Innovation is the backbone of any organization and it is important to embrace innovation to strive and compete with others in the business world and also essentially to contribute to make something better. No problem can be solved with the same le vel of thinking that when we created the problem. Innovation is essential to come up with the solutions to the existing problems. Innovative leaders can reshape the future by using their inventory skills.
Yuryi Ferber is one such a visionary and a bold innovator. He is the Founder and CEO of BRITech. He has a 20+ year history building and developing enterprise financial software. He provides the investment management ecosystem with growth-driven digital solutions that help build better companies and better ecosystems. His career is long rooted in entrepreneurship and a passion for technology and the financial world.
In 2012 he co-founded BRITech and two years later BRITech released the first product with a vertical B2B SaaS model dedicated solely to the investments and asset and wealth management market. He is a visionary with a gift for finding and attracting the right people. BRITech provides scalable, robust wealth management software, professional services and end-to-end technology for investment firms, asset managers, brokers, fund administrators and wealth managers.
Below are the highlights of the interview between Yuryi Ferber and CIO Look in which he shares his journey and about his contribution through BRITech in building a wealthy world:
Brief our audience on your professional journey, up to your current leadership position.
My career started as a software engineer in Investment Banking. After 7 years I made the decision to be an entrepreneur. The first 2 years were the one-man-show style. Then I realized the day has only 24 hours, the week only 7 days and, if I wanted to scale the business, I could not continue alone. The process of hiring and delegating, until that moment, was not natural and I learned from the mistakes. After 2 years, the delegation process was already natural, and I developed the skills to attract very good people. The bottlenecks being resolved as the business grew. At the end of the 7th year, the company was already the leader and we became an acquisition target for big tech players.
In the 15th year, we got an irrefutable proposal that would sustain our growth for the next 15 years. The partnership made perfect sense and we closed the deal keeping minority stake but keeping the business unit leadership. The plan e volved very well for 2 years until an even bigger company acquired the tech company that acquired us. Our plan was aborted once it was not in the interest of the new owner. I ended up leaving and, 4 years later, we launched a Tech Startup. I am one of the Founders and the CEO of BRITech.
Brief us about your company and its prominent products that make you a preferred choice over your competition.
With a SaaS product, we provide Technology and Infrastructure for all the Investment Management players. We have over 300 managers worldwide and a unique scalable and comprehensive technology capable of accommodating small, medium, and large enterprises.
What is your idea of impactful leadership? What style of leadership do you personally prefer and have implemented at your company?
I have a reputation for being tough but fair. I love what I do, I love being an entrepreneur, I love the challenge of making a global business grow, I love overcoming challenges, I love being surrounded by competent people distributed in different regions, with different cultures, who share the same vision and values and believe that we can get there. Gratitude and humility are key values we share.
Taking into consideration, the current pandemic, and its impact on global economies, how are you driving your company to sustain operations and ensuring safety of your associates and employees at the same time?
Our people are our most important Asset. Our people sell, deliver, and support our customers. We can’t be the best company without the best people. We were one of the first companies in Brazil to move 100% of the team to remote, WFH model and we did it in 1 day. The office remained closed for over 6 months and we reopened the office, we gave the option for everyone to work from home or at the office or a combination.
If given a chance, what change would you bring about in the ecosystem of your respective industry?
When we launched the company in 2014, we started offering products for one of the Investment Management several players. Then year after year we kept expanded to new players. After 7 years, we finally reached the latest player: The Financial Planner (FP). We believe the FP plays a key role in countries where regular people do not have good financial education and the public retirement system is not good enough. Our vision is to empower the FP who will provide coaching and help regular people achieve the most important long-term goal: his/her retirement.
What would be your advice for the emerging and aspiring business leaders?
If you want to walk fast, walk alone. But if you want to walk far, walk together! In my opinion, the most important skill an aspiring leader must develop is how to attract the most brilliant people to take the business to the next level.
What have you envisioned for yourself and your company to sustain its market position in the future?
We developed an entrepreneurship-ecosystem model that retain the best people, the talented and hardworking people. I believe this model provides an alignment of interests 360 degrees and it will sustain customer retention, customer acquisition and constant innovation for the years to come.
