Transcript
Joe Waltman: All right, today we have Joel Campos. Joel, thanks for joining. me
Joao Paulo: Yeah, my pleasure, Joe, to be with you again.
Joe Waltman: ah So first question, same as always, refresh your memory. What were you doing prior INSEAD and what have we been up to for the last 20-ish years?
Joao Paulo: ah hi Good. I was working Embraer, an airplane manufacturer in Brazil. I spent most of my career here. It's a senior São Paulo.
Joao Paulo: in the cities called San José dos Campos. So I decided to join INSEAD because I wanted to have a larger perspective on things generally.
Joao Paulo: And then I think...
Joe Waltman: well So hold on, let's back up. but So what were you doing and and how long were you there at the at the airplane manufacturer?
Joao Paulo: ah I did many things. i was At the end, there was supporting sales and was manager of services marketing or something like this.
Joao Paulo: I spent about five years there before leaving. a And then I started at the Singapore campus, spent the first two periods there, and then spent the last six months in Fontainebleau because I had to find the job, right? So I wanted it to be here.
Joao Paulo: Everyone does, right? so
Joe Waltman: Now, I think when we were going, it was sort of the the second choice, the Singapore campus. ah was that Was that the case for you, or did you want to start in Singapore?
Joao Paulo: Now I wanted to start in Singapore. I had studied before in France, before coming to Inseat, so Europe was not a novelty for me. So I wanted to ah visit new places and see a different different environment. So that's why I joined Singapore.
Joao Paulo: It was fun. was a lot of fun. I don't know if you had the chance to visit the Singapore campus, Joe.
Joe Waltman: I did. I did a couple periods there. It was, it was, ah yeah, it was great.
Joao Paulo: It was great, it was great. Well, after INSEAD, I joined McKinsey in Lisbon.
Joe Waltman: Oh.
Joao Paulo: Yeah, spent one year in McKinsey and then I joined my customer. The customer was serving was Portugal Telecom.
Joao Paulo: And then I spent four years there taking care of the network, the more technical role. managing the technical aspects of the network.
Joao Paulo: And then we decided to come back to Brazil, start missing the family, start missing the our country. We had good friends in Portugal. Actually, the whole INSEAD community, the the Portuguese INSEAD community, they bond very strongly together after the MBA.
Joao Paulo: So we were very close every every day, every every weekend,
Joe Waltman: And did the Portuguese mafia allow a Brazilian into the group?
Joao Paulo: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Joe Waltman: Okay.
Joao Paulo: I'm called João too, so was it easier for me than for the others. Possibly was worse for Luis and Daniel, but apart then.
Joe Waltman: ah
Joao Paulo: And actually in Portuguese too. a
Joe Waltman: okay
Joao Paulo: Yeah. So it was nice. was nice. ah And then we decided to come back. I was married the time already. I had the one daughter.
Joe Waltman: what what What year would this have been when you returned to Brazil?
Joao Paulo: I'm sorry.
Joe Waltman: what What year did you return to Brazil?
Joao Paulo: I returned 2008, I guess. Yeah, 2008.
Joao Paulo: It's a long time ago already.
Joao Paulo: And then I joined back Embraer. I love the airplanes. So, yeah.
Joe Waltman: Oh, wow.
Joao Paulo: And then start managing a new, I was a product manager, i was responsible for for an airplane as a program manager. That's how we call it in the industry.
Joe Waltman: i've i've got ah I've got a sensitive question here because i've i've the same thing happened to me and I know one of them from other people. ah Do you feel like you would have been farther ahead going to INSEAD or not going to INSEAD when you first got back to Inbra? Were you actually at at a higher level or a lower level than when when you left you know what is it five, six years earlier?
Joao Paulo: I think that when I left when i left the company, i was in a fast track in the company. And then ah for some time, it sort of jeopardized bit of Korea because, you know, this, you go and come back and so.
Joao Paulo: But I'm sure that i wouldn't be a I wouldn't be in the place I am now if I hadn't been to NCF. that's That's for sure.
Joe Waltman: Amen.
Joao Paulo: ah Certainly, i would not be able to to do the things that I've done. Both from the, let's say, the technical perspective, but mostly on the personal side too.
Joao Paulo: ah All this thoughtless path through going through Portugal and all the hardships, I learned a lot. and For the for the the role I play and the challenge I have, this thing was very important.
Joao Paulo: Others would would have quit the challenge that I have. So it was good to harden the skin.
Joe Waltman: that's that's That's a good way of putting it like that. So anyhow, let's get back. you You were, you, you returned to Embratel. How do we pronounce the?
Joao Paulo: and Embraer. Embraer is the airplane manufacturer.
Joe Waltman: No, I've, I've, I've, I've been on plenty of the airplanes. I've, I've seen, I've seen the brand.
Joao Paulo: Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure.
Joe Waltman: ah So, so you you were doing product stuff. What does that mean?
Joao Paulo: Yeah, I was in the aeronautics, you have the the figure of the program manager.
Joe Waltman: Mm-hmm.
Joao Paulo: The program manager is sort of the, let's say, that the CEO of an airplane. You run it as a company. So you have to have the the responsibility for the P&L of this business and then have to balance across all the ah company's functions, engineering, what you're going to do for ah next the next year model,
Joao Paulo: and the production, you have to take care of product support, quality, everything. So it gives her a very transversal perspective on the on the business.
Joao Paulo: and And there it was first place where I started seeing the difference that INSEAD has made. Because ah i was able to pull some ideas that I think they quite original for as compared to what we were seeing in the company. So it was important.
Joao Paulo: In 2012, I spent four years in this role. In 2012, I decided to join a company that Embraer was building. was called Visiona.
Joao Paulo: It was a startup inside Embraer. A startup inside a big company. And the idea was to create a thought of Embraer or the satellites in Brazil, a company that would design and produce satellites for the Brazilian space program.
Joao Paulo: yeah And then at the beginning, I joined as a ah commercial VP. And then after four years, I became the president of the company, the CEO.
Joao Paulo: So since 2017, I guess, I became the CEO of this small company.
Joe Waltman: Since 18, wow. And 17, I suggest you're being a little bit modest right now. How small of a company are we talking about? How how many people?
Joao Paulo: Now it's a small company. and Now we have ah ah around 100 people.
Joe Waltman: Yeah.
Joao Paulo: But it's still a startup in a sense, because in Brazil, brazil we we we had a strong state space program, but we didn't have much many private companies doing space.
Joao Paulo: so We didn't have, for instance, people in the market to hire. We have to train everybody to master some of the technologies that were in there. So this was the story of the last couple of years. So it's been quite challenging, and to be to be honest.
Joao Paulo: we We launched the first satellite that was designed by Brazilian company in 2000, thousand <unk> three years ago, to make things easier. yeah It worked fine.
Joao Paulo: It was a small one. And then it produced nice pictures of the of the country. ah And now we are designing a larger one, 250 kilogram satellites.
Joao Paulo: So
Joe Waltman: yeah so So are you, ah excuse my ignorance here, this is an entirely different, but are you building the satellites or are you building the rockets or all of the above?
Joao Paulo: the satellite. the The satellites. Yeah,
Joe Waltman: Okay. Okay. Okay. And it's primarily you know observational, ah you know
Joao Paulo: what
Joao Paulo: yeah we did both.
Joe Waltman: or it's all over the map?
Joao Paulo: Yeah, we did, we already did communications, narrowband communications, and we also did observation satellites.
Joe Waltman: Mm-hmm.
Joao Paulo: This one is is mostly observations, a high resolution satellite. the light
Joe Waltman: And again, very naive question. Excuse my ignorance. How does that work do you guys come with the idea of this satellite needs to be up in the air and we're going to run the business or some other company says we want a satellite that does this.
Joe Waltman: If you can build it for us, we'll, you know, but however the commercial terms work.
Joao Paulo: Typically, you may have both. You can have a ah model whereby you'll sell the satellites to someone. ah Typically, the government is involved in this.
Joao Paulo: It's hard to find a company that buys a satellite for its own use, apart from the telecommunications industry. and But you also have some companies that build their own constellations to provide the services to the market.
Joao Paulo: So both things happen, yeah. In our case, we we do have a services business too. It's important for you to understand how how to better use the the systems and we need to know how to use it in order to design a good satellite.
Joao Paulo: ah But our biggest goal is to provide the satellites for the Brazilian government. Why the Brazilian government? Because we believe that we we create a ah space infrastructure and Brazil for the government,
Joao Paulo: we can drastically improve some of the processes of the governance of the country. For instance, to curb deforestation the Amazon forest, promote agricultural business, things like this, monitor cities, monitor large infrastructures such as dams or pipelines or
Joao Paulo: these this sort of things. so and So now now we are trying to, this one, the the larger ones, we are trying to have it sold for the Brazilian Air Force and the Brazilian government.
Joe Waltman: And is there some strategic reason why it's got to be a Brazilian company that does that? Why they they don't want to rely on, you know, a SpaceX or who knows who from China ah for for this sort of thing?
Joao Paulo: Opa.
Joao Paulo: Now, SpaceX does mostly the the rockets. yeah Now they have the telecommunications.
Joe Waltman: Yes.
Joao Paulo: to have a but Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Joe Waltman: Again, excuse my ignorance. I'm sorry.
Joao Paulo: yeah yeah Yeah, but they they have both. and They have telecommunications.
Joe Waltman: and
Joao Paulo: They are market-leading here in he Brazil. but There is a strategic portion of it. To be able to master the... the The technology is important because it's not technology that you can buy it across the corner.
Joao Paulo: It's typically very well protected. And when you have a ah country as large as ours, the satellites are very important too. As I mentioned, you can drastically improve the processes across across the country, do things that otherwise you wouldn't be able to do.
Joao Paulo: so It's important to have a space program and then within the space program it's important to understand what is in the air. Nowadays, even in the military side, most of the Air Force, they are creating sort of space forces.
Joao Paulo: So the the warfare is coming to to the so this was the space.
Joe Waltman: Mm-hmm.
Joao Paulo: We're not in this this race. Brazil has its own problem to to solve. So it's mostly civilian. but once we want to have the a play in this game.
Joe Waltman: and what is Is the government your only customer or could you also sell to, let's call them private companies? And secondly, are there other companies like you that are supplying these satellites to the government or you the only supplier for for the Brazilian government?
Joao Paulo: Yeah, typically in the stage that we are ah we see that foreign governments, they they become a customer too. But it's mostly governmental opportunities.
Joao Paulo: And the you have to have a very strong and base in your country. Your country has to be there the the main customer because you may may land one deal elsewhere, here and there, but it's not a frequent thing, yeah?
Joao Paulo: What sustains the plans of the company is the idea that we were going to create an infrastructure for the country that would provide free services, for instance, to promote the growth in other sectors.
Joao Paulo: So that's that's going to be the main the main the main line of business.
Joao Paulo: Even if you if you feel think about ah Europe or US, the government is always ah part of the view. In Europe, it's a more direct thing, but even in the US, you have the the government having large contracts that at the end sustain the life of this of the companies.
Joe Waltman: but So does that mean if you – are there some – and I don't want to touch upon sensitive issues. Just say move on and you can't talk about this. But ah if you don't get any contracts, is there some life support for your company to to keep on going just because it's it's strategically important to the government of Brazil?
Joao Paulo: No, I don't think so. I mean, I think that the yeah
Joao Paulo: Brazil is going through a mild crisis, so a fiscal crisis.
Joe Waltman: Hmm.
Joao Paulo: So I don't expect to have a government support if I don't manage to to create projects that make sense for for the government. yeah So that that's what we're trying to do. I'm not trying to rely that much on this strategic approach.
Joao Paulo: argument I think that's important, it's obvious to everyone. But if we don't propose products that have a worth, inner worth, I don't think that we're going to survive.
Joao Paulo: so
Joe Waltman: Mm-hmm.
Joao Paulo: But the the good thing is that the good thing is that we have plenty of applications here.
Joe Waltman: what
Joao Paulo: There are plenty of places whereby we can we can offer these sorts of solutions.
Joe Waltman: Yeah, really. Excuse all these stupid questions, but this this is really interesting. um Is this something where an agency already has a good idea of what they want and they come to you and say, we want you know satellite that does X, Y, Z? Or is it more consultative where you're going out and saying, oh, hey, agency, you know you could do this better if you had this satellite up in the sky and we can build it for you it's only going to cost as much money, blah, blah, blah.
Joao Paulo: It's a good question, Joe, because the expectation of ah of the company was that the government would would help creating this, if you want to create this company, and then support its development, development this technology for us to get up to the stage where we are.
Joao Paulo: And then it would keep offering projects that would make sense for them, but with this strategic concern in mind. But actually, it never happened this way.
Joao Paulo: So what we did, as I mentioned, we have a very strong services business on remote sensing mostly, but also on communications.
Joe Waltman: Thank you.
Joao Paulo: And through the services, we started understanding how the satellite could help the government. So we put together plans and projects that would fulfill these issues.
Joao Paulo: And we actually had to go ah to do most out of the stuff, not only that the technical solution, but also to articulate with possible customers, to teach them how they could use the data and then show it to the customer.
Joao Paulo: We are in the middle of a process like this. a Hopefully by the end of the year, we're going to have ah some good news, but we're going to see it. But what have is at the end, it became way more entrepreneurial than than we thought it would be.
Joe Waltman: Yeah, yeah. that's ah You've got to get bureaucrats who may not be the most visionary people on the planet to think about what you know what they might be.
Joao Paulo: yeah That's true, Joe. That's true. Actually, I'm lucky that I have a lot of ah smart people as as my counterparts in the government. But it's very tough in Brazil to coordinate the government actions.
Joao Paulo: ye We have issue. We have this zi we have ah an issue with long-term planning in the country. Brazil has always been plagued by a small crisis. So we have to get out of the box to go through these things.
Joe Waltman: ah You may not be able to answer this question, just say ah this violates you know whatever, but I'd love to hear kind of some of the the applications, and maybe unexpected applications where where you you're approaching your client, the government saying, hey, we can do this for you to you know with with this particular technology.
Joao Paulo: Okay.
Joao Paulo: What we did, we
Joao Paulo: We had, Brazilian government had dozens of of entities that were purchasing foreign data for the own applications. So the main burden was actually to bond those all together and say, listen, with all the money we're spending outside, abroad, we can we can have our own satellite and have, at the end, much better services than than what we have currently. So...
Joao Paulo: ah the the The main applications, the it's what we would expect in Brazil. So have a we are an environmental powerhouse.
Joao Paulo: So forest monitoring, monitoring forest is a big big thing. being All it's going to be also for the future. Agriculture is ah is a big thing.
Joao Paulo: And in a agriculture, you have different instances. You can have something for the farmers, you have something for the financial markets, or have something for governments. For instance, we are curbing tax evasion in some crops in the southern part of Brazil.
Joao Paulo: There were lots of ah tax evasion issues in the soil.
Joe Waltman: but wait let's Let's talk about that. So how how are farmers evading taxes and how are you catching them?
Joao Paulo: yeah That's a very interesting project. It was Maranhão state, a state in the north of the and northern region of the country. ah There there were many schemes, but they were essentially getting government subsidies and at the end they would either bring soy from other states or not not even growing the the crop and things like this.
Joao Paulo: And there were some policy actions there. So we designed a system for them whereby we automatically map all the all the the farms in the the count in the states.
Joao Paulo: And then we identify which farms are growing ah corn and soy. And through the satellite, you estimate the productivity of these farms.
Joao Paulo: And then the government can compare this with the the taxes that the farmer has has paid.
Joe Waltman: Very cool.
Joao Paulo: So was ah there is no escape.
Joe Waltman: Yeah, very cool.
Joao Paulo: Let me tell you. Yeah.
Joe Waltman: And you I assume you you could tell the kind of crop, what you said, the utilization, you know how well it's growing all from space.
Joao Paulo: Yeah. You can do this.
Joe Waltman: That's cool.
Joao Paulo: This is one of the most direct applications.
Joe Waltman: That's cool.
Joao Paulo: The most difficult part is because it's very sophisticated. So many farms, they don't don't take advantage of this. But this project for the government was for the government, for the state government.
Joao Paulo: It pays off in the pilot phase. that A handful of farms was enough to pay what they paid us to develop.
Joao Paulo: So it was very...
Joe Waltman: That's cool.
Joao Paulo: transformation, we even won a national prize for this as the best fiscal management solution from from the government. But this shows how powerful is this technology.
Joao Paulo: Even for the Amazon, if you take a look at the deforestation level over the the years, it was the introduction of satellites that marks the the but the beginning of the reduction deforestation the Amazon.
Joe Waltman: Yeah.
Joao Paulo: So we
Joe Waltman: Yeah. Just, just the size, how would you possibly manage that except from space? Right. It's so, it's so big.
Joao Paulo: Exactly, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Joe Waltman: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Joao Paulo: So it makes sense to have a national infrastructure. By national infrastructure, I think GPS.
Joe Waltman: Yeah.
Joao Paulo: You don't even think that GPS is a satellite. GPS is something that comes out of your telephone, right? so But it's there. is never will never disappear. You're always going to have a GPS.
Joao Paulo: So that's what we're trying to do in the country, to convince people that we need a space infrastructure.
Joe Waltman: Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. Well, um ah thanks again for your time.
Joao Paulo: yeah
Joe Waltman: I asked one follow or one kind final question that may or may not be relevant. You can just blow it off if if it you don't have anything to say. But is there anything that we can do to help you as the INSEAD community and vice versa?
Joe Waltman: What might you be able to do to to help ah you know your your colleagues in the promotion?
Joao Paulo: so i mean From time to time, I get in touch with people to to understand the specifics of their of their sector.
Joao Paulo: So let's see, how we're we're trying to push into the the energy sector. So what I did at the time was to get in touch with Ricardo, and he was on the board of an energy company here in São Paulo, and he gave me a lot of hints of things to do.
Joao Paulo: that's the That's the way that's the way we have been interacting on the business side. So the on the personal side, well always meet the Portuguese and Brazilians from time to time. ah We get together here. It's always a pleasure to to to see the the guys around. But um that from the business side, that's how I've been using that the network.
Joe Waltman: Yeah. And and if I assume if anybody has some satellite questions, you'd you'd be a great person to to to get in touch with.
Joao Paulo: Hmm.
Joao Paulo: But yeah, in aerospace too, there was the philipil quite a quite a large community on aerospace, on our promotion.
Joe Waltman: Cool. Very cool. Joao, it's been very interesting catching up with you. Thanks so much for your time. Really good talking.
Joao Paulo: Thank you, Joe.
Joe Waltman: Ciao.
Joao Paulo: My pleasure. so
