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Enrique Flaiban is a public accountant and, since July 2021, he has been the CEO of Grupo Los Grobo.

Previously, he held senior positions at Petrocuyo, Ecogas, Grupo Newsan, Sideco Americana and Arthur Andersen.

Los Grobo is one of the largest and most important companies in the agricultural sector both nationally and regionally, with 250,000 hectares of production and 2.5 million tons collected per year. In turn, it owns 12 grain conditioning plants, 7 professional seed processing plants, and a mill that processes 420 tons of flour per day.

How did your path develop until you became CEO of Los Grobo?

I have an experience of more than 35 years working in top-level companies, both in the country and abroad. I accepted the proposal that Los Grobo made me because I believe it is a great challenge in the most dynamic and competitive industry in Argentina and because I believe that its shareholders have the same entrepreneurial spirit with that gene that is activated every time we have to face new things . Los Grobo is a very strong and deeply rooted brand in the agricultural sector and with great potential. In addition, the work team that I have to lead today is committed, professional and highly motivated for all the challenges that lie ahead.

Do you think that in recent times the national agriculture has been losing competitiveness compared to other countries in the region?

Without a doubt, agriculture is the most competitive sector in Argentina. However, we could be producing, exporting and generating much greater added value if certain conditions were more favorable for investment. There are countries that have been able to take better advantage of the opportunity offered by current commodity prices. Without going any further, Brazil has grown considerably more than Argentina in this regard. The agribusiness sector can generate much more than it is generating today and that is the big bet and the game that must be played. Additionally, Argentina has a great opportunity to extend value chains by taking advantage of the sector's competitiveness. This also happens in other sectors of the economy. Agriculture obviously could contribute a large part in this.

Do you consider that withholdings represent a disruptive tax that damages production in all its links?

In the context of a real economic emergency, withholdings can be understood at fair values ​​and for a limited period of time. Any distortionary and lasting tax ends up impacting sooner or later on the productivity of any sector and the consequences that are generated are difficult to manage. In my opinion, more work should be done on generating incentives so that all surpluses return to investment and much more can be produced. Argentina has a large production capacity; What must be achieved is that public policies encourage all actors to want to produce much more, in a more competitive way and at the same time generate more work.

I have no doubt that without retentions the investments would be enormous in the sector and this would undoubtedly re-enhance industrialization, the development of the value chain and also the infrastructure. The sector always invests, it is continuously in search of innovation and the application of technology to production.

What are Los Grobo's projects in the short and long term?

In Los Grobo today we work 700 people. We are present in 32 branches and we have 12 collection plants located in strategic locations. Additionally, we operate 3 seedbeds and have a plant for phytosanitary products in Zárate, a flour mill in Chivilcoy and an R&D laboratory in Buenos Aires. Today we focus on continuing to consolidate our presence in the territories where we are and selectively grow in those regions that are of interest to us and where we see that we can provide a competitive service and add value to customers. At the product level, we continue to innovate and bet on our own seed brands while developing new products for crop control through our company Agrofina.

We also continue our path towards digitization to provide traceability, information in a timely manner and improve our competitiveness and that of our clients. For this fiscal year that begins, we are forecasting income for the group of more than 750 million dollars and an operating result of approximately 80 million. We continue to grow in associated crops, we already have about 250,000 hectares and a collection volume of 2.5 million tons of grain.

What is it about and what is the Mauá digital tool for?

The Mauá platform is a tool that seeks to connect producers, offer them useful information to manage their activity and promote innovation and technology in agriculture. It is an application for cell phones or PCs that incorporates, in a friendly and easily accessible way, all the client's transactional information (commercial operations, access to current account), management information and for decision-making (updated and relevant market data, weather forecasts, geolocated crop monitoring for each specific farm) as well as news about the sector, and a series of activities and events that contribute to the multiplicity of factors that influence the business. We continue to develop it and listen to our customers that once they get used to it, they ask us to have more applications.

With the launch of Mauá, we were able to verify that we are facing a new technological convergence that is going to transform agriculture: producers will increasingly require simple solutions to solve their daily problems.

What are the activities carried out by the company to promote the development of rural SMEs and sustainable development?

Our entire business ecosystem works, develops and coexists with and by rural SMEs. Our clients, suppliers, business partners, distributors, are mostly rural SMEs.

We promote compliance with good practices throughout our value chain. We generate fluid communication and consistent information. We offer the network and our stakeholders all our capacity and knowledge, developing areas for their dissemination.

We also identify ourselves with the concept of long-term Sustainable Development, which promotes an adequate balance between the protection of the environment and the development of people. On this basis, our strategy of Social Responsibility, of Grupo Los Grobo's businesses, is manifested.

From our Los Grobo Foundation we coordinate the POTENCIAR program. A Collective Impact program with more than 15 years of work in Latin America, and more than 60 partners in 7 countries, created with the purpose of accompanying social organizations, companies and governments, in the design, implementation, evaluation and scaling of initiatives of collective impact, develop sustainable communities facilitating collaborative and comprehensive processes of economic, social, environmental and cultural impact.

The objective is to strengthen and manage high-impact collaboration systems so that the beneficiaries themselves develop capacities and resources to effectively and efficiently achieve superior and lasting results.

Within our company, we also have the “Campo Social” program, the Corporate Volunteering program that Grupo Los Grobo has been implementing for more than 12 years. Based on this, the company intends to promote and accompany the solidarity actions of its collaborators, facilitating the realization of their ideas, for the benefit of the localities where they live and work. In this sense, each year, the company includes in its budget a certain amount so that the volunteers themselves can decide, through a project contest, which institutions in their community they decide to help. In this edition, 5 projects from the cities of Carlos Casares, Necochea, Gualeguaychú, Tandil and Campana were the winners. The prize money was destined to strengthen the work of the organizations with which they are already working or involved in some way.

Automatic translation from spanish.