He always dresses in black and seems reflective and calm. But he soon confesses that he lives in a constant tension in order to thrive. And that’s because we live in these “Turbulent Teens”, he explains, an expression coined by The Future Laboratory, a British consultancy, as a characterization of the current decade. Despite the turbulence, Diego Gronda (Buenos Aires, 1968) is now much more well-off than in 2005, when he first landed in Madrid. Gronda’s story really shows how crisis equals opportunity.
No nations, but corporations
Gronda and I met on a Friday morning previous to Easter at Mama Framboise, a vibrant coffee place located on Fernando VI with a French flavor and a stylish interior design. In a musical Argentinean accent, he started off the conversation by saying that he does not believe in nations anymore. “In the XXI century, corporations are the new nations,” he asserted.
Of course, I was in disagreement. I shared with him the reasons that prompted me to create Bright Spain. To me nations condition our lives much more than corporations. We can always switch to the competition for a product or service, but we cannot give up our nationality. Or at least not that easily. But Gronda trumped my argument by saying that he once rejected the US citizenship and that he doesn’t think he will soon return to his home town Argentina.
As many Argentineans, Gronda feels betrayed by the country’s political class and by the pervasive lack of values. “Many Spaniards tell me that things are starting to look the same here in Spain, but they have no idea how wide the gap is between one situation and the other,” he says in a convincing tone. “I wish I could buy a flight ticket to all Spaniards so that they could spend one week in Argentina and experience themselves how bad things can go.” Gronda’s parents currently live in Buenos Aires and they are happy to have their son live in Spain.
Family ties, the true roots
Despite his love for his Argentinean family, Gronda chose Spain when he and his Spanish wife Elena started to think about moving out of New York City in 2005. Until that point in time, the couple felt like every other enthusiastic newyorker: only NYC exists and surrounding it, the rest of the world. But George W. Bush was re-elected again in 2004 and Elena gave birth to twins that same year. “Seeing how our taxes were funding an unfair war became a matter of unease,” he explained. “But the real trigger that made us move out of NYC’s SoHo was the strong conviction that our children needed to grow up close to their broader families.” His Spanish adventurous wife chose Buenos Aires and Gronda felt that it should be Madrid instead.
At the time Gronda was working at the Rockwell Group, an internationally renowned, award-winning architecture and design practice based in New York. When Gronda announced the practice’s founder and president, David Rockwell, that he was moving to Madrid for personal reasons, the American architect could not believe him. But after his initial reaction and being a man of vision, he offered Gronda the possibility of partnering with him to open what has now become Rockwell Group Europe. Gronda is at the helm as Creative Director.
“Many people told me that I was being opportunistic because I was launching the practice in Spain’s happy times,” Gronda remembered. “But I hadn’t even analyzed the Spanish situation. In fact, if I had known how difficult it would be to open a new business in happy Madrid I wouldn’t have done it.”
Abundance’s vicious side effects
In 2005, when liquidity and exuberance was abundant in Madrid, Gronda had real troubles establishing his office. “The architects I interviewed were more interested in their rights, their vacation and their salaries than in the company they would end up working for,” he recalled. “When I called Telefonica and asked that I needed seven phone lines for the next day, I only heard a loud guffaw on the other side of the line.”
A crucial change of attitude
Contrary to his initial and dark expectations, Rockwell Group Europe is now growing every day. The practice employs 15 very talented designers and has created a network of five external providers, a phenomenon Gronda likes to call, “in-house outsourcing”. Initially, the outsourced work was carried out by firms in India and China, which are the usual global outsourcers. But as the crisis deepened in Spain, Gronda perceived a change in attitude among the Spanish workers: they were willing to work harder and be more competitive internationally. So he started reversing the trend with more benefits than pitfalls. The Spaniards were better and more loyal than the Indians, and most importantly for him: he felt good by committing to job-creation in Europe’s battered economy. “I call this the ultimate win-win situation,” he explained. “We work with a number of independent companies, which offer us their talent and time while they get an opportunity to stay in business and learn how to work abroad.”
This change in attitude is the hope for many Spaniards and Gronda is optimistic:
“Whenever the Spaniards cease to be mad at the world and stop protesting, whenever they reach the conclusion that they need to take charge of their lives, whenever they stop thinking that the state should bail them out, when that time comes, they will standout.”
He is aware that it is not an easy task, but he has already seen the story of decay in his homeland Argentina and clearly speaks from experience. “We all hate to lose our quality of life and comfort,” he sadly acknowledged. “But either we assume the new global standards or we end up closing our borders like Venezuela or Argentina.”
Don’t fall in love with yourself, open up to the world instead
Gronda knows well how to do business with the Asian world. He spent close to 20 years of his career developing relationships in various Asian and Middle Eastern countries, which is the reason why the opening of the Rockwell Group in Shanghai was led by the Group’s European office. For him, the key is to understand different mindsets and adjust to what the client you’ve got in front demands. “The Spanish architect stands out internationally for its skills and talent, but in many cases he doesn’t know how to sell his ideas to the client,” he claimed. There seems to be a communication barrier there, “probably because they are in love with their projects,” he ventured to say. At this point he said something that could be applied to the whole European landscape. “You cannot fall in love with yourself,” his Persian mentor once told Gronda. “If you fall in love with your work you stop growing.” And he finished with a definite quote:
“Europe needs to wake up from its love affair and compete!”
