Uruguay’s Stability, Culture & Tech Future with Margarita Mangino | Nearshore Cafe

Brian Samson: Welcome to the Nearshore Cafe podcast, home to the most interesting stories and people doing business in Latin America. Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the Nearshore Cafe podcast, where we bring to life doing business in Latin America. First, I want to give thanks to our sponsor today: that’s Nearshore Direct. Go to NearshoreDirect.com. It’s a great way to find talent, from customer service to designers and all things in between, for growing U.S. companies that are tapping into the LatAm labor market. I am very excited about our guest today, Margarita Mangino. Margarita, so happy to have you! Welcome to the show.

Margarita: Thank you very much for having me! I’m so excited to be here.

Brian Samson: Absolutely. Well, Margarita, as you know, we talk a lot about doing business in Latin America, but first, I want to set the scene a little bit about Uruguay. It’s an interesting country, kind of right between two very big and loud countries. Can you just give us a broad sense, like where it is on the map, about some of the major cities, things like that? And then we’ll get into culture later, but just geography for a second. What is it, what is it like?

Margarita: Okay. Uruguay is a very small country. We are, yeah, three and a half million. It’s like the size of San Diego, for you to imagine, in comparison to the U.S. And we are like a small country just near Argentina and Brazil. I heard yesterday someone telling me, “Uruguay is between Pelé and Maradona,” right? It’s very important. So I laughed a lot about that because it’s kind of very true. But our territory is very plain, so we have more cows than people. That’s another reason.

Brian Samson: More cows than people is an interesting fact!

Margarita: Yeah, yeah. I don’t remember the number exactly, but it is like a lot of cows.

Brian Samson: For sure. Well, speaking of cows, I might just jump right into beef because, for those that don’t know, beef and red meat in Latin America is out of this world. I’ve had the good fortune to have beef in both Uruguay and Argentina. Tell us a little more about the beef in Uruguay, and then maybe how it is similar or different from Argentina.

Margarita: I don’t know. We always have this rivalry; it’s called “River” with Argentina. We’re always fighting about everything, like who invented the city, who has the best beef, where Gardel was born, and you can name it: *mate*, and a lot of other things. They always say that we are their small sibling, right? We don’t like it, and that’s why we fight it back. And I don’t know, we are very well known for our beef, and it’s not that different from Argentina. Maybe there are different names and different ways of doing it. We call what we do the *Asado* barbecue for us, and it’s very ingrained as part of our culture. When the weather is good—not in winter, it’s not so common—but when the weather is good, from September and on, until maybe April, we all gather around the *Asado* on Sundays, for example. And yeah, when we do things between friends, it’s like, “Hey, let’s do an *Asado*,” right? It’s very, very common. But we have really good beef. We export a lot, and it only happened in the last years that we actually started to eat the good beef over here in Uruguay. In the past, it was always eaten abroad, right? But now you can find really good beef in the country too.

Brian Samson: Yeah. So the *Asado*, I’ve experienced *Asado* myself in Argentina, and it’s like an all-day thing with friends and family. Sometimes even the first few hours it’s just lighting the fire and getting that fire right. Can you talk a little more about the *Asado* culture in Uruguay? And also, because maybe there’s some overlap here in Argentina, punctuality, maybe is a little more open, right? If you say, “Hey, we’re having an *Asado* at 2 P.M.,” someone might come at four, right? Or even punctuality in business, can you talk about that a little bit in Uruguay? Is it a little bit more on track, or is it a little more loose and vague? How does that work out?

Margarita: I don’t know. When it’s family, at least, it’s not so open. You have to, at least in my family, you have to let our parents know that you’re going to be late, right? Because if not, everyone is waiting for you to eat, and it’s like, “Hey, we won’t sit at the table and serve the beef before everyone is present.” We might… the thing with the *Asado* is that you start very early, first with the fire, but usually the *asador* is responsible for setting the fire, and he starts early before the people arrive, usually, right? It’s different between friends. Friends, they always have the supporter that goes early to help them, and everything starts with some beers before everyone arrives. But in terms of that, then you have a lot of… you have the beef that is the main course of the *Asado*, but you have a lot of other things that are preferred, like melted cheese that we call *provolone*, or you have *chorizo* and *mollejas* (gizzards). I don’t know, a lot of other things, other parts of the cow, actually, that we… it’s served like, how is the word? *Picadito*. It’s like finger food, like you eat in the moment, and you don’t need to be seated at the table. But usually, the beef is served with salads and other, I don’t know, potatoes or sweet potatoes, or that kind of thing that you can also do on the barbecue. And so, we usually try to wait for all the people to be at the *Asado* to serve the main beef. That’s the thing that makes it long because you start, and sometimes on Sundays, I can only eat at noon, and I can’t eat again at night because there’s so much that it’s like, “Oh my God, I’m so full!” It’s like I have been eating all day long because you’re finger-putting a lot of things in the moment, right? So it’s kind of a holiday.

Brian Samson: Yeah. And speaking of dinner time, is that also traditionally later in the evening?

Margarita: Yes, yes. Full time. 8 P.M., maybe 9 P.M. In summer, it can be even later. Yeah, yeah. In summers, sometimes you can even… it doesn’t matter, you try to stay as long as you can on the beach, and you see the sunset, and just then bath time and everything, and it’s really late to get dinner after that.

Brian Samson: Yeah. Now, the summer season, I’ll just share a little bit, but I’d love to hear your take. Montevideo was a fantastic place to experience the summer and the *Rambla*, and everyone walking along. Can you give a little more background on what that’s like, especially maybe a Sunday afternoon in the summer on the *Rambla*? What does that look like, or feel like?

Margarita: Yeah, I have to tell you, I believe all Montevideans, people from Montevideo, we hate summer here. And we have so many nice beaches more on the east of Uruguay that usually you have people that go to the beach in Montevideo, but most of the people escape from it. The best of Montevideo, actually, is spring or autumn, that you can go walk on the beach, and it’s beautiful. I love that part of the year. I actually, last month, went to walk on the beach, and it was like 30 degrees Fahrenheit, and it was like, “Oh my God, I hated it! I want spring!” And the beaches, it’s actually what is very curious about Montevideo is that Montevideo is not an ocean; it’s actually a river, a wide river, that Buenos Aires is across. And you can see it. It’s not easy to see, it’s huge.

Brian Samson: Yeah, it’s a huge river, yeah.

Margarita: That said, we don’t actually love the experience of the beach here in Montevideo. If you go more to the east of the country, you start to reach the Atlantic Ocean, and you have there are so many nice places. Punta del Este is very well-known around the world, and it’s beautiful. It’s my place to go in summer. Actually, people hate it sometimes in January because it’s very crowded because we have a lot of tourists from Argentina and Brazil that go over there. I love the beaches over there, and also the good thing about it is that we have… usually summers are windy, but because it’s like a point that accesses the water, it depends on the day, on the wind, you have different beaches to go that will be better or not. So usually you go to one beach in the morning because it doesn’t have wind, and then to another one in the evening. So we move with the wind. Yeah, in the summer. But if you go even east, you have places in what we call Rocha, and there’s a really amazing place called Cabo Polonio that is known as a nature reserve. And you can’t access it by car, actually. There are no cars in the place. You have to cross with these big trucks around the dunes, and some of the houses over there don’t even have electricity or hot water. So it’s kind of… I love an experience that we had. We took the kids for a weekend, and the hotel, the bed and breakfast actually, you don’t have like big, big hotels there. There are hostels and bed and breakfasts mostly. And they didn’t have electricity, so it was night, and we were on the deck of our room and watching the stars, and it’s beautiful because you don’t have much light around, so what you see is amazing. And you go to a restaurant, and it’s lit by candles. So it’s an amazing experience, and it’s a really, really great place to go if you go to Uruguay. I would recommend it.

Brian Samson: Absolutely. Thank you. I’d like to share my own personal experience on the *Rambla*. So, this is probably maybe April in the year, but it was like a nice, sunny day in April, so late autumn, right before winter. It was maybe like 70 degrees Fahrenheit, so perfect sun is out, and it felt like the whole city was walking on the *Rambla* on a Sunday afternoon. If they weren’t out at an *Asado* somewhere, they were on the *Rambla*. And what I remember the most, Margarita, was… so, my wife and I were walking on the *Rambla*, beautiful, gorgeous Sunday afternoon, and we saw all these couples taking their stroll, and they had… you know, usually like a guy, he had one arm around his girl, and the other arm was around the *mate*.

Margarita: Yes, I know!

Brian Samson: Yeah, the other arm was around the *mate*. And it was like one couple after the next, after the next, after the next. It was great. It was one of my favorite Uruguay experiences. Is that common, do you think?

Margarita: It is totally common, and it’s beautiful. It’s like everyone’s doing sports or taking a walk around the *Rambla*. And I believe it’s a big difference between Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Buenos Aires was built turning its back to the river; it’s like an inside city. And ours was built around the river. We embrace it. Yeah, and it’s beautiful. Even if I have to cross the city to a meeting or going somewhere, even if the driving is longer, I will go through the *Rambla* because it’s so beautiful to have that view that I will take the longer way just through the *Rambla*. It’s amazing. It’s something that when we lived… also when we lived in Madrid, that is like an inside city too, it’s like most things that we miss the most. Yeah, it was really common. And if the weather is… I’m so envious sometimes that I’m going to meetings or somewhere, and I see people running on the *Rambla* or walking, and I’m like, “Oh my God, I have to do it! I have to go back! Time to go!”

Brian Samson: It was awesome. We talked a lot about the meat as a centerpiece, and some of the other side dishes. What else would you say are very custom to Uruguay, like any other types of foods that you’d recommend?

Margarita: Well, we have something that is called *chivito* that is like, if anyone comes to Uruguay, we will say, “You have to grab a *chivito*.” It’s our… it’s nothing more than a sandwich, actually, but a very well-crafted sandwich. It has a special kind of bread, and the meat is very easy to bite, and it’s not like you will buy the sandwich and start fighting with the beef. It should be very tender, right? And then it has… you have different versions, like a very basic one with lettuce and tomato, but then you have, I don’t know, the stronger one that has bacon and cheese and eggs. I don’t know why, the “Canadian *chivito*.” This fun anecdote about the *chivito*: once I was with a Chilean couple that I was working with, and they came to Montevideo, and I took them to a bar that is very known for their *chivito*. And I said, “Okay, you should order.” And they were like, “Okay,” and she was like, “Hey, are you sure? Would it be that much to order a *chivito*?” And it was like, “No.” And she was struggling about it, and I was like, “Oh my God, what do you think a *chivito* is?” Because *chivito* for us is also an animal that is a small… I could say *cabra*, you know, goat. Yeah. And it was like, “No, it’s not an animal, it’s like a sandwich!” [Laughter] But I would say, it’s one of the things that we will always recommend for people to eat, for sure.

Brian Samson: I love it. I also wanted to ask about maybe like the ethnicities of Uruguay. Is it primarily Spanish, Italian? Are there any other influences there?

Margarita: We are 99% European. So sometimes it’s very boring, like if you have that much diversity like you see in other countries in Latin America and in the U.S. So sometimes when I see other people in photographs and events and everything, I become happy. It’s like, “Oh my God, there are people that come to live in Uruguay,” right? But we are mostly European. We are more Spanish than Italian, and that’s the main reason why our personality is so different from Argentina, especially Buenos Aires. They are much more Italian than we are. That’s why they are louder. It was like, “Oh my God, we are so great!” like playing and everything that it was kind of boring. That changed a lot in the last two decades, I believe. And it wasn’t well seen to stand out, for example, if you have money or you’ve had success in your business, having good cars or having a big house wasn’t well seen. But they take a lot, and it changed a lot also because a lot of Argentinians came to live here after what’s happening over there, and it shook the city and the country on a lot of things, and I think it was a good thing for us.

Brian Samson: Margarita, as you were talking, I could definitely relate. You know, there’s a little bit more of like a subduedness, I think, especially if you come from Argentina over to Uruguay. You’re like, “Oh, okay, it feels like a little more quiet, a little safer, a little more stable, a little more secure, more sane, more polite, more humble.” You know, everything that you were saying. And I wanted to ask, maybe how that even connects to business. You know, sometimes Uruguay, I’ve heard, is called the Switzerland of Latin America, you know, with banking and so forth. Can you maybe talk about business culture and banking, and what Uruguay might be recognized for?

Margarita: Of course. Uruguay is recognized as a stable country in Latin America. And I was actually impressed the other day; I was talking with a guy from Honduras, and he was saying to me that he wanted to come to live in Uruguay. And I was like, “Why?” I was surprised. And he was like, “You are among the countries more stable and beautiful to live in in Latin America.” And it’s true. I live abroad, and I kick back, right? But I have roots with my family and friends, and we are very European in that sense. For us, it’s very important, the community around us, and the support, and having all the family and friends around us. But mostly what it is, we are like a country that is very stable in a lot of things. In terms of government, it doesn’t matter if we change the… the government, it doesn’t change us. And we are very democratic. If the people voted for it, we will be fine about it. So, yeah, it’s really nice to see that when you have the comparison with a lot of other countries that are living other realities. We are really stable also on the economic side. And we were known for being the first country for women to vote in Latin America, so we’re really advanced on a lot of social politics. And that’s why we became known as the Switzerland of Latin America. At some point, we started to lose that differentiator. And one of the good things that I believe, in the last two decades, the government started to invest in a lot of other things that have made us advanced and being well-seen as a country. For example, in terms of… we have a lot of foreign investors coming over from Finland, the U.S., a lot of big companies that are investing in Uruguay and open their operations here. And that became like a first-class business center in Latin America. We have, for example, exceptional connectivity and internet penetration. 85% of our households have fixed broadband access, and for example, 75% of which have fiber optics. So it’s very spread, if you compare it to other countries. Also, we have, for example, 100% of our country’s public schools have connectivity too. And we are the only country in the world that provides free laptops to all public and secondary students.

Brian Samson: Oh wow, I didn’t know that!

Margarita: We have distributed more than half a million free laptops to its students and teachers in five years, for example. It’s called a program called “One Laptop Per Child,” and it was aimed to bridge the difference, the digital division that we had in terms of the population that has less income, right? We are also one of the leading countries in terms of wind energy production, among with Denmark, Ireland, and Germany, for example. And 90% of electricity is now generated from renewable sources.

Brian Samson: That’s incredible. Wow, that’s really, really, really world-leading statistics there.

Margarita: Yeah. We were recognized in the sustainable travel index, and we were among the 21st positions in the ranking. The other 19 countries were all European.