Thinking - 2025: The Culture at Alantra in the Future (On the 25th anniversary of Alantra)

Of owls and eagles

In the preface to his Fundamentals of the Philosophy of Law, Hegel said that Minerva’s owl only takes flight at dusk. He used this metaphor to convey the idea that deep understanding is only possible in hindsight, when events have already taken place. Thinking abstractly about the culture of a company, in this case Alantra, for the coming years is no easy task. Let us first try to become owls, spread our wings, take flight and, with our eyes wide open, try to observe and understand what we have been, now that our company is reaching the end of its adolescence —or perhaps just its childhood—which will serve as the basis on which to project our future.

What are the values, practices, behaviours, business models, management successes and mistakes at Alantra that, taken together, make up its corporate culture? As there are many, we can try to group them into five chapters. The first of these would be the commitment to independence. Since its foundation, in everything it does and says—and the introductions to its annual reports are true manifestos in this regard— Alantra (then Nmás1) was born with the dual objective of growing as an autonomous company and enduring over time beyond the professional careers of its founding partners. In other words, it wanted to be able to institutionalise itself, transcending a series of names to eventually break free from them and exist in its own right. The merger with Dinamia in 2015, through which the company became listed, was a significant step in this direction. Embraced and protected by the company’s management with the determination of Isaiah Berlin’s hedgehog, the value of independence has provided the strength needed to boldly tackle the low tides we have experienced, as well as the most decisive moments in our strategic development.

Secondly, Alantra was conceived and has been managed with a deep sense of business purpose, necessarily linked to a strong commitment to growth. If Alantra has demonstrated anything, it has always been a willingness to act, to move forward, to try new activities and markets. The strong international expansion of our organisation, which began around 2010 and within a few years extended the company’s presence to more than twenty countries on four continents, is the ultimate expression of this culture. This has been achieved at certain times with a certain degree of enthusiasm and ingenuity—risk-taking—offset by a marked ability to recognise mistakes made—when necessary—and to rectify them: the primacy of action.

“Alantra’s culture is demanding, both in terms of work performance and adherence to high ethical standards, of which we are proud. It is built around a strong sense of duty, rarely turns out to be weak, and demands honesty and transparency.”

A third distinctive feature is the company’s open and collective nature. Far from locating and concentrating the development of the business project in the group’s administrative bodies, Alantra’s unique proposition for teams and managers has been the possibility of deploying a project within the company: industrial associationism.

The corporate vision of this feature has been manifested in the generalisation of the partnership model at different levels, not only in the group’s holding company, so that we can speak of a partnership of partnerships, associating ourselves with executives, but also with institutions. And personal vision is embodied in the concept of autonomy/responsibility, which applies to all members of the organisation, not just those with greater seniority, and aims to enrich the development of their careers and, why not, their life projects as well. Making it clear that the autonomy one receives—with the consequent responsibility—must also be extended to the professionals one manages has proved to be an ongoing challenge for our human capital function.

Another characteristic of Alantra’s corporate culture has undoubtedly been its results-oriented approach: “we make things happen and happen well”, both for clients and investors – the focus on the execution of the transaction, investment or divestment – and for the company itself, its professionals and shareholders – generation of mandates, fundraising, turnover and profits. To borrow the words of our chairman, any company that does not see the next fortnight as critical is dead.

Ultimately, corporate culture has played a fundamental role in Alantra’s operations, taking precedence over procedures, bureaucracy, hierarchy and excessive organisation. It is about influencing and shaping not through rules or decisions made by governing bodies, but through setting an example, which, according to Javier Gomá, challenges me and forces me to ask myself, “Why don’t I do it if it’s clearly good and possible?” And that being the case, there is no doubt that the maturity of the company, its international growth and regulatory requirements have led us to achieve, over time, a healthy balance between operating out of conviction and regulatory compliance. Alantra’s culture is demanding, both in terms of work performance and adherence to high ethical standards, of which we are proud. It is built around a strong sense of duty, rarely turns out to be weak, and demands honesty and transparency. Having fulfilled our mission, let us transform our owl into an eagle: in this new dawn, may it fly high, sharpen its gaze, scan the horizon and try to decipher the challenges that await us and, even more importantly, identify what elements to introduce and modify in our culture to better face them.

“Alantra cannot, over time, lose its founding principlees […] However, it must incorporate new attributes in order to achieve new objectives.”

Scrutinizing the challenges of tomorrow

Among the most obvious crises we mentioned at the beginning of this text is technological disruption, generated at a pace never before seen by artificial intelligence and new computing capabilities. Alantra began a systematic process of digitizing its activities several years ago and has recently rolled out a series of applications of this nature across the entire organisation. We talk about disruption because a radical transformation is going to take place—is already taking place—in the way we work, in the way we relate to our clients and investors, and in the way we design our processes and tools.

And, of course, there is the challenge of talent, especially in a company whose essential asset is its people. In today’s liquid society—the “burnout society,” as some call it—young people’s approach to work and their long-term commitment are different from those of previous generations. In an environment of fierce competition to attract quality, Alantra must know how to become a place where individuals can develop their personal and professional projects. This will facilitate internal promotion as the primary source of future leaders. It will also guarantee success in the generational change that Alantra is already facing, as are many financial institutions created in recent decades.

A cultural evolution: One Alantra

To successfully address these challenges, our company is called upon to undergo a cultural transformation, which does not imply a break with the past but rather a conscious evolution. Alantra cannot, over time, lose its founding principles such as the dual concept of autonomy/ responsibility, the participation of all members of the organisation in the construction of the project, or its results-oriented approach. However, it must incorporate new attributes in order to achieve new objectives.

The focus of our company’s future development must be on the client. We must continue to build a series of capabilities and services around them, of a specialised and international nature, which respond to their corporate and financial needs. The generalisation of a culture of collaboration between the different teams within the company will be essential in order to meet this challenge. In addition to mutual interest and exemplary behaviour, the company must provide the tools and organisational decisions necessary to build bridges between the business units and ensure the full implementation of this culture of collaboration, to ultimately end up working as a sole and integrated team. In addition, partnership and remuneration schemes geared towards generating results have the negative side effect of creating silos. Providing the necessary means to overcome the dysfunctions of the system will be essential in this new stage.

“The focus of our company’s future development must be on the client. We must continue to build a series of capabilities and services around them, of a specialised and international nature, which respond to their corporate and financial needs.”

A critical concept is quality, which must be present in everything we do. Ultimately, this means having excellent professionals who bring rich and diverse perspectives to the company and who see Alantra as a place where they can continue to grow and shine. Meritocracy, although demanding and sometimes difficult to implement, must continue to guide the management processes of our teams. The group’s remuneration systems, a very important component in the financial industry, must always uphold the principle of performance versus subsidies for lack of results. A disciplined policy and practice of attracting, promoting, retaining and rotating talent will generate a virtuous circle whereby quality attracts quality. Our ultimate goal must be to achieve a consistent service across all the products and markets in which we operate.

The need to scale up our business divisions, increase our investment capacity in our products, and enhance the skills and specialisation of our teams, extending the hub concept, will lead us to continue seeking new partners and carrying out appropriate investment, acquisition and, where appropriate, rotation operations in our investee companies.

What forms of leadership do these cultural transformations require? Undoubtedly, a specialised professional profile that puts the customer at the centre of their actions, embraces diversity, is capable of putting themselves in other people’s shoes, and whose natural working environment is international. Leaders who use “we” much more often than “I”, who understand that an essential part of their role is to help their teams grow and not just to use them, and who therefore build for the long term without losing focus on day-to-day execution, demanding in their efforts and customer service. Leadership that is built in service to the organisation and not against its management. Critical, self-critical and loyal to the common project. Leaders who are driven by duty, who are standard bearers for abiding by the right procedures and compliance, and who leverage and encourage the use of the tools made available to them by the company. All of the above is encompassed in the One Alantra concept, which has been present in our organisation for the last few years and which we must strive to fully implement.

A long term made up of short terms

Let us celebrate our company’s twenty-five years with words of recognition, ambition and generosity.

Let us therefore recognise “the valiant acts and prowess of those never daunted Spaniards”, to borrow Alonso de Ercilla’s expression, who began the Alantra business project in Madrid in 2000. And also to those who embarked on similar adventures in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France, Chile and the United States, as well as in Spain, and who have since joined our group or established strategic alliances with us. And finally, to all the professionals, from the youngest to the most experienced, who have contributed to this project at different times and in more than twenty countries. All of them, in one way or another, to a greater or lesser extent, for more or less time, with greater or lesser success, but all of them are jointly responsible for the Alantra of today.

Is it possible to emulate and surpass what has been achieved since our group was founded in the coming decades? Yes, because the most important factor is the human element, the professionals who row together in the boat of the generation they happen to live in, and today we have a great team; yes, because the people at Alantra, especially when the winds blow against them and the tides are low, always stand out for their fighting spirit; and yes, because a project like ours will always be attractive to professionals who are ambitious both personally and professionally.

Will this generation be less than the one that bequeathed this project to us? Will it not be capable, when the time comes, of passing the torch to the next generation with the ultimate goal of keeping alive an independent business proposition in the global mid-market? We are confident that it will.

Like owls, we understand where we come from; like eagles, we now have a duty to fly high, decide where we want to go and execute our project with the years ahead in mind… in the conviction that the next fortnight will always be critical.