By Kim Se-jeong
Listening to the new ambassador of Ecuador to Korea is like listening to a lecturer in an MBA classroom.
“(Business) management is about communicating with people,” Nicolas Fabian Trujillo Newlin said during a recent interview with The Korea Times.
Listening to the people you work with and trying to help them achieve on professional and personal levels will make you a good manager, he continued during his inspiring speech.
One might wonder why Newlin was talking about business management during a press interview.
It’s because Newlin is a CEO-turned diplomat.
He was born in Ecuador to an American mother and Ecuadorian father.
At the age of 12, he was sent to the United States as a boarder at a military prep school.
Upon graduation, he shifted course by going to Florida International University.
Studying business, the ambassador opened up “Galapagos Flowers,” a small florist, importing flowers from Ecuador and selling them.
That was in 1985 and he was only 19. After 20 years, the entrepreneur found himself a CEO of Equiflor, the biggest flower chain in
Florida.
His company did many things. He founded the Rio Roses University in 2002, educating his employees, retail and wholesale florists and flower growers on growing quality roses, packaging and marketing them.
Rio Roses is one of Equiflor’s flower brands.
“It was about communicating with people through flowers,” he said in retrospect.
At the peak of his business, his company sold 100 million stems of roses per year, working with 42 farming operations between Ecuador and Colombia, and distributing through a network of wholesale florists that represented approximately $250 million a year in
fresh flower sales.
The CEO left the company in 2008 and headed back to Ecuador.
Feeling strongly about social responsibility, he said, he was hoping to set up talent development for Ecuadorians and to establish microloans for small businesses owners.
In 2009, at the invitation of the government, he founded and led Invest Ecuador, a public investment promotion agency.
In this capacity, he traveled with his President Rafael Correa to Europe and other parts of the world to attract prospective investors to Ecuador.
He was also deeply involved in arranging Correa’s visit to Korea, which was realized in September last year, and at the end of the trip, he was offered by the president the post as ambassador to Korea.
He holds an enormous sense of commitment. “He appointed me as an ambassador, and there was a reason.”
The envoy said Correa’ appointment was also a clear sign of his admiration for Korea.
“After the visit, President Correa set Korea as a role model for Ecuadorian economic development,” he said.
Newlin’s purpose in Korea is based on invigorating bilateral trade volume and attracting more investors from Korea.
But his top priority is signing a complementary trade agreement during his tenure. “Not a free trade agreement,” he said emphatically.
“We need time to develop infrastructure,” to be able to compete with other bigger economies, he said, and the free trade agreement
would only hamper the process.
The economy of Ecuador relies heavily on agriculture. Bananas, shrimp and mangos are the biggest export items.
“Ecuadorian and Korean economies are compatible,” he said, urging the Korean government to give Ecuadorian products a chance to compete in the market here.
The fact that his neighboring countries of Peru and Colombia are pursuing trade agreements with Korea also adds to his motivation.
The Korea-Peru FTA negotiations is already completed, and with Colombia, negotiations are currently under way.
Acknowledging that the Korean government has been caught up in other trade negotiations, he said, “I know you have a lot on your plate, but I want to be considered as a partner.”
Attracting investment from Korea into Ecuador is also high on his agenda.
The flow of investment has increased immensely, especially in the last three years.
Korean companies acquired more than half the government contracts for building infrastructure.
SK Energy and Construction won the contract to repair two existing oil refineries and to draw up preliminary engineering plans.
“A kid in Ecuador can eat better, have clothes and go to school because his father now has a job at a Hyundai factory,” he said.