What is Beka Finance doing in ESG matters these days?
Beka Finance has a long-standing history in all matters related to ESG. From years ago, where three NGOs were started by personal initiatives within the company, we launched the first Social Impact Fund registered under the Spanish regulator in Spain called Vivergi.
More recently, one of the last funds that we've launched is called Beka & Bolschare Iberian Agribusiness Fund. This is a fund that attempts to combat the effects of climate change by investing in sustainable agriculture, developing a rural presence in areas of Spain and other areas of Iberia that are becoming forgotten within the traditional business models.
Another thing that is recent within our activity is to develop more possibilities for our clients to engage in philanthropy. In this sense, our vision is to become a hub in which we unite the third sector, the NGOs, as well as the companies that we invest in, our clients, and finally, companies that have a very strong social impact within their activity.
What it is like to work at Beka Finance in an environment of such exponential growth?
It's funny because there's still that sensation of a family, but I can't say that it's the same as the beginning. We are a lot of people now. And what that brings right now as a difference is a greater sense of diversity. We have people from all sorts of nationalities, walks of life, different interests... And I think the opportunity this brings right now is the possibility to really achieve things, if one is personally driven through a very strong sense of meritocracy. Everyone that has an idea that's worth sort of developing is very much foster to develop that idea within their day to day and that has sprung up many new opportunities that were maybe less possible before when we were a smaller team.
How do you maintain balance nowadays?
Well, it's not easy because we are really working to our maximum potential. Everyone is giving everything that they can. There's so much more to do. So, the only thing that we can actually achieve is by training and this is what we are doing. We have a session that occurs every two weeks and all employees can join in a voluntary way to train our minds and our emotions so that we are able to handle all of this workload as well as just the anxiety that can sometimes be produced through uncertainty.
We're living in very uncertain times and to be able to be extremely resilient and creative and at the same time separate the wheat from the chaff and see what are the real tendencies going on in the markets, beyond all of the noise, we believe that this is essential for us. In the end, this gives us something that's even more important possibly, which is it allows us to really enjoy more coming day to day to do our jobs, which is the reason why we've all united to create this very heterogeneous family.
