Haroldo Jacobovicz: Bridging Corporate Experience and Entrepreneurial Vision
The relationship
between corporate experience and entrepreneurial success represents an
intriguing question for business researchers. For some founders, corporate
environments provide crucial training and market understanding that enhance
subsequent ventures. The career of Brazilian technology entrepreneur Haroldo Jacobovicz offers
valuable insights into how corporate learning can translate into
entrepreneurial innovation when combined with independent vision.
Early
Entrepreneurial Initiative
Even before completing
his civil engineering studies at the Federal University of Paraná, Haroldo
Jacobovicz demonstrated entrepreneurial
thinking by founding Microsystem with three technically proficient friends.
The company aimed to provide automated inventory control and cash register
systems to small retail businesses, pharmacies, and supermarkets in the 1980s.
This early venture
closed after two years because “that market was not yet ready for
computerization.” While unsuccessful in immediate business terms, this
experience revealed Jacobovicz’s natural inclination toward entrepreneurial
initiative and his capacity to recognize technological opportunities—characteristics
that would mature through subsequent corporate experiences.
Corporate
Training at Esso
Following his initial
entrepreneurial attempt, Haroldo Jacobovicz joined Esso (now Exxon Mobil) after
distinguishing himself among more than 200 engineer candidates. This corporate
environment provided structured exposure to professional
management practices and systematic business analysis that complemented his
technical background.
His rapid advancement
from reserve salesman to market analyst for Brazil’s South region, ultimately
reaching a position handling “commercial tactics and new business” at
the company’s Brazilian headquarters, demonstrated both his adaptability to
corporate structures and his capacity to deliver results within established
organizational frameworks.
The multinational
environment at Esso offered exposure to standardized business processes,
data-driven decision making, and strategic planning
methodologies—experiences that would inform Jacobovicz’s subsequent
entrepreneurial approaches. His work “based on computer-processed
data” provided practical understanding of how technology could support
business operations, reinforcing his earlier technological interests.
Public Sector
Experience at Itaipu
When economic
challenges during Brazil’s Cruzado Plan prompted a career shift, Haroldo
Jacobovicz moved to the Itaipu Hydroelectric Plant as an advisor to the
Technical Director. This position within a major state-owned enterprise offered
different organizational
perspectives complementing his multinational corporate experience.
At Itaipu, Jacobovicz
observed “the difficulty in adopting computers given the bureaucracy
involved in immobilizing permanent assets”—insights into public sector
operational constraints that would directly inform his later business
innovations. This experience demonstrated how organizational structures influence technology implementation,
providing crucial context for solution development.
Synthesizing
Corporate Insights for Entrepreneurial Application
When Haroldo
Jacobovicz returned
to entrepreneurship in the 1990s, he brought accumulated insights from both
multinational corporate and state-owned enterprise environments. The business model
he developed for Minauro—offering “four-year contracts with machine
replacement every 18 months, including maintenance” to public
agencies—directly addressed the specific bureaucratic challenges he had
observed at Itaipu.
This targeted solution
demonstrated Jacobovicz’s capacity to translate corporate observations into
entrepreneurial opportunities. Rather than attempting to replicate corporate
approaches in an independent business, he identified specific institutional
needs that large organizations were not addressing and developed
focused solutions for those gaps.
Corporate
Discipline in Entrepreneurial Settings
Throughout his various
ventures, Haroldo Jacobovicz has demonstrated how corporate operational
discipline can enhance entrepreneurial execution. When establishing Horizons
Telecom in 2010, he emphasized building “from scratch using the best
technical, human and strategic resources available”—applying systematic
resource allocation approaches typical of well-managed corporations to an
entrepreneurial context.
The result—becoming
“a reference in the corporate niche”
of telecommunications within a decade—validated this synthesis of corporate
discipline with entrepreneurial focus. By maintaining the systematic planning
and quality standards learned in corporate environments while pursuing opportunities
too specific for large organizations to address, Jacobovicz created distinctive
value recognized by the market.
Strategic
Partnerships Drawing on Corporate Networks
Corporate experience
typically provides exposure to professional networks
that can support subsequent entrepreneurial ventures. When developing Horizons
Telecom, Haroldo Jacobovicz collaborated with electrical engineer Renato
Guerreiro, the first president of Brazil’s National Telecommunications Agency
(Anatel), bringing regulatory understanding that enhanced the venture’s
strategic positioning.
This capacity to
identify and engage appropriate expertise for specific business requirements
reflects professional network development typical of corporate environments. By
maintaining and leveraging these relationships in entrepreneurial contexts,
Jacobovicz enhanced his ventures’ capabilities beyond individual expertise.
Balancing
Corporate Stability and Entrepreneurial Risk
Perhaps most
significantly, Haroldo Jacobovicz’s career demonstrates effective balance
between corporate stability and entrepreneurial risk-taking. Rather than
immediately pursuing entrepreneurship after his early Microsystem experience,
he invested time in corporate environments that provided both financial
security and professional development opportunities.
This strategic
patience enabled him to accumulate insights, resources, and capabilities that
enhanced his subsequent entrepreneurial ventures. When he did return to
independent business development, his approach reflected deeper understanding
of organizational dynamics and market requirements than would have been
possible without corporate experience.
Current
Synthesis in Arlequim Technologies
Haroldo Jacobovicz’s
most recent venture, Arlequim Technologies founded in 2021, continues this
synthesis of corporate discipline with entrepreneurial innovation. The
company’s focus on computer virtualization to enhance existing equipment
performance represents a targeted solution addressing specific market needs
identified through systematic analysis.
By enabling
organizations to boost “an outdated computer, making its performance
compatible with state-of-the-art equipment” without requiring new hardware
purchases, Arlequim addresses efficiency requirements familiar from corporate
environments while providing the specialized service delivery typical of
entrepreneurial ventures.
Lessons for
Career Development
For professionals
considering transitions between corporate and entrepreneurial settings, Haroldo
Jacobovicz’s career offers valuable insights into how these different
environments can complement each other. His experience suggests that corporate training
can provide crucial operational discipline, analytical frameworks, and
professional networks that enhance subsequent entrepreneurial ventures when
combined with independent market vision.
Rather than viewing
corporate and entrepreneurial approaches as contradictory, Jacobovicz’s career
demonstrates how strategic integration of these different perspectives can
create distinctive value in technology markets. This synthesis offers a model
for professional development that leverages structured corporate learning while
maintaining entrepreneurial responsiveness to specific market opportunities.
Know
more at https://www.inc.com/profile/Arlequim-Technologies-SA