Opportunities and Threats: Small Business Strategies for Uncertain Times with Ronaldo Fraga, TAB Atlanta North (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 310)
TAB Atlanta North President Ronaldo Fraga joins host John Ray to discuss how the business owner peer advisory boards he facilitates help their members with mastermind-generated insights, accountability, and much needed support. “North Fulton Business Radio” is produced virtually from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta.
Ronaldo Fraga, President, The Alternative Board Atlanta North
Ronaldo Fraga is a small business owner and a TAB Certified Facilitator and Coach. For 35 years, he was a C-suite executive in Brazil, running a $30 million/year manufacturing division of a German multi-national capital goods corporation. When he started there in 1978, the company’s revenue was around $3 million/year with 50 employees.
When Ronaldo left for the US in 2013 the revenue had increased 10 fold and the company had 200 employees. They more than doubled the shop floor area, modernized the manufacturing facilities and processes, created new lines of products, and opened export channels to countries such as China, India, Italy, Spain, France, and especially to the USA, Canada, and Mexico. All growth and improvements were supported by cash flow generated locally, without any parent company investment. He wanted the best-trained engineers and managers, and so he invested in their education. He and several others got MBAs with Fundação Dom Cabral (FDC), the most prestigious business school in Brazil. FDC has a partnership with Wharton and is rated in the top 10 or 15 business schools in the world.
In 2000, Ronaldo opened an agency in Houston to better serve our North American customers. In 2013 the parent company sent him to Houston, TX to be the VP of their North American Sales and Distribution unit, a position that he held for 5 years. What excites him about TAB is the opportunity to help business owners grow both financially and personally. Managing is a skill that can be taught and it’s key to the growth of a business. Watching managers and employees grow and become independent was the part of his job in Brazil he enjoyed most. At TAB, he has the opportunity to step into that role again.
Ronaldo has a Mechanical Engineering degree from UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) and two MBA’s, one by Candido Mendes University and one by Fundação Dom Cabral. He has been an American citizen since 2018.
TAB Atlanta North company website
Questions/Topics Discussed in this Show
- How to embrace change, transform threats into opportunities and take the best out of them.
- Peter Drucker’s quote: “The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity”.
- The need to recognize that we don’t know what we don’t know.
- How to leverage the common knowledge and wisdom of a peer board.
- TAB Connect App expands the interconnectivity of TAB members and facilitators to 22 countries and around 4,000 people (and counting).
- Recognizing the commonalities of most types of business: we all deal with HR, finances, legal issues, taxes, sales, and marketing, etc.
- Strategic Planning as a tool to take your business to the next level
- Forecasts are always wrong, but they are the best tool for us to create our future
North Fulton Business Radio” is hosted by John Ray and produced virtually from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show can be found on all the major podcast apps by searching “North Fulton Business Radio.”
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