Being part of Afi

The partner's vision: Afi is a legacy

Afi is the dream of a shared project. Sponsored by Gesmosa, a former money market broker belonging to a group of former savings banks, this project was launched in 1987 under the leadership of Emilio Ontiveros, who was accompanied from the outset by Ángel Berges and Paco Valero. Daniel Manzano joined shortly thereafter. From 1992 onwards, all of them shared 50% of the ownership as professional partners after purchasing that stake from Ahorro Corporación, the financial holding company of the savings banks where Gesmosa had been integrated. Since then, many other partners have joined the project with the same common goal: to make Afi a profitable company worth working for. In 2014, Afi's partners acquired all the shares that still belonged to Ahorro Corporación, beginning a new phase in which Afi is wholly owned by the professional partners who form part of it. In 2016, a transition began between the first and second generations of Afi partners, who took on the commitment and responsibility of preserving the legacy, improving it and making it grow, while maintaining its fundamental principles.

All of us at Afi began our relationship with the company as employees without any ownership stake. Like anyone else, we had to divide our time and effort between our professional and personal lives. This approach to work-life balance is essential in a company that is fortunate enough not to obey or respond to the interests of shareholders (anonymous or otherwise) outside the group of employees who form part of the company.

Afi's partners obtain much more than financial rewards from their work and from their commitment to the company through their shareholding. Personal growth, the satisfaction of a job well done, sharing a project, contributing to the creation of wealth, and generating well-being are just as important as financial returns. Afi's income statement must be balanced in both tangible and intangible terms, and the only way to achieve this is for this balance to transcend the professional sphere and be achieved in all dimensions of the people who are part of the project. Professional and personal life cannot be separated, because they are united in the same person and in the same life. For this reason, those of us who are responsible for enriching Afi's legacy have a responsibility to create a context in which we can all find our place and a balance between our individuality and the collective nature of the company.

A valuable lesson we have learned from those who have brought us this far is that, as the popular saying goes (and Emilio Ontiveros often repeated), “it is only right to be grateful.” Beyond the fact that gratitude is a sign of good manners and nobility of character, recognizing those who have come before us is a way of reminding ourselves of who we are, of trying to repeat formulas for success and of avoiding attitudes that lead to failure. One way of showing gratitude and recognition is to continue to rely on those who have been generous enough to make that generational transition. Their experience and ability to contribute perspective are invaluable resources for our organization. The main obligation of the second generation of partners in this company is to ensure that we build a third generation to whom we can pass on the legacy.

Everything has to fit together

As we said before, success is impossible if you separate your personal and professional lives, because they are intertwined and feed into each other.

A job is a role that answers these questions: “Am I satisfied with what I do?”; “Am I satisfied with whom I do it with?”; “Am I satisfied with how much I do it?”; “Am I satisfied with how I do it?” If these four questions do not have a satisfactory answer, it will be very difficult for them to compensate for each other.

Apart from the above questions, there is another more important one to ask: “Does my job allow me to fit in ‘everything else’?” Unfortunately, our time is limited, and one life is not enough to satisfy all our concerns. We have to choose and balance, knowing that work is our main source of income and, when well focused, a source of many other satisfactions. A satisfying professional life is an excellent foundation for a satisfying personal life, and vice versa.

We believe that anyone who says, “I don't come to work to make friends” is either deceiving themselves or confused. The prospect of a future spent wasting years on tasks and with people who do not interest you is not very appealing.

Help achieve work-life balance

Work-life balance is a goal that cannot be achieved without the cooperation of those we work with. To contribute to true work-life balance, it is essential to scrupulously respect the rest periods and schedules of those who work with us.

One career per employee

Professional (and business) success is not built through a deterministic process. No one tells us what tasks we have to complete or “what agenda to follow” in order to offer solutions that help our clients. Our professional success depends mainly on your ability to adapt, in the broadest sense of the term.

As mentioned above, this is one of the reasons why at Afi we do not have a fixed hierarchical structure, not even a matrix structure, and we organize ourselves according to chains of responsibility. This flexibility in organizing structures and dependencies also applies when establishing professional careers at Afi.

A professional career has many facets and attributes, beyond technical skills. Traditionally, professional firms, such as ours, were organized into categories, and as one moved up the ranks, one replaced project execution tasks with management tasks and then moved on to commercial tasks. In our opinion, making our employees associate the concept of professional success with the development of commercial skills is a mistake that frustrates many, drains value, and is unfair from the point of view of valuing the contribution that each of us makes to the company.

For this reason, at Afi we understand that each of our professionals' careers is unique and must help align their skills and abilities with the needs of the company. In this regard, years ago we developed an assessment model that covers all the skills we believe an Afi professional must possess (technical ability, teamwork, project leadership, organizational contributions, commercial skills, and 30 other skills). Although there are some skills and values that are basic and essential, we do not expect all our employees to cover all the skills, but rather that each one develops those for which they have the greatest potential. Striving to maximize high-potential capabilities contributes greatly to professional happiness and, therefore, to the effort being sustainable over time, indefinitely.

This career and evaluation model sometimes generates unique situations that do not occur in other organizations. Some of our employees, who have no interest or potential for developing commercial skills, also play a fundamental role for us, providing valuable technical and execution leadership that translates into compensation that, on occasion, can exceed that of some partners in our organization.

We take a long-term view

Obviously, when facing professional challenges, we also face life challenges. Sometimes, these personal challenges affect our professional lives.

At Afi, we believe that when personal situations arise that affect professional performance, it is the company's responsibility to offer the employee a frank and honest conversation and to seek a solution that works for everyone. In most cases, we manage to make everything work. Many of us have very rich and demanding professional and personal lives, and we can organize ourselves flexibly and efficiently to satisfy both.

Personal situations that affect our professional lives are, in many cases, one-off or temporary. Companies and employees must be fair and take a long-term view when assessing the impact of these circumstances on our professional situation.

Generosity

Almost always, people repay generosity with generosity. The success of a shared project like ours is measured by its impact on the people involved. Since our foundation, we have been clear that, in the long term, it is impossible to prosper “at the expense of.” At Afi, we know that things work out “thanks to” employees, customers, and suppliers. Surrounding ourselves with generous people has been a key factor in our evolution and has generated great returns for all of us who have been, first and foremost, generous with the project and with the people who are part of it.

Being generous is not the same as being naive;  it means understanding that working for the common good maximizes individual good. For this reason, we penalize any attitude of selfishness and try to avoid it within our organization.

Inspire your colleagues. We are all role models

From the moment you join Afi, your behavior has an impact on the rest of the organization, regardless of your role or level of responsibility. It is wrong to think that only those who run the company are a reference and an example for others. Like gravitational force, our influence depends not only on our mass, but also on our distance. For this reason, we are aware that we have much more influence on the people we work with most closely and frequently, and we strive to be exemplary.