Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ep 69: Leading Teams Across Borders with Manuel Martinez-Herrera, BetterCloud GM
74 Plays23 days ago
What does a general manager role involve? How do you establish your company's first international office? And what skills from lawyering can you draw on to do it well?
Join Manuel Martinez-Herrera, General Manager and General Counsel at BetterCloud, as he shares his journey from law school in Spain to offices in Argentina and the U.S., to earning an LL.M at Harvard, jumping from big law to in-house counsel, moving beyond the GC role, and opening his company’s first office in Mexico City.
Listen as Manuel offers tips for lawyers who want to move into business roles, why it’s important to explore new and different opportunities, the traits that lawyers and software engineers share in common, and more.
Read detailed summary: https://www.spotdraft.com/podcast/episode-69
Topics:
Introduction: 0:00
Why did you decide to practice law in United States?: 2:18
Gravitating towards in-house legal: 5:10
Feeling ready to lead a legal team: 7:32
Becoming General Manager at BetterCloud: 11:35
Shifting your mindset from legal to business: 13:43
Working with software engineers: 15:23
Transitioning from advisor to doer: 18:31
How has working as GM changed your relationship with the executive team?: 21:57
Leading a team through its maturation process: 24:19
Investing in company culture: 26:50
Tips for listeners thinking of taking a job abroad: 30:07
What’s next for Manuel: 32:12
Rapid-fire questions: 33:15
Book recommendations: 36:23
What Manuel wishes he’d known as a young lawyer: 38:50
Connect with us:
Manuel Martinez-Herrera - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manuel-martinez-herrera-71a2a763/
Tyler Finn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerhfinn
SpotDraft - https://www.linkedin.com/company/spotdraft
SpotDraft is a leading contract lifecycle management platform that solves your end-to-end contract management issues.
Visit https://www.spotdraft.com to learn more.
Recommended
Transcript
Social Superpowers and Early Influences
00:00:00
Speaker
If I had one superpower in my life, and I reflected about this, we do this exercise sometimes on executive meetings, like, what's your superpower and all that, and you know, whatever, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not. But the one thing I've done well in my life is um I'm good at like feeding in different different groups. Since I was a kid, I could be in school with like three different groups and be friends with all of them. And that has been kind of the story of my life, living in different places, making community, making friends.
00:00:28
Speaker
So it is something I really enjoy. um Yeah, my my wife says I have a problem. I need to be liked by everybody or or I feel bad. But I don't know. that's That's the one thing I do. I do well, I guess.
00:00:46
Speaker
What does a general manager role involve? How do you establish your company's first international office? And what skills from lawyering can you draw on to do it well? Today, we are joined on the abstract by my friend Manuel Martinez Herrera, the general manager for BetterCloud in Mexico, and also BetterCloud's general counsel. Better Cloud is a complete and insights-fueled platform for end-to-end SaaS management for IT. t It helps track SaaS applications and expenses, automate user permissions and access, and secure cloud files. That sounds like a classic SaaS tech business to to me.
00:01:34
Speaker
complicated, but makes things simpler and everyone needs it.
International Legal Journey and Education
00:01:41
Speaker
Don't we all do the same? yeah Before joining Better Cloud, Manuel was the VP of Legal and Compliance at Namely. He also spent time as an in-house lawyer at MetLife and he started his career at a variety of firms in New York City, Spain and Argentina. Pretty cool. Lived and worked in a lot of countries. Thanks so much for joining me today for this episode of The Abstract. I am honored honored to be called your friend Tyler, a superstar in the legal community. and That makes two of us, I hope. It's good to be in good company with folks like you. Let's go back a few years. I mentioned you know you went to law school or you worked in Spain, you went to law school in Spain, and then like actually our CEO at Spotdraft, you got your LLM at Harvard. I recently had another great person in the legal community, Flavia Navas, on. She was the GCF Circle, and we had an extended conversation around the challenges and also the opportunities associated with transitioning from being a foreign-trained lawyer to practicing in the United States.
00:02:47
Speaker
Let's just start. like why Why did you decide you wanted to come and practice here? What was that experience like? Take us take us through that transition. yeah so I actually don't know Flavia, but a really good friend of my wife, Laura Kaufman, used to work for her at Circles. Shout out to Laura and Flavia. Excellent.
00:03:06
Speaker
I heard excellent things about her. To me, coming to the US to study was always, I guess, kind of in the cards. My mom was born and raised in Madrid in Spain. My dad was from Spain. or My family from my dad's side is from Spain. But my mom was actually from um believe or not Cleveland, Ohio.
00:03:25
Speaker
and she may Yep, yep. Very random. She moved to Spain for her last year of ah college and then decided to stay there because she likes Spain a lot. um So I came, I grew up coming to the US to visit with my family here almost every summer and always had an inkling of like, I wanted to try living here, that kind of stuff. And when I was finishing law school in Spain, which is undergrad, um like in most countries, law school is undergrad. So you're basically 18, you don't know what you're doing and you go study law.
00:03:55
Speaker
it's ah It's a profession that opens doors, I guess, sometimes. On my last year, and this will show how old I am, I look at this bulletin board in my um in my law school, and I had this advertisement from this law firm called Cuatro Casas, which is one of the big Spanish law firms. And they have this very cool program to which I owe a lot of my career, in which basically the first two years, every six months, you change practice and you change cities.
00:04:20
Speaker
And after two years, you go study in LLM. So my first two years, I did a year in Barcelona, six months in Buenos Aires and six months in Madrid. And then I applied to the LLMs. I got into Harvard and I went to my LLM in Harvard. And then you do a year at a law firm. And then usually you come back to Spain, to Patricasas. I did not do that last part. I never came back. That created some friction with them. We're best friends now again. but But that's how i that's how I got to the U.S., right? that That program opened a lot of doors and I'm super grateful for it. And that's how I got here. Yeah. I mean, not here, not in Mexico City. That's how I got to New York, I guess. yeah What a fantastic program. It's almost like the... It's amazing. I had another VC, the Kravath sort of model, right, of rotation, but it adds an international element to it. Amazing. Yeah.
00:05:05
Speaker
When you when you you know started to establish yourself here in in New York, decided to stay, did you think, I want to be a firm lawyer? Did you have in-house in your sights? What
Shift from Law Firm to In-House Roles
00:05:17
Speaker
did that look like? What were your ambitions at that time? Yeah. I guess when I was a baby lawyer, I always wanted to be a firm lawyer. So I was at this firm, Quatre Casas. They sent me to another firm in Argentina. And theyre these firms are based on the kind of like the US model that tried to replicate that ah big law feeling.
00:05:35
Speaker
And I know a lot of people have different feelings against or in favor to these firms. My experience had always been great. Like I made great friends, met a lot of smart people, had to work hard, but also I was single, no family at the time. So it's a time when you can work hard and also when you have free time.
00:05:51
Speaker
and go out and have fun, right? So to me, the loving world was great. I then, I was in white and case when I get to New York, I get to white and case. I was there for, I guess, five years plus. And at one point, and this goes a lot with um the way I am as a person, I get nervous. I just, I get anxious. I want to do something else. So after five years there, I was like, shit, I need a break. I want to travel the world. What am I doing? I'm like 29, 30. Am I like wasting my best years?
00:06:22
Speaker
So I talked to my partner, who's, um to to this day, a really good friend of mine. Actually, my wife, who's a landscape architect, just did a project for him. He's an awesome guy. And I was like, I just need some time to travel. And he was like, yeah, well, we have this policy in the firm. You can take up to six months, which I don't know if people in wetland case know about it, but if they don't, they should do it. Yeah.
00:06:42
Speaker
So I took three months, I traveled a month in Mexico, I traveled a month in Argentina, and then I was back in Spain for a month. And when I came back, I had started dating, who is now my wife, who's from New York. So I had in my mind, maybe it's time for me to go back to Spain. And then I was like, but now I'm dating someone I really like, and she's from New York. But also I was like, but life in a law firm, will I make partner? Will I not? Is it not the best life? And at that point is when I started thinking about in-house. And then is when I made the transition. You have one of those really bad days, a recruiter calls you, and changing your mind I think that's how it really happens for a lot of people actually, as as much as everyone wants to say, oh, we had this whole six month or nine month plan.
Transition to General Manager and Mindset Shift
00:07:23
Speaker
ah ah You went in-house and and and you know you had you had success, right? I mean, working your way to a GC role is not easy. i don't want to
00:07:32
Speaker
sort of passover smooth over your in-house experience entirely. but um But I do think that this moment where you decide to go from GC to GM is something that we want to talk about today and we want to get to. As you became GC though, when did you feel like you were you were ready to lead a legal team? right like like When did you feel like you know you you had enough experience, you had the skill set that now it's time to to be the one who's who's building and and leading a whole legal org?
00:07:58
Speaker
Yeah. I don't even know if I have that today. I just knew I was at MedLife. I mean, I learned a lot and it was a great place to be my first in-house gig, but I was just one of many. It was so much bureaucracy, red tape. It just felt like everything was moving too slow. So I was ready for a change. And when I got this opportunity, namely to be the head of the legal team, to have a team, I was like, I don't know if I'm ready, but fuck it. I want to do it. I think something fun. So I jump to it and the two things I've always I think kind of done decently in my career is I learn as I go and I'm not afraid of learning new things and I get along with people and I think with those two things then you can lead people. Yeah.
00:08:45
Speaker
Absolutely. For a lot of folks, like I said, GC feels like the destination. More recently, how did you know that you wanted to take on more? And and also, I guess, how did you how did you do that? How did you go about it? what What does that sort of look like to set yourself up for it internally? Yeah. um My dad used to say that ah that I'm unable to lay, it's a it's a Spanish expression, but if you were to translate translate it to English, it's something like you're unable to lay your egg. You're unable to, um and that means you're always wanting to do something different. You cannot spend much time doing the same thing. So to me, it's always been what's next. And not because what I'm doing is not good, it's just, I'm like, should I be doing something else? Is this all that life has for me?
00:09:28
Speaker
um yeah So I keep asking myself, what else can I do? If I'm offered something within the company to do something else, something new, I'm like, sure, why not? Let's try it. And I think that mentality has served me well to move from a legal role to then have a hybrid of legal plus business. And and i would I would argue that um even if your role is just legal, you you should see your role as business. A good lawyer is is a good business person. So I think that's the right mentality.
00:09:57
Speaker
and I think this is something that you know I've discussed with other guests that I'm sure you've talked about yourself at TechGC conferences or or other great sort of community gatherings like that. People in legal are particularly well positioned to do this because it's an extremely cross-functional role. You're going to see a lot of problems come across your desk most likely that may not have a clear owner or no one's grabbed onto to yet. I'm sure you've had that experience too.
00:10:25
Speaker
A thousand percent. And it's like lawyers are very rational, very logical people. And at the end of the day, a business is about solving problems. And when you unshackle yourself, when you are making a decision that's not legal and it's not the consequence is not, are we going to get a fine or are we going to get sued? It's more of a business decision where the stakes are different. You unshackle yourself of that, then all your power of solving problems becomes see even better.
00:10:51
Speaker
Yeah. Also, we're very organized we tend to be organized people. So when you have to project manage big projects between different departments and make, I don't know, I feel like lawyers make shit happen. That's what business needs, right? Shit needs to happen. Absolutely. I mean, what what makes the CEO happier than they they assign someone to fix a problem or drive a project to its conclusion that perhaps had been festering for six months and then like in a matter of six weeks is done, right? Exactly. you're You're going to curry favor with other other members of the C-suite that way. and I think that's a a lot of maybe what you do. I want you to describe for us like what is the GM of BCMX mean. I personally love ambiguous roles and ambiguous titles. and Being a general manager seems like that the manifestation of of all of that.
00:11:40
Speaker
it's um It's funny because my daughter keeps asking, she's seven and she keeps asking me, what is it exactly that you do? I know like moms this mom designs gardens and she knows a lot about plants, but what do you do? I go to meetings, I send emails, that's about it.
00:11:57
Speaker
more More seriously, um ah yeah it is an ambiguous role and it's a role that I kind of made it what I wanted to make it and also obviously what the company needed, but it has morphed a lot. It's been now, I took officially this role in January of 23 when we didn't even have and an entity here. And the first six months was all about the setup, right? And that was obviously your very well suited as a lawyer to set up the entity, figure out all the accounting and financial stuff with the finance team, and then come here, find the office space. So that was kind of like January to June of 2023. And then June to December of 2023 was mostly about the recruiting, right? We had to recruit a bunch of people quickly. We got to 40 people within four months. So it was all about ah making sure we were hiring the right people and we had the mechanisms to scale and and do that. So that was kind of like the next six months.
00:12:50
Speaker
And then from then on, so-called January of 2024 to now, it's all been about making sure the office works. We have the right culture. We have the right people. They're enabled, right? You have all these new people on average with junior people, right? Most of them are junior engineers that need more enablement than more senior folks.
00:13:11
Speaker
So making sure they have what they need to be successful. And then also becoming the bridge between the US and Mexico, because we have many teams that have folks in both sides of the border. And um and there's things that get lost in translation. So being that person that yeah helps managers in one side understand what's going on with their teams on the other side on and the other way around.
00:13:33
Speaker
Do you feel like that sort of role, this role that you've taken on requires a mindset shift from maybe the way that you were thinking about problems before or at least it sort of like the immediate identification of risk that probably was was your your go-to, okay, I've been called into a meeting, I've been called into a room. yeah how How do you feel like your mindsets had to change a little bit in this role?
00:13:57
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot, um a piece of it is um the human element, right? It's, I don't, here in the, it's interesting, here in the Mexican office, yes, I'm the general manager, so I guess I'm the most senior person in the office, but I only have one person that directly reports to me in this office, right? The report to me are not, actually two people as of yesterday, but the other folks that report to me are not, and they're in Mexico. But I'm still kind of like the leader of the side, the leader of the office. So you have to influence and um be able to lead from a less um hierarchical point of view. And you become more of the counselor and the advisor emotionally, work-wise for a bunch of people on both sides. and making sure you can fix those problems and those issues many times with indirect influence versus direct influence. So it's a very interesting interesting skill that I had to learn because i you know it's easier when someone reports to you it's not to solve their problems than when someone does not report to you, but you still I'm responsible for all for like 60 folks here. and i um So that has been a ah learning curve for me, but something that's been challenging, but very rewarding.
00:15:12
Speaker
Yeah, you mentioned i mean most of the folks who are in the office are software engineers and and you're responsible for culture. How have you adapted to to working with engineers most of the time and also maybe getting good at helping hire them? That seems like and Engineers are a little bit of a different breed, right? I mean, if you worked in a tech company before, and and you have, say, a legal background, you know you might more immediately find some kinship, I would say maybe with like product managers, people who are a little more external facing, right? um So like how how have you adapted to to working really well with with engineers? Yeah. um It's interesting when you peel the onion with engineers, not that dissimilar to lawyers, very um analytical people, very rational, very logical. And at their heart, many of them are also can be nerds, like many lawyers are. So there's been a lot of bonding around um things I used to like when I was younger, such as Dragon Ball. And
00:16:13
Speaker
ah Things like soccer. Soccer is huge in Mexico. I'm a big Real Madrid fan. Our office happens to be right next to the Sibelis Fonten, which is where Real Madrid supporters celebrate their ah championships just by happenstance. It happens to be here, or maybe because I chose where the office goes. But there's a lot of that. um So there's a lot of ping pong. We have a ping pong table. I play a lot with the guys here. ah they That table has been used so much. I've never seen, they love ping pong.
00:16:43
Speaker
um but um So there's that. And then there's the um the trust that you get by showing to them that you're here to go to bat for them and to help them with their problems. And you are their boys with the C-suite. You're their boys with the executive team and to help them cross that bridge with the with the folks in the US. And that's been really good. The other challenge is that um I'm 44. The average age here is like 24 to 25. It's a big gap.
Social Adaptability and Leadership Challenges
00:17:17
Speaker
Now, if I had one superpower in my life, and I reflect that about this, we do this exercise sometimes on executive meetings, like, what's your superpower and all that? and
00:17:25
Speaker
you know whatever. Sometimes it's good, sometimes not. But the one thing I've done well in my life is um I'm good at getting along with people. I'm i'm good at like feeding in different different groups. Since I was a kid, I could be in school with like three different groups and be friends with all of them. And that has been kind of the story of my life, living in different places, making community, making friends. So it is something I really enjoy. um Yeah, my my wife says I have a problem I need to be liked by everybody or or I feel bad. But I don't know. that's That's the one thing I do. I do well, I guess. We might share that affliction. I can see i can say that. i can see that
00:18:05
Speaker
Oh, I just noticed your shirt. I love that. Solve them problem. i love to say yeah That's good. um I guess for our listeners, it says, I'll enunciate, it says solve them problemr so problem solver. um actually I want to ask a follow up about that, that I that i was that i was thinking of.
00:18:21
Speaker
You were describing the early days of establishing this office and it sounds like you were really a doer. And I think that I've done a number of episodes with folks who have a legal background. Maybe we're GC. Now they're taking on like a COO role or and the attractive part of that is that you get to really feel like you're not just an advisor to the business. You are part of the business and you're an operator. And but is that right for everyone? Because you also have to be a doer, I think. And I think that some people might like sort of sitting back and advising and then letting other people go out and execute as opposed to, I don't know, maybe you had to like place the order for the printers yourself. I'm not sure. I did a bunch of, I have someone to help with that stuff now, but I did some of that stuff at the beginning and and I enjoyed that a lot. i um Yeah, I guess always in my career, i um if I have to roll out by sleeves, that's i think I think it depends on the size of the company. But a company like during the hundreds of employees, I think the executives need to be that type of executives. They need to understand the business.
00:19:27
Speaker
Not the super nitty gritty, but at like a lot of really decent detail level to be effective of executives and to get the trust of the people that work with you. I never asked my team and back on the days with the legal team and and today with them, I've always tried to work as hard or harder than them. I don't want them to feel like I'm slacking ever. Yeah. It's something that got very ingrained to me when I was, ah I guess, a big law. You you just you work the hours you need to work. And of course, I i preach work-life balance on my team. I always wanted to take vacation. But more the more responsibility, it cannot be that you are the one that says, okay, now I go for my weekend and you guys stay working. If everybody, if they have to work the weekend, I have to work the weekend. It has to be that
Innovations in Contract Management at Spotdraft
00:20:11
Speaker
way.
00:20:11
Speaker
Hey there, legal teams. Big news. Spotraft's fall release is here, and it's our biggest update yet. With over 15 new features, it's packed with tools to make contracting faster and simpler for you. Want complete control over your workflows? You've got it with customizable approvals that actually fit your processes. Looking for clarity? Use Spotraft's new analytics offering to uncover insights and find ways for your legal team to move faster.
00:20:42
Speaker
We've also made it easier to manage your agreements with the new Legal Hub, a straightforward way to publish and update terms online without waiting on IT or marketing. And here's the game changer. Our AI tools, like verify, take on the boring stuff, contract reviews, and metadata extraction, so your team can focus on making decisions that matter. It's everything you need to manage your contracts.
00:21:08
Speaker
your way Check it out at spotdraft.com slash fall dash release. That's spotdraft.com slash fall dash release. Now let's get back to the podcast.
00:21:27
Speaker
And I will say, just from personal experience, working across a number of companies in that range, oftentimes the C-suite is maybe working the hardest. It almost could delegate a little more.
00:21:39
Speaker
ah How do you feel like this experience of of taking on the GM role has changed the relationships with, say, other members of the C-suite or with your CEO or ah with the CTO? How has that dynamic within the executive team evolved?
00:21:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's ah that's a really good question. So I've been at the company, it'll be six years in ah October. Six years at a company like this feels like, I don't know, 500 years because so much so much has happened. We went to obviously rounds of funding, then we were acquired by a private equity, then I moved to Mexico. So a lot has happened in these six years.
00:22:21
Speaker
But I think the relationship with my other execs changed even before I became GM. change and And this is a advice I tried to give to other lawyers. It changed by making sure when I was in the room, I was not perceived just as a lawyer, but I was perceived as another, as a peer to them, as a business colleague.
00:22:41
Speaker
For that, you need to understand the product as well as they understand it, or relatively well, you're not going to understand it as well as the chief product officer, but you have to do your best. You need to understand the go-to market motion, as well as the chief if revenue officer does. You have to basically understand the business, and then they realize, hey, this guy's not here just to opine on the law, but he cannot pine on anything because he knows as much as we do about the business.
00:23:06
Speaker
That's one thing now, obviously becoming GM with the CTO, for example, my relationship has only only become even closer. Shout out to David Bean, great guy. ah But obviously, I'm his size on the ground for a huge part of his team. So we we have a very close relationship.
00:23:23
Speaker
The other thing is that, I'm sure you experienced this, executive themes in these companies change at a decently rapid pace. So having been here six years and the most senior, even our founder and CEO stepped down as CEO 15 months, 16 months ago, and we had a new CEO who joined, Jesse, who joined in May. So I'm actually the most senior person in the whole executive team. And that gives you some, for lack of better word, gravitas. Because sometimes they're like, what about if we do this? And I'm like, yeah, guys, five years ago, we did that. And this is what happened. Or the other other way around, right? So yeah that that has helped.
00:23:57
Speaker
Institutional knowledge. As we were prepping for this, I thought this was really interesting. You've now had the office open for, say, 18 months or maybe even a little longer. And I think it's only natural, right? Once a teen gets to a certain size, 60 plus people, the office has been open longer than a year, right? Momentum might slow a little bit, or at least the day-to-day might not be just so bright and fun as it was in the first two months. everyone has experienced this in a job that they've had before. How are you helping lead the team in Mexico through that sort of maturation process, I guess, is the way that I'd characterize it. Yeah, that's a great observation because exactly what happened here. Here at BetterCloud, we track what we call, well, not what we call, what is called EMPS or Employee Net Promoter Score, which is basically the whole thing. Yeah, of course.
00:24:52
Speaker
Yeah. So for people that might not be as familiar, you ask employees a bunch of questions. One of them is, would you recommend someone to join BetterCloud if they answer 9 or 10? They're a promoter. If they answer, I think it's anything under 7 and 8, it's like neutral. And then 1 to 6, it's a demotor. So we've tracked this every three months. And when we first did it in Mexico, the result we got, and and that was I think at the beginning of this year, was at 70, right? Which is insane. It's off the charts. Usually anything over theory is a positive score. It's a very positive score. So 70, I told them is like, you guys are happy to come to the office and to go to a club or to go to the beach. I'm like, to me I love the office, but a job is a job, right? I'd rather be at home with my family or or or hanging out with my friends.
00:25:41
Speaker
So sharing I had in mind, this will go down. There's no way it stays like this. And surely enough, of course, a pressure starts building, the team gets ramp up, the teams get the team gets enabled, they need to start shipping product, delivering. There's the realities of life, right? Some people leave the company.
00:25:59
Speaker
ah Some people may get terminated. So those things decrease this level of satisfaction. And now we've normalized, right? Now we are in a more mature, more normal type of score, which makes sense. And you see the energy of the office is different. At the beginning it was all like pure joy. We're building something new. It was a little like drinking the Kool-Aid. And now it's more like, it's a job, but it's a good job and it's a job we enjoy. And the people that are here, people that want to grow with us and that feel happy doing that.
00:26:28
Speaker
Yes. Are there specific things that you've done more recently to invest in the culture or or to to try to make sure that people understand that that they can grow with the business?
00:26:41
Speaker
yeah so we Again, in average, in inabboorrate is junior population here in the Mexican office, right? Most of them, it's either their first job or their second job, I would say for 80%, 70% of the folks that work here. So for them, growth is very important, right? At that age, growth tends to come faster at the junior levels, right? To go from one level one to a level two, that once you're more senior, when it will take you longer. So there was a very um ah very organized approach to try to make sure the levels were well-defined. We had a ah good growth plan for everybody with promotions, races come August. It took us longer than it should have taken us. And that's part of why that ah score went down, because there were some complaints around that. But we went through the process now in August. And
00:27:31
Speaker
And a bunch of people were duly promoted and and that was great to see. A bunch of junior engineers get to the next level. So I think that piece was very important to them. And then we have a very good office manager. He's awesome. His name is Frank. yeahha Shout out to him. He's awesome at creating all these different dynamics um to make sure we all, we bound together. So he recently organized what he called the selfie rally. We went across Condesa. Condesa and Roma with like this chinkana of different things we have to do and pictures we have to take and those type of things. It seems like ah maybe it's not that important, but they do create this great atmosphere where you see after that day everybody's like,
00:28:19
Speaker
feels closer together. You're paired with people you don't usually work with and creates those relationships. So we try to do a bunch of that type of stuff. And yeah, I love coming to the office. it's ah To me, it's a happy place coming to this office. An observation, I guess.
00:28:35
Speaker
as we start to wrap up the conversation around the the GM role, you know you described it almost as as not laying an egg, I think was the expression you used. I think another way to to put being willing to embrace a role like this or is is being willing to embrace curiosity or being a really curious person. It's a theme that I like to come back to in my conversations with folks. said It's more of an observation than a question, but like how how do you react to that or or respond to that? Do you feel like curiosity has played an important role in your career and professional development? Yes, 100% to me is curiosity mixed with anxiety. ah Is that curiosity that's in the back of my mind and says, are you sure this is the right thing you should be doing? Should you be doing something else? Are you wasting your time? Should you be traveling somewhere else? Should should you be living somewhere else? Should you be doing something else? So it's great. it like It forces me to do this stuff, but it also creates anxiety on me that I'm never never fully satisfied with anything, which kind of sucks.
00:29:39
Speaker
um But it's been I guess it's been good for my professional and personal life. so kind of thing Any practical tips for folks who are thinking about doing what you've done in the past couple of years, which is take a job in a new country or maybe a country you spent some time in, but a new place that you'd be living with with a family, like practical tips for for how to navigate that transition?
00:30:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's not as easy as when you were 25 and backpacking or moving somewhere else for like grad school. It is way more work when you have ah when you have a family, right? So you need to start planning a few months before, especially if you have kids for schools and all that, even more. Like we will start planning this on like December of 23 to move in June of... No, where are we? December of 22 to move in July of 23.
00:30:31
Speaker
Oh, wow. Because the school the school thing is complicated, right? It's mostly because of the kids. If you were just moving by yourself or yourself and your and your spouse or couple, partner, it's way easier. That's one thing. I think it's important that you look for a place to leave, a neighborhood, whatever, where you feel like you can create community, where you're going to have close to you people you can hang out with and and for your kids. that That's important. Yeah, I think those those two things are are, to me, very important. And the other thing to keep in mind is not, as as much as we complain about the US, not every country is as efficient as the US, right? like
00:31:12
Speaker
So a lot of bureaucracy and red tape, you got to do in other places. A lot of Mexico, but in Mexico, just so you get an example, you got to get your visa permit in order to get your CURP, which is your ID number, but you need your ID number to get your social security number, and you need your social security number in order to get your tax number. So you have like 17 different numbers to get to the ultimate number that allows you to be an employee here. So there's a lot of debt that you're not used to, right, that works a little better in the US than in other countries. Yeah, that's interesting. You've been there for almost two years. Maybe actually, yeah, a little more. What do you think is next for you? Are you going to stay in Mexico for longer? Are you going to come back to the US? Are there other projects or roles that you're eyeing? Yeah, what comes next?
00:32:04
Speaker
I have have to figure that one out. i I'm definitely here for another school year with my kids. Yeah, for sure. And then, I don't know, i won um whenever I leave Better Cloud years from now, whenever whenever that is, my I would like my next role to be early stage company. i would I've been thinking a lot about this, but early stage company, VC back,
00:32:26
Speaker
And where I own legal and more than legal, right? I want other staff to do it. I just, legal doesn't seem, I love legal, but I want other business staff to do. So I don't know, HR, um security, corporate development, more stuff, whatever it is. I just love being doing business stuff. So legal class, call it.
00:32:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's a great role and a great fit for you. I've got some fun questions for you now as we start to wrap up. What's your favorite part of your day today? Yeah, so I'm my friends from Spain. When they listen to this, they'll be like, don't believe you. But I've taken to running, so I run every morning now. And I live in, I think you've been in Mexico City a few times, so you know it now. I have, yeah. I live in Condesa and I live next to the park, the big park called Parque Mexico. And around that park is this beautiful street called Avenida Amsterdam. So running through that, it used to be a hypodrome, right? Horses used to run there in like the 19th century. So it's an oval. It's a great place to run. And I do that every morning while listening to a podcast. I listen to all these Supreme Court podcasts, which also it's...
00:33:40
Speaker
If you guys haven't listened to um five four five or five to four podcasts about the Supreme Court, it's great. um Strict scrutiny about the Supreme Court and then PodSafe America. Now and that the elections are coming, I love listening to PodSafe America. But to me, it's like my peaceful moment of the day running around the park while listening to the podcast.
00:33:59
Speaker
I love that part of my day and then I love when I go back home and i um I play with my kids a little before dinner. My son is into Transformers. He's got like, I don't know. and We counted the other day over 35 Transformers. So doing that, reading with my daughter, those those parts of the day are great. Awesome. I'm a big runner as well. I i totally agree. I usually listen to music. I've been trying to listen to more podcasts. I totally agree with this. It's a great way to relax or unwind or get your mind right for the day ahead.
00:34:29
Speaker
Do you have a professional pet peeve? um yeah yeah i I really do not like corporate jargon. um So folks that use like the same type of expression all the time, I'm it really does not work for me. But um it's so ingrained in the corporate America culture that I just have to like let it be. And then that's one. Another one that um I'll tell a story. The first document I ever drafted at at quare caas at this law firm in spain I dropped the document. It was some corporate resolutions. I don't remember remember what it was. I gave it to the partner. It was the old days. so I would print it, give it to the partner. He would review it with a red pencil. came I was like, this is great. i've done This is like a fucking A plus. I'm hitting the ball out of the park. He gave it back to me and it was all red. And I was like, what the?
00:35:20
Speaker
I saw, he had like marked that I had extra spaces between words and I was like, how can you even see that? Like this is insane. Now 20 years later, I've become that person that you give me something and I can see the extra space between two words. I um i cannot stand like the typos. yeah My team sometimes I'm like, you're a little too obsessive with this stuff. yeah That's me. That's great. Track changes is is your friend.
00:35:51
Speaker
I like this question. You've given us some good podcast recommendations. I'm a big reader. I like to read when I'm traveling. Any good books that you've read recently or that have been important to your professional journey that you'd like to recommend to to our audience?
00:36:06
Speaker
I yes i read and read a lot of novels. I don't read anything or very little about like business or like startups for whatever reason. In my mind, I'm like, there's so many good literature that has been written in hundreds of years. Why should I spend my time reading?
00:36:24
Speaker
or whatever book from like some startup VC person. I'm like, I'd rather read like a really good novel. With that being said, I really recommend, I somehow came across, I went to a library in Mexico two weeks ago and I saw this book that I literally bought because I like the Cobra. It seems interesting. It's called, I think in English it's called Death with Penguin, Death with a Penguin or Death with Penguin. It's a Ukrainian writer, wrote this in the 90s and it's hilarious. It's such a charming book. So basically there's this writer that writes obituaries. And i'm not I'm not disclosing much because that's the kind of the beginning of the book. Every obituari he writes, he's he's told by the by the newspaper, write this obituari, he writes it, and then the person dies, right? So he's like, freak out about that, obviously. So that's me.
00:37:10
Speaker
And then B, the zoo in Kiev, for some reason they don't have enough money, so they start giving animals away, and he gets a penguin. So he lives with a penguin. It's called Mischa. So the book is like, it reminds me of like the best Murakami type books. It's amazing. So I really recommend that book.
00:37:28
Speaker
um great I knew knew nothing about it. Then I obviously started Googling the guy. He's ah apparently a a famous Ukrainian writer, has written a bunch of books. I was like, I started ordering more books from him. So i you should definitely read that one. And then I've been spending a lot of my time in Mexico reading a lot about novels from the revolution in Mexico or historical stuff in Mexico. So there's a bunch of those Octavio paths who won the Nobel Prize. His wife is called Elena Varro or was called, I think. I'm pretty sure she has to be that. um And she wrote um some amazing books. And then on that genre, this Roberto Bolaño wrote the Savage Detectives, um which takes place in Mexico City and other parts of Mexico. And that book is also one of my favorites.
00:38:12
Speaker
Great recommendations. As we start to wrap up, one last question for you, my sort of traditional closing question. And that's if if you could look back on your days of being, maybe as you put it, a baby lawyer, ah just getting started. One thing that you know now that you wish that you'd known back then.
00:38:35
Speaker
Yeah, so I've talked already about my curious anxiety. um so so as So as a result of that, and as you've seen in my career, I've changed a lot. I've done many different things, including practices within law firms, right? I changed from different practices. And many times I had this anxiety about my career not being linear, right? Like, oh, you look to your left and you have the M&A associate. That's all he's done for 10 years. And then he becomes partner. And then he's a partner for 35 years, which is great. and Like some people love that and obviously make a lot of money and and and it's great for their lives and whatever. But just, I would have loved to tell myself um it's okay not to do things in a linear fashion. As long as you're learning and doing new things and you're happy with what you're doing and you're having experiences, you'll be fine. And me choosing not to have a linear career has taken me to live in whatever.
00:39:27
Speaker
four different countries, study in different countries, have all these experiences that I may not have if I just said the day I was hired by Cuatro Casas. I just want to be an M and&A attorney um in Madrid and that'll be my career forever. And that, in a nutshell, is the theme of this podcast said even better than I could say it. Manuel, thank you so much for joining me for this episode of The Abstract. This has been a lot of fun. I'm glad to to finally have had you on. Yeah, it's been awesome. Thank you so much.
00:39:56
Speaker
And to all of our listeners, thanks so much for tuning in and we hope to see you next time.