At 58, Eduardo Ourivio, founder of the Trigo Group, which includes Spoleto, China in Box, and Koni, doesn't separate his professional and personal life. On Bravamente , a program by Carlos Burle in partnership with NeoFeed , the businessman says he learned, through experience, that no company truly grows when people are left behind and that no success is worth much when life calls for tougher conversations.
“Cancer is a very powerful thing. When you go through it, you start to value what really matters,” says Ourivio.
Recorded in Siberut, Indonesia, the interview took place outside of a corporate setting. Burle, a big-wave surfer, took Ourivio surfing during the trip, which helped shift the conversation to deeper topics than strategy and numbers.
Even though it's responsible for serving around 40 million meals a year, Ourivio prefers to talk about people rather than numbers when defining its business. “I hate the expression 'labor.' I don't have labor. It's people, it's folks, it's a team.”
Inspired by a lecture he heard in the United States, he abolished the term "training" and replaced it with "development," with the goal of making his employees feel that they can grow within the company without sabotaging their colleagues.
This perspective also guides his relationship with money, which he treats as a consequence of work focused on long-term consistency.
“When you understand this, you start working in the medium and long term. And then things will come. The best way to grow your sales is to not lose customers,” he says.
For Ourivio, working hard is an inevitable part of building a solid business. The lesson he learned over time was to find meaning in his daily life and understand that quality of life isn't about distancing oneself from work, but about being fully present in the process.
