Sergio RochaFounder

Brazil - São Paulo, São Paulo

Sergio Rocha
We are the result of our life experiences, both personal and professional. Today, I understand how certain situations have defined my corporate profile, of an enterprise builder, resilient and determined to promote transformation on the rural territory and the world. Among those experiences, I always like to highlight the lack of technological solutions in agribusiness, at the beginning of my career, when I founded OPE Investments, which later associated with Dreyfus Co. for sugar and ethanol operations in Brazilian North East, at which point we had to create our own mathematical models to support such operations.

Another lesson was about the importance of commodities: In the 1980´s I was acting as a trader in one of the most active commodity trading companies in the world, when we merged with Marc Rich (today´s Glencore), to endorse operations with corn supplies in Brazil. The operations enabled Brazil to seal the renegotiation of its external debt, using corn as collateral.

Although, it was during the great financial crises of emerging markets, in 1998, when I was leading HEI Emerging Investments in Russia (a Trade Finance Co), that our losses really reinforced my belief that commodities are a much firmer ground than the harsh seas of the financial system. In parallel, the space race pointed to the expansion of the applicability of spatial-data intelligence in businesses.

With those ingredients, my inspiration to build Agrotools in 2007, came from the lack of available information about agribusiness, which could only be solved by technology. Today, Agrotools - consolidated as the leading company in digital solutions to the sector - is proof that we have managed to find a new and successful path, always watchful of the fact that innovation does not fit into any box, and promotes constant movement that needs to be stimulated and carefully lapidated.