Riccardo Basile, Happiness is Leaving London for a Startup in Thailand
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Riccardo Basile, Happiness is Leaving London for a Startup in Thailand

IN BANGKOK THE BOCCONI GRADUATE COFOUNDED LAZADA, AN ECOMMERCE OPERATOR THAT AFTER TWO AND A HALF YEARS IS WORTH $ 1.2 BILLION. TODAY HE HEADS 600 PEOPLE, ABOUT TWENTY OF THEM WITH A BOCCONI DEGREE

If you think that need and lack of alternatives are the reasons why young Italians flock abroad to become entrepreneurs, think again by reading the story of Riccardo Basile, 35, a 2003 Bocconi graduate in business administration. Before flying to Thailand in 2012 to co-found his startup, Basile had been working at McKinsey in London for more than three years. Today he is the CEO of the Thai branch of Lazada, the largest e-commerce company in South East Asia, evaluated, as for the latest round of funding, $ 1.2 billion. He heads 600 people, about fifty of them foreigners and twenty of them with a Bocconi degree.
 
Lazada was launched in April 2012 as a venture of Rocket Internet, the German company which, acting in part as a lender, in part as an incubator and in part as a service provider, aims to transfer proven Internet business models to new, underserved or untapped markets. "Before we came along," says Basile, "Thais who wanted a tennis racket could buy it only in Bangkok. Now we bring it to them in every part of the country, as do our operations in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam".
 
The entrepreneurial team was made up of a dozen people, led by Maximilian Bittner, a German who had left McKinsey along with Basile and who is now CEO of the entire group. "To our first employees," recalls Riccardo, "we had to explain what Amazon is, while the search for the offices, that had to be spacious but inexpensive, took us into the center of the red light district of Bangkok".
 
The team tackled significant management difficulties ("delivery of goods to rural Thailand is not the same as in Italy") and needed several cultural adaptations. "Having always worked in international investment banks and consulting firms," ​​says Basile, "I assumed money and career to be universal motivations and instead I realized that here the work-life balance is vital. People, first of all, want consideration; more than an office you have to build a community. I think this is a lesson that Asia has to offer the world, along with the enthusiasm and taste for risk that Italy seems to have lost”.
 
Basile also had to deal with other characteristic aspects of the Thai culture. "Here, control of emotions is considered a fundamental characteristic of the leaders", he explains. "So loosing your temper or an outburst of any kind brings discredit on leaders, causing a true social stigma and undermining their authority". Finally, Thais cannot openly say no to a superior, "and so, over time, I became an expert in convoluted sentences which, although literally saying yes, signify no".
 
In two and a half years Lazada has not yet moved from its offices in the red light district but has nonetheless come a long way. It has been one of the fastest companies ever to reach the valuation of $ 1 billion, has already received funding for $ 700 million and Rocket is no longer the majority shareholder. "But the most important were the first $ 100 million that, coming from a giant like Tesco, suggested to the entire business community that we were a credible player".

by Fabio Todesco

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