São Paulo – Brazilian talent curator and hiring company has worked in 32 countries and planst to start operating in the Arab countries in late 2023 or early 2024. The company will promote talents for companies hiring in the United Arab Emirates.
“Interest in working in the UAE emerged in 2020 after I visited the country for leisure. I returned from the trip a week before the pandemic hit, quite interested in the country. As we had the idea of expanding the brand from the beginning, until we reached the UAE, it was a matter of analyzing the market,” said Karina Rehavia (pictured above), founder & CEO of Ollo.
“Like Singapore, in the UAE, we see labor markets very used to working with people from abroad, and I noticed 90% of the workforce there is foreign. It is a market already quite mature in terms of receiving other nationalities. As our platform is global, we understand it is a market well prepared for the offer we have.”
For now, the CEO’s plans concerning Arab nations are focused solely on the UAE. Due to her vast experience in doing business with people from different cultures, Rehavia is not much concerned about negotiating with Arab companies.
Unlike some national companies established to serve Brazil first, then reach other nations, Ollo was conceived to be international. Soon after its launch, it received registrations from companies and workers from the United States and Brazil. Then it reached Europe, Asia, and Africa. The latest countries served by Ollo were Japan, Indonesia, India, Taiwan, Germany, Portugal, and Singapore.
More than an HR company, it generates matches between professionals in design, advertising, communication, and marketing with different organizations. After going through a selection process, professionals become available to work both in fixed positions or as freelancers. Ollo’s revenue comes from paying companies to find the ideal professionals.
Virtually present in the countries, the owner of Ollo saw her business expand even more when BPool, a startup connecting large corporations, bought a stake in the company. As a result, this integration made it possible to work face-to-face through BPool offices with companies in Chile, Argentina, Mexico, the USA, and Colombia.
Rehavia said Ollo manages a curatorship process for companies until it finds the professional they seek. “We created a platform to receive customer demands, which seeks not only freelance professionals but also long-term positions, and based on that, we carry out the curatorship. With that, we created a safe shortcut using our expertise to deliver ideal matches to the client,” said Rehavia.
Company idea and expansion
The idea of creating the company came in 2018 after Rehavia lived in New York for two years. The businesswoman aimed to expand the Live agency, currently also one of Ollo’s partners. In addition to having both companies as partners (BPool and Live), Rehavia is a partner of lawyer Renato Saraiva.
“While there, I became very intrigued by how companies and professionals were looking for new ways of collaborating and working. And I saw in that style of work a possible future in the way Brazilians work. In 2019, the Ollo project was started,” added the CEO & founder.
Established in May 2020 by Rehavia, the company grew when most people needed to work from home. “We thought we would have to inform companies before they accepted employees could work from home. But I knew it was possible. The pandemic, with mandatory distancing, ended up being a driving opportunity, which made our company grow quickly.”
Rehavia’s life path motivated the desire to internationalize the company from the beginning. Daughter of immigrants, while still in school, the businesswoman did an exchange program. She majored in Social Communication in the United States and stayed in North America for eight years. Rehavia also took an Economics course in the Czech Republic and lived for two years in Shanghai, China, to work and study.
“When I returned to Brazil, I started working in the communications area and built a career in project leadership and operations leadership in communication agencies. Despite not working directly with the human resources area, I always hired many independent professionals and worked as one during a phase of my life,” recalled Rehavia.
Special report by Rebecca Vettore for ANBA.
Translated by Elúsio Brasileiro
