Jose García
Wharton MBA ‘92 and ‘94
INTERVIEW — OCTOBER 15TH 2022
What did you study at Penn?
I did my Wharton MBA in ‘92 and ‘94, with my major in finance.
What is your current career position, and where are you based?
I am based in Lima, Peru, and I am the managing partner of the Winnipeg Group, which includes Winnipeg Capital, an investment bank, and Winnipeg Ventures, which is our VC branch.
What does a day in your life look like?
We are currently raising a new VC fund of $40 million concentrated on Edtech and the future of work for Spanish-speaking LATAM, which also includes US companies and Spanish companies that would like to expand into these geographies. Most of my day is actually doing fundraising calls, fundraising emails, sending messages, and garnering interest in the fund. In the meantime, we still have a small micro VC fund that we launched 3 ½ years ago, so I also have several calls with start-ups that we want to invest in, which is a large part of my day. I also read and review the reports that my team submits, and I’m constantly updating the marketing materials for the larger firm. A smaller part of my time is still dedicated to supervising my team on the M&A business that we are currently having here in Peru. I’ve also been traveling a lot. This year, I’ve been to Mexico, twice to the U.S., once to Miami and once to New York, and twice to Colombia, and I still have to visit Chile this year to start the fundraising efforts. I love traveling, so the pandemic was especially hard for me. I’ve lived abroad and studied abroad several times, and although I love my country, I like visiting the rest of the world in person. It’s always important to make that in-person connection. However, technology allows us to make connections as well, which is also important.
What past positions have you held throughout your career?
I’ve raised and managed private equity funds. At the beginning of the century in Peru and Colombia, I raised the first institution funds in each one of these countries, so the first private equity funds with institutional money, which were pension funds at the time. I also launched a couple of funds. The Colombian business is still running and doing well. It’s managed by my business partner, and the Peru business unfortunately didn’t go as well. I also had my entrepreneur career, where we were developing and building small hybrid plants in the Andes of Peru. I decided to take a break in my financial career and pursued this opportunity in renewable energy for a while. Before all that, my career was in investment banking, with a British investment bank in Peru, Flemings, where I worked as an associate. I also served as a manager with a Peruvian local bank. Actually, after graduating from Wharton, I worked for a subsidiary of KPMG doing some corporate finance and also consulting in Eastern Europe and Mexico as well.
What are some interesting trends and opportunities in the venture capital world that you’d encourage our members to explore?
The thing with Venture Capital is that you’re at the edge of innovation. There’s always something new, so if you’re a curious person who always wants to learn and wants to be involved in how the world is changing then venture capital is a great place to be. You don’t only look at different sectors, you can look at different solutions, and different business models and understand how these different models actually work. The best part is you meet interesting people all the time. Both from the PE side, the investors are normally people with great insight, but especially with start-ups. The best part of my day, is when I talk with start-ups. Their first pitch and when they present the idea and talk about their history and story. How they got to the moment where they actually founded the start-up, that’s actually a great conversation to have. You learn so much about not only business but also about people.
What are the most important skills to succeed in this career path?
When you’re investing in early-stage VC, you really need to understand people. You need to understand the teams. You need to value the teams. You need to see how good they are, and how good they work together. Sometimes, a lot of ideas fail because the team doesn’t work. It could be very bright and smart people, but when put together it doesn’t work. I think your skills in trying to evaluate people are very important. The second skill you have to develop is being really open and flexible in terms of what your analysis is going to be. You also have to always be looking forward. You have to read a lot. You have to learn all the time. You can not just stay in one place and remain stagnant. You have to be a forward thinker and a learner to succeed in this industry.
What is the proudest accomplishment of your career thus far?
My biggest accomplishment would be about 20 years ago when I began raising the first two private equity funds. I raised the first private equity fund in Peru and the first private equity fund in Colombia with pension fund money. We had to change regulations. We had to educate the pension funds on the asset class and convince them that alternative assets were a good option and that they shouldn’t only invest in government bonds and public markets but also give a chance to these asset classes. That effort as a whole was completed, and I did it in two countries at the same time. Those two were pioneering efforts. I would say that’s what I’m proudest of right now, and I hope I can do stuff I can feel even prouder of in the future.
What has been the biggest challenge of your career?
At the backend of that experience, in Colombia, we’re going for our third fund there, and the team has managed to continue the business. On the flip side, here in Peru unfortunately we had a really bad experience with a couple of the investments that we made. At the time, I couldn’t read people well, and we had major fraud within the fund. It actually presented itself in the financial statements for the fund, and that was a challenge to manage. It was a challenge to manage with investors, and with creditors of the company. It was a challenge to manage in general. Unfortunately, that whole experience had a drag on the performance of the fund and the continuation of the business, so we had to close the business after 12 years. However, you learn a lot from that experience.
What advice do you have for our undergraduates as they explore careers and internships in the Venture Capital and Private Equity industry?
First of all, Private Equity and Venture Capital are very challenging to get introduced to. If you don’t get in the first time just persist. Try to learn something or look into other internships. For example, working for a start-up before you go into Venture Capital is a great path. I like to hire people that worked in startups and have that experience because it is the other side of the coin, which is very important. If you can not go directly into that career, build something up, and I think that’s a very valuable experience for technology companies or companies that are involved in VC. In order to get in, you have to demonstrate curiosity. In particular, I love people that are curious and that are always looking for opportunities and are very open and flexible. I would develop those skills and again it’s a matter of persistence. If you can’t get in the first time, do something related where you can prove that’s something that you’re very interested in.
What is the best career advice you have received?
Listen before you talk. Especially when you’re young, you try to prove what you know. In the U.S. sometimes you’re too pushy in terms of trying to prove what you know. Sometimes just sit back a little bit, wait to see what the room is telling you, and learn from that. I think that’s the best advice I’ve ever received. At the time I was a little anxious, and I tried to always talk, and one of my former bosses called me and said, “just listen, listen for 10-15 minutes, and then you can talk.” That way you have to listen to everything, and you have a better argument if you listen.