S8E07: Two challenges for every new CEO, with Miguel Giribet Giral (CEO, Cash Converters España)

Richard Medcalf
CEO Miguel Giri bet is the CEO of Cash Converters in Spain. This is a really interesting business. It's halfway a financial services company and halfway a retail company and Miguel has a great background in E-commerce and high growth businesses and in his role in fee a CEO reporting into the two founders of the business, he brings that ecommerce expertise, and also has to learn the whole retail physical retail side of the house as well and in the conversation today, we get into some really great areas, we look at those two key places he needs to put its focus as CEO, and how the balance between those two areas has shifted over time. We also talk about purpose. He took a sabbatical to Bali and when he was on that trip, something happened to him, that set him on fire with a purpose and what has been really interesting is he's linked to that purpose, to the purpose of the business and I think in that connection between the leaders purpose and the business purpose, all sorts of sparks fly, and you hear her gets really passionate, when he talks about that and then finally, we talk about what he's gonna need to change for him. As he grows the business. He has a vision to chain to grow the gross margin of the business three times in five years and to double the revenues at the same time. So what's gonna change in him? If he's going to become the leader who can do that? Enjoy this conversation with Miguel of Cash Converters España.

Richard Medcalf
Miguel, Hello and welcome to the show.

Miguel Giribet Giral
Thank you very much, Richard, happy to share with you my stories.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, it's gonna be fun. I'm looking forward to to get into this. We go. I know that you are the CEO of Cash Converters in Spain. Oh, it's a business, which is just over 500 people. I nine figures in revenues. It's it's a really interesting business and I know it's a mixture of financial services and retail and you joined a month before lockdown as CEO of this of this growing business. So I'm sure you've got some really interesting stories to tell us about the learning curve.

Miguel Giribet Giral
Exactly. Well, no, no question about how hard these two years have been. As you said, I joined the company one month before the lockdown. Let's say we were the typical challenges of middle sized company in need of a strong change process or transformation process. Yeah. From let's say, very strong, focused offline business, plus offline financial services towards a more digitalized company yet. So big challenge. Yeah. Plus, suddenly, our offline business in March to 2020 20. falls down completely. Yeah. So. So you have to deal with two different kinds of challenges at the same time. So imagine how hard this has been in the last few years.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. So you're right. So this is going to be the interesting story, right? You have a business that you have to do a transformation on and at the same time, you have this crisis, the offline business falls off a cliff, at the moment you try to move it forward. So let's take a step back. Before we jump into that, and doing tennis very quickly about first of all, just describe the business to us, right, because COVID is business and then what was it about your previous life that got you this job? Right, what was it that you bought from your piano, you're in E commerce before? Why, you know, why did they hire you, if you like into this role as CEO of this business? What do they see in that profile?

Miguel Giribet Giral
Well, going to this question is exactly I come from the E commerce business, pre Valia was a very successful company. Within the Spanish, I would say, startup ecosystem. It was founded in 2006 and it was sold to one of our main competitors back in 2016 for 500 million euros at that time, the biggest deal within the E-commerce, I would say ecosystem. Yep. So I kind of lift different stages and discount their first open our company Mexico that I moved to Spain where where I needed to work on our turnaround process and then I worked in the integration of our company into into our competitor, let's say were the purchasing company, right. So I went through very diverse experiences within the same company and always with a very, very strong focus on on, I would say, making things happen quickly, making growth happen, and making changes happen and making integration happen. So it was all about making things happen in a very challenging ecosystem, which is a startup ecommerce, fashion business. Yeah. So at the time I met the two owners of this company. They said, Miguel, I think, you know, within your experience is quite relevant in making things happen through through the team, right. That's, that's one of the things that I bring from my previous company. You know, it's, it's about having to, you know, the right team in the right place and this company did a transformation in terms of team. So they said, Hey, you're the right person. To move these we need, we need to change the company, we need to change our business model, we need to change our culture, we need to change many things you made all these things happen in your previous experience. Come here and help us.

Richard Medcalf
Got it. Yeah. So there's a lot of things in the hunter. Right. So you, you had this experience and his expertise in high growth businesses, making things happen quickly, through the team came into this business, which needed a new business model and new culture. And they saw that so there was a sense of continuity, right from this previous roles and bringing things in, let me ask you, what was the discontinuity? Right, so what did you find? That was perhaps a new challenge? Obviously, you had locked down, which was a new challenge for everybody that arrived just a month after but what was, you know, in terms of that, that roll perhaps over this bigger, more complicated business? Or is this a different business? What was was the dip was different for you? What did you have to kind of wrestle with in the new role?

Miguel Giribet Giral
So I would say, basically, basically, the retail part of the offline retail part, yet, it's something that I hadn't been able to work at, in my previous experience, we were a pure player before, when I was we were a pleat, pure player, in my previous experience. In this company, I added the complexity of the retail.

Richard Medcalf
Right.

Miguel Giribet Giral
Offline, right?

Richard Medcalf
What's complicated about that? What makes offline do what do e commerce people need to understand about offline retail, but they don't.

Miguel Giribet Giral
Understand dynamics are quite different in terms of, for example, ecommerce, people, we think constantly about how to improve conversion rate in our sites, for example, how to how to bring traffic. And those two things are quiet, I would say straightforward. In E commerce. Yeah. When it comes to offline retail, those two things are completely different. How you drive traffic to your stores, how to create great experiences for your customers, so that you improve conversion. That's a completely different world. Right. Right. The way of thinking it's quite similar. Yeah. But what are the levers to move? Traffic Conversion, average ticket? That's completely different. And, of course, in the retail offline, it's all about people. Or it's a lot about people in the reading online. It's a lot about technology. Yeah. So they are completely different levers that you need to deal with. And especially when you're going through such a difficult time, as we were all retailers are going through right now. Yeah. It becomes especially challenging to leverage on people to leverage on people to make things happen in stores. Yeah.

Richard Medcalf
Right. Yeah. So you had you had that pressure from the offline business, as you say it was falling off a cliff. And, and, and yet, it's all about people, right? The physical retail, and the experience for customers going to be a time saving by the people who are running that store or that that business.

Miguel Giribet Giral
Exactly, exactly. There are so yeah. Oh, sorry. I was I was gonna say there are two things that make a big difference in the conversion rate of whatever store. Yeah. Product and experience. On the product side in ecommerce, you click a couple of buttons. Yep. And the product is there. You improve a couple of, I would say experiences in the in the in the funnel, and your experiences much better improving experience and improving product placement, and what kind of product you have in the stores? It's a completely different story. Yeah. So that those are things that we're working on very strongly right now. And that, thanks, God, they're giving us very good results. And in retail of we're already selling more than what we were selling in 2019, which is very good news for us.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, that's, that's amazing. To me, as well, you do? Do you basically report directly to the two founders that you mentioned?

Miguel Giribet Giral
Exactly, exactly. So I report to both of them. Plus, we've created a, an advisory board with external people, that very strong people, some of the people come from previous experiences that I had, and people that I had worked with, in previous companies, some other people come from, let's say the, the environment of the two founders. And we have created a mix of people that help us on a monthly basis to, to, you know, fuckos, to think about our challenges, to talk about execution, you know, all those things that sometimes are not discussed within the normal board of the company, I would say so Advisory Board is a great is a great tool for us to keep on moving and keep on pushing the ball. Yeah.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, absolutely. My experience is similar. I was three years, I was on the advisory board of a 3 billion, billion dollar tech distributor. And it was really interesting, because they're so great at their operational stuff that they're doing, you know, but you still get a really different perspective, when you start to talk with external people. And you mash those thoughts together. So, so tell me, I guess the reason I was asking about this was, what was the surprise? Or what was the different challenge of perhaps being a very senior executive in some of those previous businesses, and becoming a CEO with the direct management of the investors and the founders and the board and everything else? How, you know, how's that kind of? How did you know, what did you find and discover during that process?

Miguel Giribet Giral
While that's a, that's a very good question that I'm still, you know, discovering, day by day. So I would say, Look, when when you are a CEO, I think you have to make two things happen yet, your team doing their homework, I would say, Yeah, Turkey taking their responsibility, making sure that you know that they put the right tools, people process, and so and so on to make things happen. Yeah. Plus, at the same time, you need to make sure that the owners do their homework, right. For example, making sure they have a clear vision of where they want to go, of course, I'm responsible man responsible for strategy. But I want to make sure my two founders say, okay, that that's the good way. Yeah. Making sure they give you the financial capacity to do things. Yeah. Making sure they find, for example, the right people for this advisory board. Yeah, making sure you know, there are different things that are at a different level. And I think that being in the middle of, of that sandwich, yeah, you need to make sure both teams do their homework. Yeah. And that is the difficult part.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. And if you know, if you are kind of giving advice to a new CEO, or even giving advice back to yourself, right, from a couple of years ago, yeah. What would you advise them? What would you advise yourself? If you could? Would you said focus a bit more on your team or focus a bit more on your when your founders or would you said like, get make sure the resource understanding if the resource agreement is made? What What would?

Miguel Giribet Giral
Well, I think, I think that's that's quite viable variable. I mean, there are times when you need to focus more on your team, because they need probably more. Top down I would say advice on how to make things and how to make things happen on on building their teams, on on communicating the strategy on communicating how relevant or proposed is, so there are times where you need to focus a lot more on that and there are times where you need to focus More on a managing the owners or the board of a company. Yeah, I think at this moment, I am more focused on the second one. Yeah. But making sure that I do together with the owners, the homework on assuring I would say financial stability of the company, a long term project, to give the right environment to my team and make things happen. Right. Yeah. So having security having disability, what's going to happen? You know, pandemic has hit us quite strongly, like many other retailers out there. Yes. And I think we still have a better, I would say, a better option, or a better opportunity than other retailers, because we are in the second hand, sustainability, a circular economy business. And these has a long term, I would say project visibility, right. That at the same time, from from a financial point of view, we are all going through difficulties. Yeah. So we need to make sure that we add a at an operational level, we have the right KPIs, the right economics, to make sure we can go out there and say, Look, this is our business. Now really the financing? Yeah,

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, it's great. I think one of the things that I, when I work with my co clients, I always remind them that we're CEO, you know, you feel you have the ultimate power, in a sense operationally, but actually, the best way of using that power is always indirect. Because every time you use your power directly, you step on somebody's toes, you take away their decision making ability, their accountability and ownership. And you know, you start to do it for them, and you become the bottleneck. And even you, some people think, Well, okay, I'll have to work in between that. So I'll be the bridge between sales and operations or whatever. But actually, if you've taken that role as well, you end up becoming the judge, the arbiter, the referee. And that's an a bottleneck again. And so people go, Well, I can't actually make my operational decisions, or I can't even be the interface three operations. What do I do? My point is, it's always about setting the setting the boundary conditions, the the, the environment for success. Yeah. And as you said, it's like, well, aligning with the founders, so that all the owners so that the resources and the support comes, the air cover comes from the top, you know, creating the cultural environment, the leadership, behaviors, all these kinds of things, right? These are governance, the things which allow everybody else to do their jobs to the best durability. I think that's...

Miguel Giribet Giral
I think, what you talk about a little bit about culture, and governance, and so on, and so on. One thing with AI, which I think it's super relevant is making sure your company has a clear proof post. Yeah. And, and, and we have refunded our proposal recently, yeah, we in Cash Converters have been quite focused, I would say on what we call the need client, meaning our clients have been people that really need to buy or sell secondhand. Yeah, while we see an opportunity to become a player, which, let's say facilitates circular economy and facilitate sustainability. And, and having these kinds of proposed Yeah, making sure you facilitate circular economy that attracts a lot of bad, a lot of good profiles, a leader, a lot of strong people, strong professionals that want to work in a company which has a strong pulse of areas below the propose, you have the values, you have communication, you have, you know, execution, methodology, and so on and so on. But first thing is having a good and attractive propose.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, I agree purpose is so, so key I was so working recently with two different companies. One really huge one, actually pretty small. And both of them they kind of felt they were good businesses working well, but very focused on like this quarter's financials. Right? And did we really have a bigger purpose? And that and actually, both of them, I think we've actually discovered there is this deeper thing, which does set them on fire and is and does impact the world around them. Right always say purpose, it always has to be about impacting other people, as a state share stakeholders, you know, could be the planets, it could be other people, but it's about how am I contributing right beyond that. And so I always say finance is the fuel, but what's the destination? Right? All businesses need finance, right? You need money to invest and to grow and pay people and to create great services. But just like a car's purpose is not to just burn fuel. Right is to go somewhere. A business's job is to go somewhere as well. Right. And finance is just part of that. So what's so tell me about the circular economy, like why is that important to you? Like, what why did you focus in on that?

Miguel Giribet Giral
Well, that's a good story. Look, when I when I left my previous business, the value provider was very much focused on fashion. Yeah. So it was a fashion outlet somehow. Okay. So right after I left Peabody, I went on a on a sabbatical trip with my family. I took my two kids, I took them out from school, and we said, Okay, let's go and travel for three months. Yeah. So we went to, we went to Bali, we went to Cambodia. We went to Vietnam, and Singapore, right. So we were traveling in this region of the world, which is, by the way, amazing, amazing. And I really recommend everyone you know, every every executive who has the chance to do it, you know, to take some months off. And the more the better. Yeah. And, and reconnect with with what's important, right? Your family, your wife or kids. So what I saw in Belize, especially in by its high a huge amount of how can you say of trust industry, it's rather plastics and, and textile, and a lot of dirty rivers, dirty seeds, dirty beaches. It was terrible. Yeah. So I came back super sensitive with with the situation in these countries, especially in Valley Cambodian was as well, quite impacting. But I would say Valley, and I said, there is something I need to do around this. Yeah. So I was doing a small research with with my ex CEO, the founder of Medallia, and what we're thinking about doing something together in in textile sustainability, right. But it was not easy. It was not easy. We did some, some numbers, we did some business plans, and so on, and we set up. It's not easy. Suddenly, these two guys and the two founders of the company came out with with a Cash Converters business. And I said, Wow, this is secondhand. Yeah. And even if if it's secondhand focus on a certain type of appliance, I think this has the, you know, the potential debase to transform it into something different that can really change the purchase. Purchase habits of many, many people. Yeah. And that's what we're doing. Now. We created what we call the converters movement, right and below the umbrella of converters movement, we are proposing a lot of different actions were to our community, to buy less new products, buy more secondhand products, to repeat more to come back more often to our stores and so on. Right. So that's what took me, let's say to the secondhand business, and that's why right now so much obsessed with sustainability and super...

Richard Medcalf
Well, I love it because you have a story, Miguel, right. So you have a story. You went to Bali, you saw the beaches, and you realize you want to be part of a solution there. And I think it's so important that we always have something in our history, our story that comes out and we have to connect our own sense of purpose with this corporate purpose right and find that intersection. I like to say you can't move Other than until you move yourself. And I hear that in you. So I want to acknowledge you for that. Genuine. So let's, let's kind of wrap up a little bit and move into a little last section. I've got a few quickfire questions for you. Oh, it's interesting to hear different CEOs views on the so what's your favorite quote?

Miguel Giribet Giral
Oh, I think we talked about that a little bit before. Right? There's there's a very interesting quote. She says, strategy is a commodity. Execution is not. Yeah. And I really see myself in that. Yeah, I think many people can come up with a good presentation with a good PowerPoint. Hey, this is what where we need to go. These are like the two three main rocks. Yeah, that we have to go for? Okay, let's go for it. And many people fail that. Yeah. Many people fail. And I think that, to be honest, thanks to my previous experience, and and the two founders of Remaliah, with whom I really learned a lot. I have become somehow an a specialist in execution in making things happen. Yes,

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Actually, I have another take on that. Which is, people say you need strategy, then execution. I say what you really need is alignment. And then leadership. Yeah. And that's a good one. Yeah, it's subtle difference, right? Like, you can have a strategy you want but you need alignment. And execution. Well, what you really need is you said the people to to lead the people to do that. So let's go on

Miguel Giribet Giral
Why communication is so important. Because through communication, you can really make sure you align your company. Yeah. And yes, and the people in your company and communicate. And that's why, again, strategy needs to be easy to understand needs to be simple. Because if you communicate a complicated strategy, no one will get aligned.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. And as a former strategy consultant, I get that, you know, and that was a hard lesson for me when I was beginning my career, you know, it was like, yeah, it's not about sophistication. It's about landing it memorability getting it into people. So next question, what's your favorite app on your phone at the moment?

Miguel Giribet Giral
Wow, look, I use an app called Cool ultra cool track is a moto moto sharing app that I use every time I go to Madrid or Barcelona. And I try. Not because I don't like the app is because I try to run away from I would say combustion. How do you call it? normal cars?

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, combustion engines? Yeah.

Miguel Giribet Giral
Piston engines. Exactly. So I use this app and reserve my, my electric, Moto and you know, I drive all around the cities, even if it takes me, you know, 1020 minutes more than than with a car, I always try to use these electric vehicles. And it's super easy to use. Super friendly. The good thing is that the company belongs to a very good friend of mine as well. So, so super happy to be able to use it.

Richard Medcalf
And that was called Cooltra did you say?

Miguel Giribet Giral
Cooltra?

Richard Medcalf
Okay. Okay.

Miguel Giribet Giral
Well they have they have no, they have model sharing as well in Paris, in Milan, in Rome, they are expanding quite quickly and I think they're one of the I would say, the companies that is called to be one of the leaders in European theatre

Richard Medcalf
Make sense. How about a book what book has really influenced you?

Miguel Giribet Giral
There are some of them that are that had infor had influenced me from a professional point of view. But I like more the ones that influenced me on a personal way. Yeah. And reading one which is hitting me quite hard right now or which is kind of making me go back to my old times. And reading a book about a mother of a of n x. Et eta you no ETA back in Basque Country 2025 years ago. Yeah. And I lived the heart moments of eta in the Basque Country and Basque. I lived in San Sebastian. I've seen many hard things in that time. And this book is bringing me back to that time and making me think how I would say how how fortunate we are to They have been away or out of those times, right? It's a very interesting book, which takes place in India Bitsa. And it's about how one of his ex eta guys is killed is murdered by someone else. And, you know, take talks about the murder and goes back into time to those, you know, 2025 years ago. super interesting.

Richard Medcalf
Fascinating. What would you tell your 20 year old self? What advice leadership advice would you give them?

Miguel Giribet Giral
I keep on telling myself, you know, enjoy life. This weekend, I was in a very interesting event in South Africa from Terra, which is a place where flamenco happens, and you know, like, every every day, every hour, and I love flamenco, and I was sending my mom, some pictures, and she was telling me, hey, you've learned to enjoy your life. Amazing, right? And yes, I am someone who enjoys life. And I would you know, I will tell it to myself, I tell it to my kids all the time. And I tell it to everyone, we're super fortunate, and we need to enjoy life, both personal and as well, professionally speaking.

Richard Medcalf
Definitely, sir, right. Last quickfire question. Who would you recommend? Come on this podcast? Who's? Who's an impactful CEO, somebody that you admire? That inspires you? Yeah, who comes to mind?

Miguel Giribet Giral
Well, I, you know, I would say there are two people that I would recommend Jose Manuel be young. Well, he's the founder of Medallia. He's been my boss for for nine years. He's much more than a boss today. We are super good friends. Every time I go to Barcelona, I was leaving his place. He never let me go to a hotel. So we kind of catch up together. And you know, and he's founded another business. He tells me about his business, I tell him about mine. So he's the most impactful person I have had in my life. So you know, try to try to connect. You will give you amazing stories and amazing tips. Yeah, I think there is a second person. She is the founder, she is called Kat Lata P Carlota. P, she is the founder of all aloof or aloof is a, an energy distributor here in Spain. And fighting against the base, the big ones. Yeah. For electric energy distribution. And she and her co founders are doing an amazing job. Yeah. And Carlota and her two co founders were in my same MBA class, back in 2009. And you could already see, you know, these, these lady, together with with the co founders, they were going to do something special.

Richard Medcalf
Right. The cream rises to the top, you can spot the thing sometimes can you exactly.

Miguel Giribet Giral
Those are super impactful people. Even Teemo Teemo boot fish, he is the founder of CU tra it is amazing guy, German guy. Love Spain lives in Barcelona. He's a very impactful guy as well, with very interesting insights with a very clear vision about, you know, the circular economy, sustainability and all those things.

Richard Medcalf
Absolutely.Thank you. Thanks. There's a great people look them up. Fascinating. Finally, no matter how much we've achieved, there's always a next level to get to. So what's the next challenge or the next level for the business? What's gonna be growth for Cash Converters España?

Miguel Giribet Giral
Yeah, we have a quite clear business plan and business path in 2026, so we have ahead of us right now five, five year strategic plan, where we want to double our sales yet, and we want to triple our gross margin. Okay. And there are different ways to do that. We have a pretty clear way we want to grow our offline retail business by 40%. We want to triple our E commerce business. And we want to double our financial solutions business. So that would take us more or less to that. Doubling the sales and tripling gross margin.

Richard Medcalf
Great. And so what's gonna need How are you going to need to change Miguel? yourself? This is the difficult question right? is going to be the stretch for you, as CEO to be the CEO where that can happen to. Yeah, take, you know, play a bigger game yourself what?

Miguel Giribet Giral
You mentioned something quite interesting some minutes ago, and it's basically about making sure you leave the right space to the right people in the country, right. So for the time being, I would say due to the number of different challenges that we have ahead of us, plus the particular situation that we're going through, which is the steel the pandemic, I would say, Yeah. I, I say I'm quite, I'm still quite a productive. Yeah. So I try to be very close to my team, even if they have a high level of decision making power, no question about it. But I'm pretty much on top of them and trying to help them and asking, hey, what can I do for you? Yeah, I think that at some point, I will need to take a step back. Yeah. And move more towards that order level that we were talking about. Yeah. To be closer to the ownership of the account to the owners of the company to give more of context of financial, I would say security of, of, you know, that general part of the of the business that is very, very important for a strong leadership team. Yeah. So I think that's going to be my challenge and and finding the right moment, and the right way to do that. I think that's again, an art. And it's not anymore strategy, right?

Richard Medcalf
Absolutely. Yeah. It's, it's called reinventing your success formula, right. And it's always challenging because we're having to do things which we didn't do before, I'd be less hands on be less the one driving the results and more than one enabling and creating the, the the context, which is different.

Miguel Giribet Giral
And give you I'll give you an example. Today, I had a meeting with my chief people officer, and she told me, Hey, Miguel, I'm a little bit nervous and a little bit surprised, because, you know, in the in the last days, in the last weeks, you know, you haven't been so close. And, you know, we kind of miss you a little bit close to us. And I said, Look, I'm doing all the things that are as important to you and to the others, as I've been doing in the past. Yeah. So hey, take take take the chance, you know, keep on going make your own decisions. If you need to ask you always happen on the phone, or a meeting. Do it no problem. Yeah. So, you know, finding that finding that that balance between, you know, taking a step back and making sure your team does not feel like Hey, where is he? Yeah, that is a strong challenge.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Yeah, we could do a whole new episode about that one. But let's leave it there for now. Yeah, it's been great to talk to you. If you want to find out more about you or about the business. How do they do that?

Miguel Giribet Giral
Well, you can ping me on LinkedIn, Miguel Giribet. So my name my surname, they're not many there's only one, my surname is quite strange. You know, anyone can ping, can call me. My phone number is there so happy to connect with as many people as needed.

Richard Medcalf
Perfect. Yeah, it's been a real pleasure. I've really appreciated talking, all these different things. Complications of running a business, through lockdown with this offline component. Thinking about this dynamic between managing the board and managing the team, the sense of purpose, right, which has really come out I think there and it's just been a fascinating conversation. So many thanks, and all the best as you double your business in the next five years.

Miguel Giribet Giral
Thank you, Richard. I'm happy to share my experience and my insights, and hope to talk to you soon again.

Richard Medcalf
Thank you.