In a region as diverse and storied as Latin America, there is little that can surprise some of the top executives at companies that span different countries and sectors. Gianfranco Ferrari, CEO of Credicorp, Peru’s leading financial services group, said that the firm’s three decades of experience—and the 135-year history of its oldest subsidiary BCP—has helped scaffold the decision-making process amidst the regional dynamics of Latin America.
“We’ve experienced every possible scenario: crises, booms, political change, pandemics, and natural disasters,” he said. “Our ability to succeed in such diverse scenarios comes from having a clear, enduring purpose that aligns more than 45,000 people toward a common goal.”
No matter the dynamics of the region, Gentera, a group of companies providing financial services in Mexico and Peru, is committed to its mission of delivering accessible and convenient financial services to underserved segments of the population. “Regional challenges often include social issues such as insecurity, social and political risks in certain areas, and natural disasters that directly affect our clients,” according to the firm’s CEO Enrique Majós. “While these factors present obstacles, we stay disciplined and focused on a clear strategy: strengthening our client relationships, continuously enhancing our value proposition, and solid progress on our technological transformation.”
Latin America remains a region of contrasts, with its abundant natural resources, but also regulatory complexity and economic volatility, according to Daniel Pimentel Slaviero, CEO of Copel, one of the largest energy traders in Brazil.
During the past year, Copel has balanced long-term investments in renewable generation—such as the 30-year renewal of the concessions for the company's three largest hydroelectric plants, and grid modernization—with the need for financial discipline. “Our role as an integrated power company and our drive for energy transition reinforced our decision to accelerate projects toward a 100% renewable energy matrix, while strengthening our risk management practices to navigate economic fluctuations and regulatory changes,” he said.
For Parque Arauco, Chile’s third largest shopping mall company, regional dynamics have been attractive from a sector point of view, but less attractive from a macroeconomic perspective during the last few years, according to CEO Eduardo Perez, CEO of Parque. But unlike some other businesses, real estate investments pay off in the long term over several decades, he added. “Over these long periods, positive and negative cycles are inevitable. Therefore, it is important to make investments, both in development and in M&A, at the right prices,” he said.
Extel spoke with these four top-ranked business leaders not just about the regional dynamics of Latin America but also the boldest decisions they’ve made in the past year as CEOs and what uncertainties keep them up at night—and what they are doing about it.
How have regional dynamics in Latin America influenced your decision-making in the last year?
At Credicorp, we have over 30 years of history as a group, and our oldest subsidiary, BCP, has served clients for more than 135 years. Over that time, we’ve experienced every possible scenario: crises, booms, political change, pandemics, and natural disasters. Our ability to succeed in such diverse scenarios comes from having a clear, enduring purpose that aligns more than 45,000 people toward a common goal.
Our decisions in the last year were not reactions to short-term events. They were the continuation of a multi-year strategy designed to anticipate change, build resilience, and position us to perform across cycles. The current global dynamics including uneven post-pandemic recoveries, regulatory shifts, and rapid digital adoption have only validated that approach.
Central to our strategy is decoupling from the macro: creating a business model that delivers sustainable returns regardless of economic volatility. We have strengthened our revenue mix by expanding fee-based income, scaled innovation platforms such as Yape, Peru’s leading SuperApp, now reaching the equivalent of 75% of the economically active population, deepened microfinance and insurance penetration, and embedded AI and advanced data analytics across the organization to elevate client engagement, sharpen risk management, and identify new growth opportunities.
Because these strategic shifts were set in motion well before current market conditions, we’ve been able to navigate the last year with agility and confidence, capturing growth where opportunities are strongest and protecting value where risks are elevated. This disciplined approach underpins our consistent performance while advancing our vision of a more inclusive, innovative, and sustainable financial system across Latin America.
What external uncertainty keeps you up at night and how are you preparing for it?
The only certainty I have is that uncertainty will keep increasing. We face cyclical challenges, from tariff discussions to global conflicts and electoral cycles across our region, that can shift conditions rapidly. In this context, our priority is to stay anchored to a clear, long-term vision built on our purpose, while ensuring our plans are agile, measurable, and adaptable. This means constantly monitoring key indicators, stress-testing our strategies, and making swift course corrections when needed. That is why we’ve invested early in critical capabilities like agility, risk management, and innovation at the corporate level, because in today’s environment, the bottleneck to innovation is mindset, not technology. As I often say, “The biggest challenge in transformation is mindset - people resist change, even for the better.”
By fostering a culture that combines the entrepreneurial agility of a startup with the scale and resilience of a leading financial group, we ensure our teams are equipped to anticipate and adapt, not just react. As I’ve shared before, I prefer to disrupt myself before someone else does. This philosophy, balancing steadfast purpose with nimble execution, gives me confidence in our ability to continue delivering sustainable value, regardless of an uncertain external environment.
What’s the boldest decision you’ve made in the past year, and what did you learn from it?
If I may, I’ll answer by sharing the boldest decision of my career, because it continues to shape my actions, including those in the past year. It came during the COVID crisis, an extremely challenging period for Peru marked by a severe public health emergency with profound human and economic consequences. In that context, we acted with speed and scale, convinced that decisions anchored in Purpose are more coherent and more impactful.
We doubled down on our aspiration to expand financial education and inclusion, even when immediate pressures suggested caution. We mobilized resources, accelerated digital transactional services adoption, and extended access to millions who had been excluded from the formal financial system. This brought tangible benefits: enabling secure transactions during lockdowns, providing faster access to aid, and helping families and small businesses stay connected to the economy. The benefits of those decisions reached well beyond Credicorp, supporting the inclusion of Peruvians at large. That’s something I’m deeply proud of. Over the past five years, more than six million people—over 30% of Peru’s economically active population—have joined the financial system for the first time.
That conviction, placing Purpose at the core, remains the foundation for the boldest moves I make today. And we are building on that momentum with a clear strategic objective: to help more than 5 million Peruvians access credit for the first time in their lives.
