Esteban Carril built up his knowledge of the Latin American market place when managing EMC’s Shared Services strategy across the region. Now at Chazey, he often remembers his initial resistance when, as Finance Director at 3Com, Shared Services was being pitched to him as a solution.

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Meet Our Practitioners - A Q&A Session with
Esteban Carril Managing Director Latin America
© Chazey Partners Inc. 2013
“I think the most significant
milestone of my career was
the “eureka” moment when
I understood what shared
services could actually do to
transform a business...”

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2 | Meet Our Practitioners - Chazey Partners - December 2013
Q: What was your first job and how did you move on from there?
I joined PWC’s BPO operation in the mid-nineties. That’s really where I cut my teeth on
business services delivery, from a provider’s perspective. My next job was at 3Com, a
networking company based in Silicon Valley now owned by HP, where I was part of
a major shared services and SAP transformation project. As part of that role, I led the
shared services implementation for Latin America, covering nine countries. After 3Com,
I moved to EMC, the Boston-based storage company, in the role of Shared Services
Director, again implementing shared services across Latin America.
Three years ago I took up an exciting offer to join Chazey Partners, with responsibility
for all of Latin America. We have 20 consultants in our region, and I spend a lot of my
time, as you can imagine, crisscrossing the continent by plane. Most of the work at the
moment is in Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, but we are increasingly seeing interest from
other regions.
Q: Where do you live?
I am Argentinian originally, and studied here as well as in the US. Having traveled
all over the world through work, I moved back to near Buenos Aires when I joined
Chazey. I am currently considering moving to Brazil. Brazil is where a lot of shared
services activities are currently taking place, so it would be interesting to be based
there, but more importantly, it’s where my wife is from. So that would be the deciding
factor..
Esteban Carril
Managing Director, Latin America
Chazey Partners
estebancarril@chazeypartners.com
+ 54 (911) 30 85 5140
Esteban is an executive with more than 16 years of Finance, Shared Ser-
vices and Operations management experience in different multinational
companies.
Prior to joining Chazey, he was the Latin America Shared Service Director for Latin America at EMC
Corporation where he was responsible for establishing and optimizing a multi task shared service center
across the whole region. Prior to EMC, he was the Latin Shared Service Director for 3Com where he led the
roll out of SAP in 8 Latin American countries while also responsible of the business transformation into a
Shared Service model.
Esteban is a CPA graduated in Universidad de Buenos Aires and have an executive MBA degree with
honours from IAE, Universidad Austral. He also attended management and leadership courses at Wharton
School and Babson College. Esteban is fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

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3 | Meet Our Practitioners - Chazey Partners - December 2013
I think the most significant milestone of my career was the“eureka”moment when I
understood what shared services could actually do to transform a business. When I first
encountered the model, I was Finance Director at 3Com. The concept was being pitched to
me by my boss at that time, who was pushing hard for shared services. I was skeptical about
the idea and about the benefits, going through the common pushback motions that business
units tend to go through. I was one of a number of finance directors around the table, but
certainly the most vocal in terms of questioning“why?”I asked so many critical questions, in
fact, that my boss decided I was the guy for the job, and he asked me to lead the subsequent
implementation. Going over to the other side, that was really a significant moment in my
career. I suddenly understood what shared services could do, how we could leverage ERP
systems, etc, and I’ve never looked back.
Incidentally, that boss was Phil Searle, founder of Chazey, whom I work with today.
Another defining experience was seeing the shared services implementation at EMC came to
fruition. We’d started with nothing – no controls, no clearly defined processes, and a pretty
substandard operation. It was hugely satisfying to witness the transformation, through
process optimization and shared services rollout. Even though I’m not with EMC any more, I’m
still proud of what we achieved, starting from zero.
Q: What would you consider as a key milestone in your career?
There are lots of great things about Brazil. The warm weather, the nature, the beautiful beaches,
the food, the national drink (caipirinha), the Carnival, the passion for soccer, the amazing mix
of European/South American/African/Asian cultures and much more. But maybe the most
important reason why I like Brazil is for the people. In happiness and optimism, Brazilians are
unbeatable. People are very friendly and there are fewer barriers to break through before
becoming a friend. Everywhere you go, you are greeted with a genuine smile and they are
even more curious to get to know you when you are a foreigner. Regardless of the situation,
Brazilians are always willing to do what they can to help others, even when they don’t have
much to give.
Q: What do you like the best about Brazil?

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What I like about being a consultant is also what frustrates me about being a
consultant. Because I have had experience across a number of different organizations
I can often see the broader reach of a given shared services transformation. However,
often the client just wants to focus on one aspect, or they don’t have the support at the
time to broaden the reach of the implementation – even though we can make a brilliant
case for doing so. Even when we have all the stakeholders around a table, it’s not always
easy to take them back a step so that they can see the bigger picture.
The other thing I find difficult is, having introduced the plan and aided with
implementation, to step away. That’s always a hard break for me. I’d like to stay on, and
take the job further.
Q: You’ve held BPO roles as well as in-house
Shared Services roles. What do you like
about being a consultant?
I don’t really follow one blog as such, though I do track SSON’s
website and tend to rely on that as a knowledge repository. I also use
the APQC quite a bit as a productivity resource.
I need to stay on top of all relevant regional news, as I cover such
a large region, so I read a number of Latin American newspapers
online every morning. Other than that, I use LinkedIn’s Latin
American groups for networking. There are also a couple of CFO
groups that I belong to.
Q: Do you follow a regular blog or newspaper?
Where do you get your market data?
There’s no single moment I remember, luckily, but part of the deal when you
move to consulting is that not all of your great ideas are taken up! One of the
things I always come up against is that people still want to focus on cost and
often don’t understand that there are so many other benefits from a shared
services model. Benefits like better control, a more balanced workload, filling in
from different countries, … the whole spectrum of transformation.
Often, when we’ve had conversations with all the stakeholders at a client
company, it’s hard to realize that they’re not buying into the bigger picture, that
all they want to talk about is the cost saving. Today there’s so much more that we
can do by controlling processes end to end, for example. It’s easy to get lost in
the cost analysis.
Q: What were some of the disappointments you’ve experienced?

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Q: Which mentors have
had a big impact on your
career?
That’s a great question. In truth, I think I have learned from every
manager I’ve worked with, but my first one at 3Com, Ana Yacot,
stands out because she really trained me in management and in
leadership. I had joined her team as a financial analyst, and Ana’s
mentoring definitely set me on track for the career I subsequently
had.
The other person who has had an enormous influence on my
career is Phil Searle. He was my boss at 3Com (the one I questioned
so skeptically at the time) and I was really delighted to join him,
three years ago, as a Partner at Chazey, which he founded in 2006.
I’ve learned an incredible amount from Phil about consulting
and I am very thankful with him for trusting in my potential for
becoming a consultant. When you’ve come up through functional
roles, consulting does not always follow as a natural progression.
As I mentioned earlier, I used to running things, managing
implementations, and having the final word. Now, as a consultant,
you have to learn to step aside. It’s not your shared services, it’s
someone else’s, and so you really need to focus on offering wise
counsel and advising on appropriate actions.
Q: When you have your first exploratory talks
with a potential client, what signs do you look
for? What are the telltale signs that you might
be on the brink of a great opportunity?
In the broadest sense, it’s always a good sign if the customer is willing to work with
you. As simple as that sounds, it’s far from common. So, when I see a commitment
from the other side I know that we’re already 50% of the way there. You want to see
excitement from the customer about the project, and you want to know that they’ve
got sponsorship in-house. To answer this in a different way, I see danger lights flashing
when there are very few stakeholders at those initial meetings, or when I get a sense
that there’s no strong leadership, or mandate. Whether you are operating in-house or
as a consultant, we all know that if there’s no strong mandate from the start, there’s a
challenging journey ahead…

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ABOUT CHAZEY PARTNERS
Chazey Partners is a professional management advisory business that is committed to adding
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Learn more about us at www.ChazeyPartners.com.
More Q&A sessions available at Chazey Partners’ website
www.chazeypartners.com/resources
Phil Searle, CEO & Founder
Chazey Partners
+1 408 402 3008
philsearle@chazeypartners.com
David O’Sullivan, Co-Founder & Partner
Chazey Partners
+353 (0) 86 384 8573
davidosullivan@chazeypartners.com
Grant Farrell, Managing Director, United States
Chazey Partners
+1 408 767 1285
grantfarrell@chazeypartners.com
Esteban Carril, Managing Director, Latin America
Chazey Partners
+54 (911) 3085 5140
estebancarril@chazeypartners.com
Chas Moore, Managing Director, Canada
Chazey Partners
+1 855 692 6229, Ext. 201
chasmoore@chazeypartners.com
Anirvan Sen, Managing Director, Asia, Middle East and Africa
Chazey Partners
+31 649133170 / +65 85143766 / +971 552807159
anirvansen@chazeypartners.com
Janey Jux, Head of Public Sector Practice, EMEA
Chazey Partners
+ 44 (0) 800 644 0649
janeyjux@chazeypartners.com
Christina Exarchou, Head of HR Practice, EMEA
Chazey Partners
+30 6944 525622
christinaexarchou@chazeypartners.com
Meet Our Practitioners:
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