry and used to run a sales organization on a European scale. And we would have quarterly meetings uh, with this expert reviewing their sales plan for next three months, results from last three months marketing plan, individual KPIs but team and team KPIs etc so really going into a detail then we would have an industry expert uh, looking at more the technology part of the business because it was a very technology driven customer support which means you know, you need to use lot of tools in order to you know, be competitive. And some of their clients were companies listed in the US So you have to be on top of your game to be able to service such high demand clients. And we had a guy from the UK with IT background also working with a uh, very complex service industry where he was reviewing quarterly the tools we were using and the efficiency and whether there's some things we can automate, etc. So it was kind of a um, external advisor for the top management team in helping them move this business forward also from that perspective. So then when the COVID hit, we obviously had to get much more into details of the financial management and planning and working on a weekly cash flow and collecting invoices in a very quick manner in order to be able to finance the operations. So we got also more involved in the finance area, also getting Covid secured loans. We were supporting management in obtaining that from the banks. So there's a lot of aspects that happen in this particular investment. And also what was a big value add I think is preparing the company for the future exit. Because we've gone through many exits and many acquisitions and knowing the process, knowing what the buyers are looking for is really important. If you're doing it first time, you're gonna learn on your own mistakes. If you have a partner who has seen and done it many times, then obviously you can be first of all more more efficient in the process and you can also extract a higher, higher value at the end. So this was something where we I think had a, uh, had a strong guidance or like strong voice in, in getting the exit done the way it was done, which was a very successful from um, investors and management perspective. Perspective. That's just one example. But I say every company is very different. The idea is that um, we tailor, we tailor make a uh, solution for each company based on first what the founders need. It means also in terms of the structure of the deal. Are they interested to bring in a minority or majority partner? You know, we either buy minority, majority stake, or they want capital into the company or is it just a buyout of some stake from the founders? So we try to make this structure of the deal that uh, addresses the needs of the founders and of the company. And then we set up together what's the plan for the next five years and where do you think we can grow together? So this alignment on vision and on values is the most important part of every partnership.

Speaker C: Since I am working into digitalization and digital products in, in the context of some of the companies that you have partnered as well, how does it work related to potential growth thanks to the digitalization of their processes or improving their current tool sets. Is this something you have held them to develop? Because I assume the growth is not only about expanding to a market, but it can be that they are doing a process in a certain way. But now there are better ways to do it or more automated ways to do something which will reduce cost or help them grow faster. So what are your thoughts into digitalization in general or if you have examples into those areas as well?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's a, it's definitely a big value kind of creation, um, way for private equity. And quite often some of these founders don't know how to start and they are so busy in their everyday life that they don't really um, have much time to dedicate to that. So I think even when an investor comes and um, sees some of the opportunities with this digitalization really first there is a resistance obviously because it's difficult to get all the employees and for example we've done it uh, in a uh, clinic and you have to get all the doctors and nurses and administrative team to change how they, how they operate in certain things. But after a few months of pain you can see the results and the time savings that you can have based on automating some of the workflows. So for example, in this particular example we had patient data that was input several times. You know, the patient arrives or the client arrives because it's private healthcare. So we call the patients more client, they arrive to the reception, they fill out the form with all their data, then they go and have to pay and the data is not in the accounting system yet. So then it has to be sometimes filled in second time. And then maybe the doctor starts typing in something and it hasn't been updated. So then you find out that this, at the end of the day this client uh, already has three files opened, uh, as like setup of a new account and they are not interconnected and it's just like creates a big mess. So, and having in between some forms that were filled out on papers and so combination of that, you can imagine the kind of unnecessary administrative work that is required to clean up uh, all this data. This is just one simple example. But for example CRM systems, not all companies are used to using CRM and really working proactively targeting their customers, upselling cross selling, really making tailor offers uh, for clients, uh, based on their previous interests, et cetera. So this is something where unless you have data available from your systems and in the right format, you, you just can't do it, you know. So we had to go through a change of the information system implementing now the, the CRM system. It just took you know, months to get, uh, to get. So it's not easy. You come in and you say we want to see profitability by clients or we wanna See profitability by this and this metric. It's just that sometimes they don't have the data available. So that takes some kind of a process to get these uh, tools in place, uh, fine tune it and then set up reportings that we can then use for our decision making. So I see huge opportunity to getting the work done quicker with fewer uh, resources. It means like lower costs but it takes time to get to that point. It's not happening in one month but it's an investment in the future of this business. I think any global successful company succeeded by being you know like for example Walmart, you know or Amazon or others. Like it's just adopting the, the technologies really quick and um, investing big, big uh, into these areas.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think we, we all want to make digital transformation. Clicking a button and hopefully it happens. But yeah, it, it is what you mentioned that also is about the change management, that people are afraid of the change. And that also takes time, not only setting up systems but also how to make sure that everyone is on board or at least the majority of people is happy to test something new. Right.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Good. You already mentioned some of the on M tap potential, some of the potential you have in your market with the companies as well. I wanted to know because you are investing in Central and Eastern Europe. Where do you see the most potential that you want to focus next? Or I know that you have multiple industries but if you can mention one where you see more potential in the region, that can be interesting for people to know that. Okay, the future. I see that in this industry there is potential of growth because we are lacking of X for example or something around those lines.

Speaker A: Yeah, you know, so the sectors we are as I mentioned focus on is um, for example healthcare where you know we see a uh, huge potential in that area, especially like women's health. This is a completely under researched under invested area and this uh, is something that I'm personally very interested in. So I'm uh, I've met uh, several companies in that space. Still too early for us in terms of size. But I'm uh, so convinced about the market potential that uh, hopefully over the next year or two they, they will be in our target zone. Healthcare. People were used to having healthcare for free, you know for many years during communist times. Now people slowly are learning to, to invest into their healthcare. Not everybody, but more and more. And uh, we see for example in aesthetic medicine where we have an investment, people invest a lot in their beauty. So if they invest in beauty they will invest in their prevention. Also Much more which has an impact on their long term health. So I think this is, it's a sector which is resilient. You know, it's uh, even when there's a financial crisis or any economic downturn, we think the, the healthcare segment is really strong. Then another one is education. Similar. You know, people were used to having it for free. Now Covet showed us that not every school was able to deal with it and not every school is really preparing the generation, young generation for their future jobs. So people are more and more uh, willing to invest in private education of their children. And it's an interesting sector because once you capture a client you have him for a long time because if the child is happy at school, you have recurring revenues for multiple years. If they have siblings, you double or triple that revenue stream. So it's definitely from an economics perspective, very interesting, but also from the impact perspective because by giving access to a better education to more children you really create a big um, potential for their future. So I think this is something that I see as a very meaningful segment. We've already had one successful investment in this sector and we're definitely interested to explore this space further. Consumer goods, especially those that are around food, for example healthy nutrition. This is something where I see also the resilience aspect of it because people need to eat whether there's crisis or not. But also people are more looking at what they eat, uh, and the nutritional quality of the food, less processed, more uh, natural ingredients, snacks for children, which we know how difficult it is to keep them away from sugar and replace it with some healthier alternatives. So this is something that I take also a personal interest in. So I would say that my investment approach, and I'm really grateful to have that opportunity, is that we invest into what we believe makes sense. From of course financial perspective. We want to maximize the returns from those investments. But looking at the sectors we invest in, we choose sectors where we see that they can have a potential positive impact or uh, they contribute meaningfully to, to people's lives or society. So this is something, what I consider a luxury having that uh, that option to choose what I spend my time on. And these are the sectors that I mentioned. And then there are some niche things, uh, also could go more into technology area but we're not doing any like a VC type of deep uh, tech investments. You know, it's more on a technology enabled services and products rather than purely technology driven solutions. This is not our space.

Speaker C: So I know that you have eperita and your tagline Is people driven growth. So what does it mean this in practice when someone is collaborating with you? I know that we already talk a bit about your different collaboration and the work that you are doing but yeah, what do you want to say with these tagline that maybe can help people to see? Well yeah, I want to collaborate with Emilia. I want to collaborate with Evrita.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's uh, uh, most of the sectors that we are targeting and not all but big part of it is in services industry and services are about people. If you want to deliver a great service, your team has to deliver a great service. So I think the quality of uh, service and customer experience is the priority and therefore the priority has to be on the employees and on their skills, on their development and basically working with uh, the potential you have in the companies. Because when we invest in small medium sized companies, they don't have big budgets to hire the best head of sales and the best, I don't know, marketing person in the market. They have to work mostly with the talent that already exists here and there. They can hire people from the market but these are not going to be the most expensive talents coming from large corporations. And we need to develop people so that when the company grows they can grow with the company. Sometimes the company can triple in size and sometimes these overgrowth people that have been with the company since the beginning and they no longer can keep up with the complexity of the job or the sophistication level they have to achieve in their field. And we try to make sure that the team develops with the growth of the company. So this is something that is a priority also working with the founders, that's another aspect of this human side of growth that's uh, making sure that we work as a partnership where we have a respect for the culture and for what the founders have built and we're there to back them on the next stage of their growth. Which also sometimes includes uh, changes they have to do in how they operate a business. You know, sometimes they have to take on new roles, sometimes they have to give up control of certain areas they used to run. And this takes also uh, some kind of a uh, transition, you know, to find the people who take over uh, some of the functions they covered previously. So uh, it's all about working with people and uh, bringing also as I said, experts to the team. This is something we want to do more uh, systematically in Everita to have for each portfolio company an external advisory board then that can complement their skills and broaden their network and give them a perspective from maybe a Western European market or from a much larger organization that they worked with in the past, so they broaden the horizons for the founders and they can dream bigger than they would otherwise. So I would see that this human element comes in a lot of different aspects in what we do.

Speaker C: Okay, thanks. Um, now, since we are talking about these human aspects, we will move to the last part of the conversation and talk about your lessons learned and turning points that you have in your life as well. So, um, do you think there was a time when you took maybe a big risk professionally that pay off, um, that now you see and taught you something that in that moment you didn't expect? Can we talk a bit about some challenges and experiences that you may have that now has held you to be where you are, and maybe you have learned something out of that experience, even if in that moment was tough or it was difficult, but you were able to manage it.

Speaker A: Oh, well, I think what was tough when we were starting was to raise the fund in the first place because you don't really see many female investors and less female founders of the funds. This was not very commonly seen or not seen at all in Central Europe. So I think even people who knew us professionally and had trust in our skills and knew our track record still sometimes had a hard time imagining two women running a private equity fund. You know, so this was something where I maybe underestimated how deep the biases can go. And the fundraising took us much, uh, longer than we hoped. And I actually saw some statistics, statistics, uh, recently that the female founders take generally 13 months longer to raise, uh, money than male founders. So I think, uh, this tells the story, and actually it goes also from women's perspective. So the same kind of, um, bias is from women towards women when they are in those kind of roles, because it's just not a stereotypical, uh, role you see often women in, you know, So I think that that was tough. But I think we've proven, uh, uh, proven that, uh, two women can raise a fund. Two women can do good investments and bring returns to investors. And this, I think, really makes a difference now when, when we are raising the, the second fund. Everita Turning Points. I think what is also important, uh, the business is all about relationships. You know, you focus maybe, or I focus early in my career when I was working as an employee for other funds on, like, technical side of the transaction, you know, so you want to make sure you get the numbers right, you find out all the details. You don't miss anything. You get the legal Documents, uh, you go very much into technical details and sometimes don't realize the psychological aspects of actually getting the deal done, which might be even more important, you know. And, um, this is something I learned over the years, uh, that relationships drive everything, and trust that you build with people over 20 years can be lost in five minutes. You know, as Warren Buffett once said. So I think having a trust, especially in our business where you're managing other people's money, they need to trust you to give you the money to manage it. Well, the same way as we have to trust the entrepreneurs in whose companies we invest, we have to trust that they will do their best, that the money will be used for the purpose we agreed. And, uh, we cannot sit, uh, and babysit them or, or control their finances or watch their bank accounts and make sure that every penny is spent, uh, in the right way. There has to be a, uh, strong trust. Uh, and I think this is something that, um, I learned to pay even more attention to. Signals that indicate, uh, maybe lack of integrity or lack of transparency in discussions with the entrepreneurs, where I get like a yellow flag going. Because if you look at the results of private equity funds where things can go wrong. Most of the times, uh, when things go wrong is when things go wrong with the management of the company they invested in. So I think having this, uh, this part, uh, really well, not just diligence by creating a. Building a relationships, uh, with those people while you're trying to get the deal done is very important. And aligning, as I said, uh, already aligning on what the vision is and what the. What the values are for this business, because this is very, very important. So I think this would be, yeah, this would be my lessons, uh, learned. And I think another aspect is, um, when things go wrong, everybody's happy and everybody's friends. When things go well, right? This is like normal. When things go bad, then it's tricky because you have, as an investor, you have a, uh, fiduciary role. You have an obligation to really push to make sure that the company is doing their best to, you know, whether it was like, during COVID or whether there are some turbulences in the industry or just simply some mistakes that were done and the performance got worse. So you want to push them to get better, to, you know, correct the mistakes or to work harder or, you know, to be more creative or to come up with some solutions. And you create that pressure on the team because you feel pressure from your investors that, oh, my God, this investment is like, now not going well. But at the same time, too much pressure and too much negativity created by those stress situations can have the opposite effect on the management team. You know, and kind of finding a right balance. How to have high expectations but still remain as a supportive partner is something that, uh, is probably the biggest, uh, challenge for every investor in every deal. Because in every deal there are moments that things don't go 100% well. So I think this is something that is an ongoing process of improving and trying to get it better next time.

Speaker C: What is a piece of advice that you have received in the past that you always remember and it has helped you in your career development and your growth progress that you are doing at the moment?

Speaker A: I don't think there's one thing that kind of goes for my whole career, but I remember in early days when I started, I would quite often find some issue in something. And, uh, that was like my first year on a job. And I would come to my boss and say, I found out this and this and this, you know, and he would ask me, so what? And I'd be like, well, you come up with the solution. You know, I just felt like, okay, I have to bring this information, and that's kind of my job. But, uh, I was told, why you come with problems, you should come with solutions, you know, And I actually didn't think I knew enough about the business to dare to propose a solution or that anybody would care about my opinion on this because I was in, on a job for a few months. So I thought, like, why would they even care what I think about it? So it took me a while to kind of change, uh, that perspective. And I think it was very, very good feedback I received that, um, you have to take initiative, you know, and it's not about whether you have the right experience or you have enough experience, is you are a person, uh, who has some kind of a judgment based on your background, your, you know, knowledge. And you make certain decisions based on your knowledge and judgment. And this can evolve and get better, but you have to take. Have a courage to make those calls and these decisions. And, um, I think, yeah, this is, uh, this goes in anything, you know, just being passive in your role is not gonna get you far. So I think I, uh, also in my first job when I was finishing certain project that was winding down, and I thought, okay, now I'm having like, few days ahead of me when I'm not gonna be as busy as I'm used to. And I thought back about, okay, so I can come to my Boss and say you have nothing exciting to do for the next. I basically thought about this feedback and I came and I said, okay, I see you working on this new project. I think I can help you with that in the next few days because, uh, my hands are going to be more free. And then I got involved in all the healthcare projects, for example, in Penta, which were just starting at the time. You know, the laboratory chain, the insurance, the rescue station, et cetera. And had I not taken that initiative when my other project with industrial companies was finishing, I probably would have never had that chance. So I think, uh, being proactive and helping your luck, uh, is definitely something that I would recommend.

Speaker C: That's, uh, a good advice. Always be proactive. Of course. Now, outside of professional circles, let's say if you need to introduce yourself or talk about something that, yeah, it's not too much about the professional side of you. So is there something that people can be surprised to know about you that you are doing apart from investment or like some hobby or some activity that it can be interesting for people to learn? Oh, you are doing this. It's nice. Or something around those lines?

Speaker A: Yeah. What I like. I think it's important to keep balance. I think spending all your time just on work is not gonna get you far because it will catch up sooner or later, you know. And I have two children, which also requires attention. So I would say that, uh, this is one of my hobbies, I can say. And both children play, uh, hockey competitively. So I think I spend a lot of time around hockey and the hockey friends and freezing hockey arenas. That's, I can call it now my hobby already. But my real hobby is beach volleyball. Uh, I played volleyball my whole life. I was actually on a volleyball scholarship in the US at the university. And I still keep it as a, um, something that I really enjoy doing. And I like sports of any kind. So I ski, I run, I do pilates, I, um, pickleball, whatever, whatever sport, uh, is around. I play tennis here and there. So I'm happy to pick up also new sports. I need that physical movement to clean my head and be fresh. And usually the best ideas I get is when I go running. And I, I even listen to a podcast, but I barely pay attention to that podcast because as I hear certain things, my mind starts going with some ideas that are sometimes related to what was said in a podcast, but sometimes triggered by podcasts but not related to it at all. And I find it very fascinating to see this, like a, ah, mental multitasking. But for some reason it um, it's yeah my decompression and, and inspiration uh, at the same time I would say running in the forest uh, is a must for me.

Speaker C: Of course as you mentioned it's always good to remind ourselves that balance and to get these fresh ideas running is a good point for sure. Now to close for today, the last two points. Um, what is coming next for you Emilia, uh with Evrita or outside of Eberita? What kind of impact would you like to achieve in the next few years thanks to this fund that you are building and, and of course even outside. So maybe with your kids you want to be. They will be hockey players. Maybe you will be their manager or I don't know.

Speaker A: No, no, definitely no. This is, this is not the uh, the reason, not the ambition. What's coming up. It's setting up a new fund. It's always um, you know, task. I'm doing it second time now. But still we have a new team, a new co founder. So it's going uh, to be a brand new company. We want to find a business ah model to do the smaller SME deals on a bigger scale. So this is my biggest challenge. Not just to get this one fund done with few deals but really to set up an organization that is able to scale that and to do it on a longer term basis. So this is as I see as my personal challenge uh in this new new new fund what we want to do, we want to help uh entrepreneurs to be successful and scale their businesses and especially in the sectors I mentioned where I see some impact. What I'm also involved in and I see a purpose uh in is to get more women to become investors. And as part of Czech Private Equity and Venture Capital association we have an initiative with level 20 organization. It's a uh, non profit from the UK whose purpose is to get at least 20 of women in private equity and investment roles on the senior positions Currently in Central Europe is less than 10% and uh, we are, what we are trying to do is to get more students to choose a career in investments business. Like more women uh students. We want to run an academy, private equity academy to give um, experience of learning firsthand from private equity professionals in Czech Republic about this opportunity. We want to set up mentoring. There's already a networking circle of women with investment uh, with an investment industry that we've started. So this is because why I do it is I think if there are more women investors this will invest in more diverse types of businesses and these types of businesses will Bring new services and products not just for women, but in general it will be a more interesting spectrum, spectrum of um, of things that can get funded. And I think decision making on investor side is also better if there is a diversity at the table. So that's, that's one part of what, what we are supporting within Everita and on a personal level, uh, it's just getting better at what we do and um, being a partner of choice for, for entrepreneurs.

Speaker C: Thanks for sharing that and all the best with all the different initiatives that you are supporting for sure. Now is there anything that you want to remark, thanks to our conversation today that you want to leave people thinking about that or anything that um, yeah, that we haven't talked today maybe. But you want to mention to people that there is this opportunity or a topic that people can reflect on. Um,

Speaker A: I would say if you see some opportunity in the market or you notice in your everyday life, a service or product, you think it's missing and uh, you really believe in it. I would just go and test it and research it. That's exactly what I did with Everita, uh, fund and Espira Fund. And if somebody told me 15 years ago that I'm going to set up my own private equity fund, I would have never thought about it. But it just became something I was observing on a daily basis and I said okay, like if, if I don't do it, who will do it? You know, there are so few women uh, in the industry. Who else will recognize that, you know, somebody should set up a fund of this type and pursue this kind of strategy. So if you such things around yourself in your life, I think you should not hesitate and give yourself some time to research. You don't have to commit, you don't have to quit your job and do it. Just spend some time researching. If you think it has potential, do it part time or do it as a hobby on the side of your job or do it on weekends and then eventually it might turn into a uh, full time thing. But I think quite often we, we stop ourselves from something uh, before we even try it. So. And what I would recommend for, for like anybody who's aspiring in this direction is to listen to a podcast called Founders. It's by uh, David Senra and he's uh, summarizing biographies of various successful people. Not just from business, it can be also from sports and culture and science and just hearing the stories of successful people, what they had to go through, how hard it was sometimes even 15 years like for Dyson, the founder of the Dyson, the, the vacuum cleaners and other products. 15 years of trying to figure out the technology that was not working without even technical background in that field. So I think if you see how much they've had to go through to achieve their goal and they didn't get discouraged, I think it's very inspirational to see. So this is for me, um, one of the podcasts that I listen to when I go running is the founders and then I get so many ideas. Of course reading a full book is also recommended but if you don't have time, just hearing the summary of that is uh, strong enough to energize you, I would say.

Speaker C: Yeah, thanks for sharing that. So I think I forgot about that question about the resources. So maybe I will use this opportunity to ask you if you have any other recommendation of something that you believe has helped you in your career and your personal growth or, or in your in general as an investor. So uh, it can be books, it can be the podcast or it can be events or communities. You can share in general resources that has been useful for you.

Speaker A: As I said, I like this founders podcast and based on that, those recommendations, I've read a number of the books that are covered in. I think by now there are like maybe 380 episodes for this. But I haven't read 380 books from those. This is like my primary source. And then I listen to a lot of other things or read a lot of other things that are related to, to investing, you know, hiring of people, running effective board meetings, um, just a lot of different resources that might not be relevant for the audience because they are more related to what I do. I think it's very industry specific I would say or different podcasts on, on investing or case studies of other investors etc. But this is from a business perspective. What I like also a podcast about the well being Huberman Lab. I don't. You must have heard of this one. It's with different doctors and scientists. It's about uh, very broad range of topics. This is something that I listen when I don't want to listen about the, the business. Feel better Live more. That's another one that has very interesting guests. Yeah, so I would say I have a very broad spectrum of resources that I follow.

Speaker C: Yeah, thanks for sharing those other podcasts as well. Now how can people reach you out if they want to continue this conversation or they want to pick your brain towards any other topic or ask you more information in your journey or holding into investment or any other topics?

Speaker A: I think LinkedIn is probably the best.

Speaker C: Yeah. We will leave your link in the description of the podcast. I think this is it for today. Thank you, Emilia, for your time today and I hope you have enjoyed the conversation as I did. And all the best with your new fund and all the work that you are planning to do to support more women investors and entrepreneurs and managers. Of course. Well. And all the best in all the initiative. And, uh, we keep talking.

Speaker A: Thank you for the invitation. It was nice talking to you, Ricardo.

Speaker C: See you.

Speaker A: Okay, bye. Bye.

Speaker B: Thank you very much for joining us. We hope you have enjoyed this episode and gained valuable insights. Feel free to share with your friends and looking forward to seeing you next time.

Speaker A: Sam.