Horst Paulmann, who on November 16th celebrated his company's 50 years in Cartagena de Indias with Cencosud Day and some of his executives having an exposition about the company and the Colombian market for board members, financial analysts and investors in the lounge of the Santa Clara hotel, a former convent located in the middle of the walled city.
It has been 50 years since he and his brother Jürgen opened their first supermarket, Las Brisas, in Temuco (southern Chile), and he says that if, back then, he had known that he would be the owner of a retail empire with more than 1,000 stores in five countries, he would have had a heart attack. It's an empire that he couldn't have imagined as a child who had to leave post-war Germany along with his parents and siblings, to Argentina.
Horst Paulmann said that the idea of creating a supermarket came to him when he was working in Las Brisas Quinta de Recreo de Temuco restaurant, along with his brother Jürgen, and a friend brought them trays of strawberries to sell. They put them on the counter and sold them in half an hour.
"And the next day, we did the same with nuts. Then we asked, 'Why are we going to work in the bar until three o'clock?" We closed the bar and opened a 45 square meters deli. We did really well. We would dress up as chefs with a white cap and would sell a kilo of sugar, a little salt, half a kilo of ham and chicken. It was a great success. The following year we closed the restaurant and opened our first supermarket, it was 400 square meters in size."
Later, he parted ways with his brother, went to Santiago and founded Jumbo at Kennedy and Bilbao.
- Why did he choose to have an elephant as a trademark?
- Because it has a strong step. It is a very resistant animal and it's very smart.
Then came the shopping centres in Argentina, the Easy, the purchase of Paris, Santa Isabel, Johnson, getting in the stock market, financial retail and the conquest of Latin America. He is, according to Forbes magazine, the second richest man in Chile. He is also one of the first persons to arrive at the office in the morning and the last to leave in the evening. He is involved in the smallest details of the company, of which he owns more than sixty percent. Today, at age 78, he jokes about his future:
"I'm just starting. Every contract I sign now-a-days is for more than 30 years because I want to be there for its renewal."
Retirement is an issue he doesn't like to talk about.
- Have you thought about retiring?
- Retire from what?
- From the company.
- Are you retiring? How are you going to retire, if life is really sweet? I feel good, so please tell me if you think I'm a bit crazy and I'll retire tomorrow.
- Your life seems to centred around working.
- All life is work. Even if you're retired, you have to get up in the morning to make your coffee, make your bed, clean your house and do the Garden. When you work in an office it is very nice, very comfortable; if you're an employee you do what you have to do and then go home and your wife will have a pisco sour prepared for you and everything is great. No one controls you. If you are retired you go into the kitchen and your wife is angry and wants to know where you've been the whole day.
Do you consider yourself to be a workaholic?
I do not know what it is to be a workaholic. I work because I like it and do my chores and my job. Human beings are not born to do nothing; we were born to serve others.
- What personal costs have you had to pay for this commitment?
Look, this is a complicated issue, because nothing is perfect. I am eager, enthusiastic, I'm not crazy, I'm on the ball, so don't take me to the cemetery just yet, because I don't feel ready.
- What is your secret of success?
- Be persistent and have a goal; then go for it. If you want to succeed as an employee, you have to do more than what your boss asks. When the boss asks you something, you have to have a solution and more. I'm very picky; I hate people who don't do what they are supposed to and only do half the job.
- Many people are afraid of you.
- Those who fear me are those who do not do their job. I can be a very nice guy, but when I see that a person isn't moving forward or backward, and that he doesn't arrive at 8 thirty but at a quarter past nine, it doesn't sit well with me. All I can say is that the people working with us has been doing it for many years, and that those who have left the company want to come back, so there must be something about Cencosud and Paulmann, it can't be that bad. I get two or three emails a week asking me to let them return to Cencosud.
Source: Eltiempo.com