Fabricio Bloisi was just 21 years old when he founded Movile as a small start-up in a garage, in the late 1990s. At the time, the company specialized in building text messaging apps and selling them to telecom providers in Brazil.

The company is now a global technology player, serving more than more than 150 million mobile customers worldwide. But Harvard Business School professor emeritus Lynda Applegate says that to scale the company successfully, Bloisi had to evolve his leadership away from day-to-day operations. (Applegate profiled Bloisi in a business case.)

In this episode, you’ll learn how Bloisi’s role as founder and CEO changed as the company grew. Key to this growth was Movile’s executive team, who managed operations so that Bloisi could focus on the company’s strategy.

If you’re trying to balance day-to-day leadership with the bigger picture, this episode is for you.

Key episode topics include: leadership, managing people, entrepreneurship, start-ups, technology, mobile phones, executive team, talent development, organizational culture, scaling, founders.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

· Listen to the original Cold Call episode: The Team Sport of Scaling a Business (2016)

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How One Founder Adapted His Role to Scale His Company

HBR On Leadership