Beyond the Case
A podcast where global leaders from the Harvard Business School Owner/President Management (OPM) community join in a personal capacity and share the real decisions, failures, and mental models behind building enduring companies.
This podcast is independent and not affiliated with Harvard Business School.
Beyond the Case
The Early Lesson That Made Me Rethink Wealth, Success, and Happiness - Pedro Thompson
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Pedro Thompson's life philosophy was shaped long before he became a CEO, investor, or entrepreneur. Growing up in a family that had once been wealthy but lost everything taught him an early lesson that external success is fragile, while character, perspective, and inner conviction endure.
In this conversation, Pedro reflects on how that experience transformed his relationship with money, risk, and ambition. He shares why having "enough" matters more than having everything, how Stoic philosophy helped him find peace during uncertainty, why eliminating bias is the foundation of good decision-making, and why the best organizations are built around ideas instead of hierarchy.
More than a conversation about business, this is an exploration of what it means to live a meaningful life - one defined not by wealth or status, but by purpose, self-belief, and the impact we leave on others.
Here are the Top 10 Takeaways from the conversation:
- The things you lose can shape you more profoundly than the things you inherit.
- Wealth can create comfort, but only purpose and relationships create lasting fulfillment.
- Strive for "enough," because happiness rarely grows in proportion to possessions.
- The quality of your decisions depends on your willingness to recognize your own biases.
- Listen deeply before responding, because understanding almost always beats certainty.
- Build environments where the best ideas win, regardless of who speaks them.
- Success becomes more meaningful when it improves someone else's life, not just your own.
- The way you frame a problem often determines the solution you find.
- Invest as much in your inner philosophy as you do in your external achievements.
- The strongest foundation for a fulfilling life is believing in yourself more than seeking validation from the world.
Books:
Hey, welcome everyone to another episode of Beyond the Case. This is a podcast where global leaders from Howard Business School's OPM community join in a personal capacity. They share the real lessons, life principles, mental models which go behind building enduring companies. Today's guest is Pedro Thompson. Welcome to the show, Pedro. Thank you so much for making the time. And uh if you'd be so kind to introduce yourself, speak about your background so the listeners know who the guest is today.
SPEAKER_01Great, Sohin. So thank you for me. It's a pleasure because I love the OPM program. For me, it's one of the those experiences that is a life changer experience. And for sure, with the OPM program about the contents, about the cohorts, about the professors, about HBS. HBS, it's like uh the Hogwarts of the universities around the world. So it was amazing. And for me, it's a pleasure to talk a little bit about that, and even more to talk with aluminus from the program. In uh uh elevator pitch here, my career. I I began my career in a big four company, Deloitte, on the audit size, and it was funny because I I began my career in audits like months after the Enroll scandal. And the Enroll scandal changed too. And the Enerald scandal changed all the procedures about audit, about accounting, and etc. And I just began my career on that period. So I spent four years in Deloitte, in the audit size, in the accounting size, and I have a lucky because on that time Brazil it was the top of the emerging markets country. We had a lot of inflow of institutional investors around the world, US, Europe, and etc. The country was booming. And I participate as an advisor of a lot of IPOs here in Brazil. So I spent four years in Deloitte and then I migrated to the private equity site. And I spent nine years on the private equity site in BTG Pactual. BTG Pactual is the largest investment bank of Latin America. We always uh make a comparison and a little kidding that uh BTG Pactual is like Goldman Sachs of Latin America. It's an investment bank and private equity platform, the biggest one. And I spent nine years on BTG Pactual Sohim. And on those nine years, I spent half of this tenure as an investment officer searching for opportunities, uh, deploy money in the opportunities, act as a board member of the companies, uh, make investor relations with LPs to our funds, and the the other half as uh management of our investment companies. So I was uh CEO, CFO, COO of our thesis to accelerate the agenda that we had to the companies to extract the most value that we could. So uh on top of that, I think that my flow, my pleasure is much more operate or participate of the daily basis of the company than be uh only a guy of investment. I could found that I spent nine years on BTG Pactual, I have exposed of some industries, real estate industry, retail industry, and oil and gas industry. And then I migrate to another private equity that calls GP. GP was the former private equity of Banco Garantia of Jorge Paulo Lehmann, Beto Sicupir, Marcel Tellis. But in the GP I go straightforward to an investment company of the GP that uh calls Stacio and they make a rebrand that calls uh that now calls IDUX. It's the largest uh it's the largest group of private education in Brazil. Only college. We don't have K-12, and it's the largest one. I I think that in some time in the past was the second largest group, educational group of the world. And I spent four years in in Stasso. Uh six months as CEO and three years and a half, uh six months as CFO and three years and a half as CEO. And it was an amazing journey, Sohin, because when you work uh with education, you have a lot of purpose. You don't have only the dividends, the net income, and etc. You have to have social impact. Your products for sure changed the life of some people. And for me was amazing. We had like 1.2 million students, was uh a huge uh student basis, was amazing. I love education. Uh work with education for me was a privilege. Then I backed to BTG Pactual to be the head of vertical that was that will build off media. We we we started to consolidate media vehicles, as uh New York Times, for example, just to make how can I say to you, a client acquisition path to our retail business unit. So we start to consolidate a lot of media vehicles and was successful. I was the managing director of this vertical, and I I like that a lot. I I never in my previous life I was I was much more, how can I say to you, I was much more financial and operation animal, not a guy of uh performance media and etc. And for me it was very complementary to this kind of thing. So I spent three years running this vertical, and then I uh uh I went to uh uh to be the CEO of the on that time the third public, largest public company on the health sector here in Brazil that calls Aliar. Aliar was a holding of roughly 150 labs to exams, uh a national footprint. And I I spent three years over there as a CEO, and then a year and a half ago, almost two years, Datu and Bia, my partners, they founded Choose The Capital, that is asset management, uh alternative asset manager. And I joined them like three, four months after they founded the company, and I'm the CEO of the company, the investment company, Datu is the CIO, and Bia, she is the COO. And it's been an amazing journey. Here on Tuesday, we manage uh investments on the like in terms of platform, in terms of investment framework. We are very active in our investment thesis, but as a private equity or even more as a pipe fund, act by the governance, act by as a board member, and it's been amazing to turn the key off to be always uh uh an executive and now much more as an entrepreneur. My partners, they have much more skill as an entrepreneur than me, and they helped me a lot, and it was an amazing journey. And not less important, uh I was OPM of the 49 program and it was an amazing experience. As I told you, uh life-change experience.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Pedro. Very thorough and detailed introduction. So that helps set us the ball in motion for this conversation. Are there any experiences from your early childhood which you believe may have shaped the way you think about leadership, responsibility, ambition today?
SPEAKER_01Yes, great question. So I think that I I have uh it's a particular thing, but I don't have a shame. Not at all. I have some kind of I think it was painful, but in a good way, it helped me a lot. Because a part of my family, we we we were a very wealthy family here in Brazil on the 80s, and we lost everything. Everything that you can imagine. Everything, everything. Assets, real estate, everything. And for me, this trauma, you know that you are exposed in a very uncertain environment, and uh day by night things can change for the worst case, and you you you have to join your life, to enjoy your life, but on another hand, to be very responsible about the future, and even more about the decisions that you always take for sure, it's shaped my my entire career and even more myself, the person that I am today.
SPEAKER_00When when you go through a traumatic experience like that where you know you you lose everything, how does that change your relationship with wealth and your sense of freedom?
SPEAKER_01Amazing, amazing, Solin, amazing, amazing. There there is i it's not it's not a religion, but I think it's much more in the philosophy way, the stoicism by the stoic guys as Marcus Aurelius and in Rome, for example, that wealthy, that money, assets, it doesn't mean anything. What really means is you with yourself and even more with people that you love, you'll be connected, you'll be always in the enough side, and etc. And I think, Sohine, that in the journey of the life, you need the enough. You you need enough in terms of wealthy to have a good life, to give a good life for your kids, for the people you love. But after the enough, you have to enjoy the life. Enjoy the life not with money, not with everything. Enjoy your life with realizations to yourself and even more generate impact to help uh to change the life of the people that you love. So for me, uh this stoic way uh that I found in the philosophy helped me a lot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, most people inherit wealth, but from what I'm hearing from you, you inherited adversity. When you look back, do you think uh that experience has become one of your greatest advantages today? For sure. For sure. 100%, man. And then you've gone on to uh, you know, be part of uh private companies, lead companies as well. How do you think your decision making has evolved over the years? And how has your relationship with risk been, given that you started your life on such a risky note where you know you had nothing to lose?
SPEAKER_01Perfect, perfect. Great, great, great, great question. Here, uh now I always work with investments in under side, in one side, and the other side I worked as an executive as a C level of companies. So for sure, took decisions, it's very important. And to take the best decision, it's like impossible because life shapes us to have a lot of bias. Good bias, bad bias, but we are a bucket of a lot of bias. If you can eliminate the most bias that you have, it's precious, you know, it's gold. And I think that uh here and I'm learning uh a lot of that with my partners, so with Dart and Beer, to be 100% aware of our bias. Only take the decision, the best decision, eliminate any bias. And it's very important. You know, the life for sure shapes us with bias. Good bias that help us, bad bias that in somehow prejudice us. But uh if we can eliminate any bias of our uh decision-making process, it's amazing. And I uh for with uh all of the humility of the world, my partners, uh they helped me a lot to eliminate some bias.
SPEAKER_00Any strategies or any mental models you have on how to eliminate bias or how to reduce the amount of bias in our thinking?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Uh uh uh uh I think so. Can I have this this experience? In fact, yesterday in a small meeting that was an investment committee meeting. And uh I I think that when you can listen, establish a process of listen, understood, process, and then give your feedback, it's very important. So if you could train your system one of Keneman, be more connected with your system two, and it doesn't matter if you will take more time, but you need to process and you need to process and you need to focus in uh out of the frame, out of the motion, and then give a feedback, give a response. Forget about timing, you know. We always have deadlines and etc. Forget about that. Thinking in how the process will be to you connect your system one to system two and take the best uh decision.
SPEAKER_00Feel like I'm having another chat with Dato right now, because he was talking about Kahneman in the Datu, Datu.
SPEAKER_01I love Kahneman so him for sure. But Datu is the guy that I know that has the deepest knowledge about Kerneman.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So I'm guessing the conversations at your company, even if y'all go out for lunch, must be so intellectually rich. The fact that, you know, y'all are uh y'all sound to be so well read and y'all introspect so deeply. What is the culture like at the company?
SPEAKER_01The culture.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01We have uh gossip here, a kid, that we we live a democracy, but a democracy of always of the best argument. So the best argument will always be our leader, our guide. Independent if uh the best argument was of a junior person, was of a senior partner, and etc. The best argument has to be the key of our culture, always. Pedro, what led you to OPM? OPM was a decision. I I don't know when I was in the end of my college and I read an article, uh interview with uh Georges Paulo Lehmann. Jorge Paulo Lehman is a former HBS graduate student and a former OPM student. And he was talking about the program, how diversity is a program, how in a fast-track way you change your life to be a better person, a better executive, a better entrepreneur. And I over-indexed the program. And I made uh several appliers, like uh three times, but I was a junior guy. I was applying with 28 years old. And and then in my thirds, I was uh accepted. And that time I was 31 years old, and it was amazing. It was amazing.
SPEAKER_00Any takeaways from the OPM program that still come back to you now that it's been years?
SPEAKER_01For sure, for sure, for sure, for sure. A lot of takeaways. The main takeaways that I have, the deepest one, was with the pack. I speech uh this quote of the pack on a daily basis, Sohim. Who on the frame wins the game? It's short, but it's very powerful. When you control the framework of a decision of a situation, you will have the best possibility to be a winner. So the pack uh the best uh the anchor effect, the the the who uh uh the the framework who owned the frame win the game. Uh the pack was uh a great great uh and deepest content for me. In uh in a personal and even more in an entrepreneurial and executive way.
SPEAKER_00Amazing. I'm not sure if you're a reader. Has there been any book which has influenced your philosophy or leadership of life? I know you touched on Stoicism.
SPEAKER_01Stoicism for sure meditation of Marcus Marcus Aurelius. It's it's the book that guides my life in a very in a difficult times of my life when you have to think, eliminate the noise, only focus on things that you will aggregate good ways to yourself. So Meditation of Marcos Aurelius for sure helped me a lot in uh uh turbulent times of my life. And I I have two books that I love. The first book is a very hype book, but for me it's amazing. That is The Outliers of Malcolm Glado. That I think that Malcolm Glado in Outliers he could match luck and determination and how those things combine make successful rides, successful journey. For me was very, very important. And another book that I love, I love uh it's a romance book, but uh with a lot of emotion, with a lot of turnarounds, uh, and etc. That is Dostoyevsk. I I like Russian books, but uh Anna Karerina, it's uh it's it's an amazing book that you have everything. You have ups, downs, emotions, sentimentals, and etc. So Anna Karerina for sure, in a very different perspective that is the Russian culture. For me, it's an amazing book, it's true.
SPEAKER_00Thanks, Pedro. I have one last question for you. If you could write a letter to your younger self who's going to the lowest part of your family's journey, what would the first sentence say?
SPEAKER_01Believe much more in you and less in the outside. The key of your success, the key uh of your peace, of your resilience, it's inside you, not outside you.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Pedro. Thank you very much. Uh very pleasant conversation, a lot of takeaways as well. So appreciate this, and I look forward to meeting you in person.
SPEAKER_01For sure, Sauhin. So for sure. I will meet you in Boston. Preference with that too, and we'll have a coffee or a beer or cold beer, for sure. Sounds good, man. Be well. Be well, Sohim. Bye bye. Bye.
