The rest of the 100 (in alphabetical order): Peter Quadros Seiffert, head of corporate venture capital, Embraer
Investors tend to prize vision and persistence as the best attributes for entrepreneurs and Peter Quadros Seiffert, head of corporate venture capital at Brazil-based aeroplane maker Embraer, scores full marks for both.
After a decade of discussions, Embraer started its corporate venture capital (CVC) initiative in July 2012.
Seiffert said: “The greatest success was to propose, develop and raise cash for a CVC fund, bringing three institutional investors [the Brazilian development bank BNDES, Brazil’s Funding Authority for Studies and Projects and the Brazilian development agency Desenvolve SP] besides Embraer into a general partner [fund manager] and limited partner [investors] investment structure.”
As befits one of Brazil’s largest and most innovative industrial groups, Embraer is ahead of its peers – even after a decade of being on the drawing board.
In October, Brazil’s state development bank BNDES said it had visited 20 corporations over the previous few months to discuss the issue of corporate venturing. The bank held a breakfast meeting for 50 CEOs and chief financial officers on the morning of the second day of the Corporate Venture in Brasil event, curated by Global Corporate Venturing and hosted by its inward investment agency Apex-Brasil.
As Leonardo Pereira, head of investment funds at BNDES, said in his opening keynote speech to the conference: “Many of the boards did not know about open innovation or corporate venturing.”
Seiffert, though, was one of the few people able to convince a Brazilian board to start venturing, having written the book “Corporate Venturing: Strategies, Process and Best Practices”, back in 2004 after completing his master’s degree, PhD and post-doctoral studies in business administration in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Being handed the remit of new business development in 2001 enabled Seiffert to pull together a group of 50 executives to develop a 15-year strategic plan that they started to put into effect from 2007.
His personal attributes also helped persuade the board of the merits of corporate venturing. In a LinkedIn testimonial, Fabricio Simoes, a former colleague who is now director of marketing operations at Dell, said: “Peter is an outstanding professional. He combines strong analytical skills and a deep knowledge of strategy with the courage of an entrepreneur.”
As well as his zeal for the industry and startups, Seiffert said: “The possibility to converge strategic thinking, entrepreneurship, innovation, business development and M&A expertise, together in just one mission, to create wealth, jobs and transform society, through investing in exciting businesses is amazing.
“I am passionate about entrepreneurship. In my spare time, I am an angel investor and startup mentor. I am a mentor at Inovativa.org.br, a Brazilian government virtual accelerator programme, and angel investor of Allgoo.com.br. In the past, I have founded startups such as Valetec.com.br.”
Embraer’s first CVC fund has already been actively investing in growth companies focused on the Brazilian aerospace and defence sector. Seiffert said that last year the fund completed four investments involving cyber security, smart cities, drones and unmanned aerial vehicles, and satellites.
He has also been busy starting the development of a second, internationally focused CVC fund and a corporate accelerator.
More broadly, he wants the industry to cooperate and coinvest more with each other and with VCs. He added: “It will bring more deals in the pipeline and add diversity.”
He is firmly on track to achieve his ambition of being “recognised as the founder and the executive developer of one the most admired CVCs in the aerospace and defence sector as Google and Intel did in the information and communication technology sector, for example”.
