Management Team

Pedro Guillermo Brache Álvarez, Corporate Executive President of Grupo Rica and son of Don Julio A. Brache, honors the values that were instilled in him at home. He studied at the San Juan Bautista Institute and finished high school in Princeton, New Jersey. He completed his undergraduate and master’s degrees at Syracuse University and American University in Washington, D.C., respectively.

As a student, he was not clear on what he wanted to do professionally. For one, he didn’t want to stop studying. “It was a time that I enjoyed myself to the full and missed once it was over. I am a person who gives body and soul to what I do.” He graduated in 1987 and joined Rica in 1989. “I started at the  bottom, rotated through several departments until I found myself in this position. My father gave me the opportunity, and I made the most of it.” His concept of success is quite peculiar. “It’s about giving your children what you had.” The best advice he has received is to be humble and empathetic, and he learned that from his father. “You have to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and understand their feelings. I don’t ask anything of my staff that I’m not willing to do.”

He believes that a manager should see the dismissal of an employee as his or her own mistake. “Every manager should analyze himself before making such a decision; did I give him enough support, training, the necessary tools? You hold the lives of many people in your hands, and when we are successful, the company is successful. I like to see executives come to Rica and build a career here, to see how the company helps them get trained, to grow personally and professionally. It is through the development of its people that companies grow,” he emphasizes.

“My father is a humble man, one of those who cares a lot about the human aspect. He built the company from nothing, which is often more difficult than taking over a company already in operation. Not every doctor has been lucky and successful in business. He has succeeded because he has incredible common sense and knows how to use it. He is extremely positive, and that is what makes a man great,” Pedro emphasizes when referring to his father.

Another reason for the development of the company, recalls the CEO, is that Don Julio was a cattle farmer who produced milk, but had no one to sell it to. “A group of friends got together, among them the Cáceres family, which is still a significant part of the Group. In time, my father took the largest number of shares. That is how this company was born.

Pedro cannot fail to mention his mother’s role, which has been of great relevance in the company. A family anecdote shared by him helps us envision this great woman. “When my dad was going to buy part of the company shares, I was very young. My mom took us into a room and told us: “Look, your dad is going to make a deal; that if it goes well, we will be fine, and if it goes badly, we will be worse off than we are.” “That was very important because from that moment on our mother instilled in us a sense of family, of sharing everything that was done in the family business,” recalls Pedro.