The end of a chapter

Today is my last day at UBS. It has been an incredible journey! And I hope to keep in touch with you and the many friends and incredible professionals I met at UBS and because of UBS.

I joined UBS in October 2009 as the global credit crisis was coming to an end. What attracted me to the bank was the opportunity to join a new team to rebuild the previously dominant #1 UBS Latam Research Franchise. As an analyst, I was going to cover a much broader space than I covered in my previous firm as I was hired to cover the Latam Consumer (Food & Beverage + Retail) and Healthcare. I was excited with the opportunity but wondering if I was prepared for that bigger role. My first son was due one month later, my wife was living in the great state of Texas, and I was uncertain if I could manage that professional change, the new baby and the NYC-San Antonio commute all at the same time. What facilitated the decision was that the project was great and the people I was partnering with were top notch (Damian Fraser, Gordon Lee, Faustino Cortina, Lily Yang, Bernardo Fraga, Rafael DeLa Fuente, Tomas Lajous, Marimar Torreblanca and Justin Wensek).

In retrospect, I can only say that joining UBS was one of the best decisions I have made in my career so far. The learning opportunity was immense. I understand the Latam Consumer & Healthcare space a lot more than before. I was exposed to the largest and most innovative companies and most brilliant managers in the region, visited different places and countries and enjoyed all the sell-side executive platinum airline status in 3 airlines. Results appeared as well. From 2014 to 2018, when I also had the opportunity to manage the Latam Research team, we moved from nowhere in the Institutional Investor survey to #4. My Retail franchise flourished. I interacted with the UBS Evidence Lab team helping to build some of the first data assets. Those were exciting years for me.

There is an end to everything, to good things as well. I knew when that happened to me, but it took me a while to find my next exciting project. In the meantime, I focused on what I do best, which is to analyze companies and find attractive investment opportunities. My passion for retail / ecommerce and care for clients made everything relatively easy and fun again.

The time has come as I found another great team to build a new story with. And my relationship with UBS will evolve as I hope to become a profitable client of the bank.

 I cannot end this farewell note without thanking the many many people I interacted with.

 First, I want to thank all the great people I was able to hire, develop, partner and celebrate victories with. Currently, they are successful professionals distributed all over the business world: Flavio Barcala, Alfonso Martinez, Alejandra Obregon, Patricio Garcia, Thais Pinho, Murilo Andrade, Thais Dias, Guilherme Haguiara, Guilherme Muller, Bianca Faim, Marianne Tonnelo, Anderson Lee, and Marco Nardini. And in the last year, my special thanks goes to Gabriela Katayama, Rodrigo Alcantara and Gabriel Pucci. Our work is intense and there is no word to describe what it has been like in the last year. I could not do all I did in the last 11.5 years without your help. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

 My key partners at Sales that helped me immensely: Bernardo Fraga, Marcia Sadzevicius, Justin Wensek, Majia, Lucia "Juno" Casanova, Jimena Soto, Javier Diaz, Marlene Schutz, Pilar Rocafort, Rob Evans, Dutch, Mario Perez, and Ariane Gil and Annie Burke(whom I never met with yet). The extraordinary Renee Palata that helped me to connect with the corporate world. Barbara Ma and Natalia Albino for helping me in keeping things organized, at least I always thought they were. Our traders with the local color (Cris Soares, Corsa, Pedro, and Fabio Tegoshi) The SA team that blocked so many of our creative titles while keeping me out of trouble. The product management team: Joe Parkhill, Peter, Ken, and Alex. My analyst friends that helped me in some many thematic reports: Rogerio, Thiago, Mariana, Luiz, Leo, Vinicius, Olavo, Cadu, Betinho, Kaio, Fabio Tobby Ramos, Philip Finch, Andreas Bokk, Giuliano, Reif, Michael Lasser, Michael Carden, Sreedhar, Alex Steiger, Eric Sheridan, Chris Grundberg, Jason DeRise, Fred De Mariz, Jerry Liu, Navin Killa, Michal Potyra, Ulyana Levanlskaya, John Kim, Christine Peng, and Melissa. And so many other analysts that left UBS over the years. The UBS Evidence Lab team and Juan Luis Perez / Barry / Jose Maria / Marco S. Rafa de LaFuente who is the last man standing from the Class of 2009 and a fantastic economist to work with. The NY best in class: Jane Light, Marc Altieri, Ling Zhang, Andrea Blackmer, Diana E. Ricardo Caetano and Renata Monguzzi for teaching me how to interact with the media. Alex Roth, Erika Yokota and Arianna Prasio for the many many conversations. And the leaders of our Brazilian Office: Sylvia Coutinho, Daniel Barros and Daniel Bassan.

Thank you to all of you. Thank you to many special clients and to many great memories. See you soon

Abracos do

 Gustavo