Marcelo Lu, President, BASF Canada

Goldy Hyder:

Welcome to Speaking of Business, conversations with Canadian innovators, entrepreneurs and business leaders. I’m Goldy Hyder, President and CEO of the Business Council of Canada. Today I’m speaking with Marcelo Lu, President of BASF Canada. Marcelo grew up in Brazil, has roots in China, was educated in the United States, and established his career in Europe and Asia. Today, he leads the Canadian operations of the world’s largest chemical producer. He brings a truly international perspective to his role at BASF Canada, but as you’ll hear, he has also developed a strong personal connection to this country, and he has some equally strong opinions about Canada’s place and potential in the global economy. Enjoy our conversation.

Marcelo, thank you so much for doing this today.

Marcelo Lu:

No, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.

Goldy Hyder:

Now you’ve got a really interesting story. Why don’t we just start talking a little bit about how did you get here to Canada?

Marcelo Lu:

I’m originally from Brazil, I was born there. It was during a time where there was a lot of kidnappings in Brazil, so the family decided to move. We always watched Disney cartoons, so we always wanted to go to Disney and we did a big family trip when I was 12 and we went to Disney and after a while I started saying, “Okay, I have to go back to school.” And I started calling my friends and they said, “Yeah, we’re going to start next week.” And I said, “Mom, I should be going,” she said, “No, no, no. Your school starts in three weeks and you get one of those yellow buses that you’ve seen around here.” And I said, “But how is that?” And it was basically their way of communicating to us that we were moving to the US. It was a bit of a okay, but it got me excited, so I didn’t take it as, oh, what are you doing to me?

Goldy Hyder:

You didn’t want to go back.

Marcelo Lu:

I did, I had all my friends there, but I took it as adventure. I like this, I like change.

Goldy Hyder:

But you’re 12 years old, you’re in a new place. I’m assuming you didn’t have the best English at the time?

Marcelo Lu:

No. No English.

Goldy Hyder:

No English.

Marcelo Lu:

No English at the time, yeah.

Goldy Hyder:

And you were suddenly taken away from your friends, your other family. How did you manage that?

Marcelo Lu:

Frankly, I look back and I really don’t know. What I can say is I’m very curious. So the curiosity of saying, “Okay, I am now in the US, maybe I just take advantage of it.” And I just dove into the studies, and what was very funny to me was after a year and a half in the US, I was doing the tutoring for English dictation so I could memorize very well the words.

Goldy Hyder:

Quick study.

Marcelo Lu:

So I knew how to spell them. So I was helping the teacher do that. And math was something that I excelled very quickly because in Brazil, at least in the earlier years, we are much more advanced, so at least at that time than in the US. So, I was kind of the star of the class, even though I didn’t understand anything, I could see all the formulas and do something with it, that was an interesting part of it.

Goldy Hyder:

So take us from there, you’re in the United States, you’re 12 years old, you go through school, I assume you finish your schooling in the US?

Marcelo Lu:

Yeah, I went all the way up to high school and then the decision came for university. My father was very adamant that I had to go to University of Chicago because all big economists in Brazil go to University of Chicago. But I had something about international studies and also global affairs, so I researched a little bit and I ended up choosing Georgetown University and I got in, in the School of Foreign Service. So I went there and that’s where my professional life really started. I did what I think kids do at this age when they don’t know what they’re doing, they just sent CVs everywhere. And one of the places was the World Bank, and I got a call from a lady, Australian accent, saying, “Oh, I’m calling from the World Bank for a regarding internship,” I said, “Oh, stop.”

Actually, it’s an interesting story because that morning in breakfast, I remember people were making fun of one another because they didn’t get an internship. And I said, “Yeah, I haven’t gotten it, but eventually I’ll deal with it.” And then this call comes and I thought it was a prank.

Goldy Hyder:

It was a prank.

Marcelo Lu:

And it wasn’t, and I hang up and I said, “Oh, whoever this is, stop messing with me.” And she called back again and she said, “Are you sure you don’t want an internship?” I said, “Okay, this may be-”

Goldy Hyder:

It’s a good thing she was persistent.

Marcelo Lu:

Yeah, she was. And at that time we also had, it was a very young team for the Doing Business report, which at that time was just starting, but after a while really she saw the way I was able to get some of the data that we needed to do the report and they gave me a staff position, which I think at that time I was the youngest staff member to enter the World Bank at the age of 21.

Goldy Hyder:

It’s pretty intimidating. I’ve been to the World Bank and it’s an intimidating place even if you’re an older person, let alone 21, so it says a lot about you.

Marcelo Lu:

Yeah, it is an intimidating place. And a year after that I went to East Timor as my first mission and I went alone. They sent me alone because East Timor is an old Portuguese colony.

Goldy Hyder:

So you had the language?

Marcelo Lu:

So I had the language, although a lot of them didn’t speak it. Fascinating country at that time, they had one traffic light in the whole country, one traffic light.

Goldy Hyder:

People are there?

Marcelo Lu:

Yeah, it still had all blue helmets there. The country was born in 2001. So you can imagine in 2003 you still had all that situation going there. But I remember walking into the finance minister’s office and he said, “Who else is coming with you?”

Goldy Hyder:

Right. Where’s your boss?

Marcelo Lu:

I said, “Sorry, I’m it, and maybe we can have a discussion.” And that is the story of my life. Every room I enter until now, and now I’m getting to the 40s, so.

Goldy Hyder:

Well, it doesn’t show.

Marcelo Lu:

So the age is starting to catch up, but the story of my life has always been, who else is with you, where’s your boss? Kind of thing.

Goldy Hyder:

That experience must shape the way you lead a diverse group of people, being a minority, that must affect the way in which you go about and build culture in your organization. Talk to me a little bit about that.

Marcelo Lu:

Yeah, it’s funny, I really never thought of myself as a minority until I entered the corporate world, and at the World Bank we had 18 people in the team and 18 different nationalities. So I never thought of myself as a minority. My father is Chinese, my mom is Brazilian. So when I entered the corporate world, especially BSF, it’s the only corporate that I ever been after the World Bank, we started talking about diversity and minorities, diversity of thought and I said, “Wow, I never really realized this.” And back to your point of how to lead diverse teams, I really had to step back and think, okay, maybe I am assuming things because I’ve seen so many different things and some of the colleagues that may have not had the opportunity to travel or to work in other countries, there’s also diversity in their thoughts for being one of the locals.

Goldy Hyder:

That must have situated you well for your stint here in Canada, obviously a real champion of multiculturalism. What’s your sense of how we are doing in that area versus other countries that you’ve seen?

Marcelo Lu:

My experience in Canada is a lot of people like to travel abroad, but there are thoughts on how to work on what is happening in the world on the work environment, competitiveness, on speed of doing things and openness to take risk, that is something that I feel sometimes Canada could have a bit more or is a bit passive, with this immigration influx with people coming from abroad, they have this experience.

Goldy Hyder:

Yeah, it’s hunger. I think it’s called hunger.

Marcelo Lu:

Yeah. It starts seeping into the population. These people are coming so hungry and they do so much and they have so much energy. I have to also do that. And that is I think where there is huge value in this being so open, an open society that Canada is.

Goldy Hyder:

Part of the challenge of being Canadian many say, is we are heaven on earth in so many ways. We tend to become somewhat comfortable and complacent. So your point is is that immigrants and others are changing that culture. What does it mean though at a time in which employers are particularly, when I talk to them, are focused on talent, trying to find the skills? Do you see a scenario now where we’re just going to have to continue to grow our immigrant population because of the need for labor? Or how is your company handling the skilled labor shortage, which I hear about right across the country?

Marcelo Lu:

We almost need to step back three or four steps on education. I am of the opinion that not only Canada, but many countries are not focusing on education enough to prepare the next generation on what there is to come.

Goldy Hyder:

I mean, our system is really based around what the world was like in the 1900s and 1930s and the 1940s, but not where we are now.

Marcelo Lu:

By the way, I have two Canadians at home. We came as a couple and we are now a family of four. So I always think of my kids future and I think about how is their education going to be?

And I have great debates this at home and with the family. I don’t think that my daughter and my son will go to the university the way that I did. I’m not even sure that the business case for university degree is there on the way the universities are today. I think there is a lot more into co-op or this integration of work and study.

Goldy Hyder:

[inaudible 00:10:00] essentially.

Marcelo Lu:

Exactly. I think that’s a great part of the education system in Canada and I will not touch it. I think this integration of work and study so that students are able to have an experience at work and then go to the academic again and make sense of it all. I think that’s very, very powerful.

Goldy Hyder:

And do you think employers should be leading that charge or educators?

Marcelo Lu:

Frankly, I think the employers should have a big hand in that and we are committed in BSF. We are committed to taking quite a load, I think we take up to 80 interns or co-ops per year to be able to train in the STEM side of things in science and technology. But I see less and less interest in science and technology, going back to that, than before. Most of the education is more into the IT side of things now, which is great, but that is part of the service industry that will service eventually manufacturing or science. You’re not able to have an IT sector without a sector to be able to take all the data and service in the sector. So I still see too much leaning on the sexy side of it and not enough on the science and technology, which I think is really where innovation comes from. You are able to innovate on the service side of it, but you really need the goods, the GDP, let’s say power.

Goldy Hyder:

One of the things you used to do at the World Bank was the Doing Business report talking about countries and cities in which it is easy to do business and ranking them. Talk to me a little bit about your perception of Canada today in terms of that in the context of what we’ve just been discussing, which is how do we become a modern society? How do we innovate? How do we look at the way in which we educate? How do we develop the skills? Where do you think Canada is today based on what you’ve seen already from your World Bank experience?

Marcelo Lu:

So this Doing Business report started with five very basic indicators. How long does it take, and what are the steps, and what money you need to invest to start a business, so very simple, how easy it is to buy property, get credit, the ease of labor hire and fire workers, and there’s one more, oh, how easy it is to trade. And now it has developed into something much bigger, but back in 2003, those are the main five that we looked at.

And Canada at that time I remember was one of the top ones, and I think it came out in the Deloitte competitiveness report that from that ranking it went from top five down to 22nd place, which is very interesting. And I think if you start going deeper into the indicators, it really tells you something. So I’ll give another example just to go extreme and then I come back to Canada. One of the cases that we looked at was Nigeria, how long does it take for you to export something? And it took a business to export 380 days on paper if you were to follow everything and you had to get 27 stamps before your goods got out of the port in Nigeria.

Now think about that, if I am a business, do I really want to export anything taking 380 days, so longer than a year for me to do it, and 28 stamps. So what ends up happening, if I’m a business there to survive, I either close my shop or I do it illegally or I pay bribes because each step of the way it is an opportunity for bribe stalker. Now in Canada is a bit different, I think one of the things that really I think may have affected their ranking is the federal oversight in regulations, but then also comes the provincial ones.

Goldy Hyder:

Right, so duplication?

Marcelo Lu:

And really regulation on top of regulation.

Goldy Hyder:

Does over regulation lead to greater protection for people.

Marcelo Lu:

Well let me put it this way, are you really protecting somebody if they’re eventually out of the job? And this is what we are really getting at. I was recently in an event for the Chemistry Industry Association, which I also chair, and there it is amazing how many regulations, environmental regulations you have on top of other environmental regulations. Ones that start at the federal level and then it goes down to the provincial level. I also believe for the Doing Business report, there is an opportunity to have it done on a provincial, on a city level. I would argue if you do that in Canada as well, you’ll be able to see very big differences between provinces and how it is to get a construction permit is very different.

Goldy Hyder:

Do you think we’re one country?

Marcelo Lu:

I think you are one country with several personalities.

Goldy Hyder:

That’s schizophrenic Canada.

Marcelo Lu:

Yeah.

Goldy Hyder:

Well, I mean I don’t know how else to explain interprovincial trade barriers, for example, what’s a truck in one province is not a truck in another.

Marcelo Lu:

That’s right. And that goes deep into some of the challenges that I think Canada has on the resource side, you have resource that is landlocked and you need to get it to the oceans so you’ll be able to trade. Of course you can go south, but we know some of the limitation that that is, and if you only put all eggs in one basket. And I think there needs to be a common interest by all provinces and federally that you really start opening trade across Canada and a pan-Canadian trade agreement between provinces. Without that you really start having inefficiencies along the value chain, which you need to be able to reduce.

Goldy Hyder:

Now you’re in an industry that obviously has a lot of regulations, particularly on the environment side and pipelines falls into that category as well. Can this be reconciled, economic development, economic growth with our environmental concerns?

Marcelo Lu:

It really can, and the government speaks of it, corporation speaks of it. I don’t know if we’re doing enough to really make it happen. You have an abundance of resources that has a lot of value today. They’re stuck in the ground and there’s a lot of value there-

Goldy Hyder:

A lot of stranded assets.

Marcelo Lu:

… there’s a lot of stranded assets. You have a clear demand from the population and from society that climate change is an issue and the government says this, but I sometimes feel that the action is not there. It should go hand in hand, it needs to be a balance. But in order to do that is you have a lot of this value that is stranded that you should be able to take out, get the benefit from that, and finance all of these different programs that you have. At the moment what you have is a double whammy, you are wanting to levy a price of some sort of climate into society and corporations and at the same time not taking advantage of the benefit that you have on the ground. That is an equation that definitely goes in the negative direction and that is something I think that should be discussed, but then even more than discussion, there should be action about it.

Goldy Hyder:

Well, let’s talk about your current role. You’re a very young president. You came here, as you said, from a circuitous route, from Brazil to America to the World Bank to China and in Hong Kong I guess, and then over here.

Marcelo Lu:

I was Germany before those.

Goldy Hyder:

You were in Germany as well. So how has that experience helped you become a leader here in Canada?

Marcelo Lu:

I think every country that I’ve been, I take a little bit from it and it goes back to anatomy thing. My heart is very Brazilian and nobody can take that away from you.

Goldy Hyder:

We know your soccer team now, don’t we?

Marcelo Lu:

Yeah, you definitely know the soccer team.

Goldy Hyder:

What happens when Germany and Brazil play?

Marcelo Lu:

Oh, there is no discussion, yeah.

Goldy Hyder:

All right.

Marcelo Lu:

Except in the World Cup we had a 7-1 issue where Germany killed Brazil. And I have to say my German colleagues were very nice about it, they didn’t overdo it. So Brazilian heart, my time in the US was great, it was a time, at least the way I remember in the US, where it was really entrepreneurial. People wanted to move fast and so this entrepreneurship and the legs, I would say, yeah, the speed was there. Then I moved to Germany and really taught me discipline because if you’re too entrepreneurial, you’re a bit chaotic and I am a bit chaotic. I like to think of many things and this creativity and curiousness that I mentioned before is always there. But in Germany it was really able to discipline me. We prioritized things and we get things done before we move to the other part. And my time in Asia was great because it really showed me long-term. A lot of the business interactions that I had with businesses there, they said, “Marcelo, you guys are thinking about this year’s results, we are thinking the results 10 years from now.”

Goldy Hyder:

Well, the decisions you make are changed.

Marcelo Lu:

That balance sheet is completely different from an Asian company than a western company, if I can label it like this. They have no issue of losing money. Of course they have issue, but their ability to cope with some loss in the first two or three years is much greater than a western company, which almost need quarterly, the short-termism, is very real. You need to always deliver results for the shareholders. There is a little bit different. So it really gave me the long-term view. If you think about investment plans, when we make these calculations to make an investment here, it needs to be providing the return within the ten-year span. The way that they use investment decisions is for 25 years. Their math is very, very different. I finally had the opportunity to go to China and when I arrived there it was 2009 and that is when it was complete wild west, everything was really happening on the growth level. And that’s where you saw the amazing growth of cities like Shanghai, Beijing and even second and third tier cities.

Goldy Hyder:

Yeah, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and others, yeah.

Marcelo Lu:

Absolutely. And you’re getting into this megalopolis, but you really see the growth there and how really long-term they look at things. And one of the things that they never put into their equation, which now is very much into their equation, is climate. Here we breathe the good air and we drink the good water and we still talk about climate in a very serious way, which is great. There they had this growth that really started showing up in the environment and they really now do something about it. Now, many people may criticize China and India and other countries because they’re the biggest polluters, yeah.

Goldy Hyder:

Well biggest population in an economy that’s just emerging, right?

Marcelo Lu:

Right, right, right. But they are also now the biggest investors in clean tech and green tech. And if you want to really learn about green and clean tech, people should be going to Asia and seeing what they’re doing and the investments that they’re putting on the ground. And these investments are also not making sense on paper, but in the future it really comes. EV, electric vehicles, where we talk about it, that is their name of the game. They don’t want to be tied to fossil fuel, EV they can take care on their own. So you really see a big shift on the long-termism, and now when I get to Canada. So going back to your question, when I arrived, everybody told me you are now in the country of nice, we are just nice people, and I really believe that. Canadians are one of the most humble, in a very good way, nice and welcoming people that I’ve ever been.

And I’ve lived in a couple countries, so I can say that with some level of authority even. But one thing is very clear, Canadians are very shy to take the next step. You can still be nice and be aggressive, you can still be nice and be growth-oriented, you can still be nice and say I’m going to start exporting next year. I can still be nice and I can say I’m going to take the risk and invest and hire another 10 people because I believe in this growth segment. I can still be nice and say I’m going to compete hard on this market and I’ll say, “Oh, I’m comfortable in my province and I don’t want to go into another province.” This kind of a niceness I think we, and I consider myself almost we now, Canadians need to evolve from.

Goldy Hyder:

It’s holding us back?

Marcelo Lu:

It is. At the moment you may not see it, but if we keep it this way another five, 10 years, it may starting to show in a very negative way because it’s keeping us back to your point. We’re not investing enough, if you think about infrastructure. If you’re thinking about manufacturing, I really believe Canada can be a much bigger South Korea as far as an economy. South Korea has-

Goldy Hyder:

No resources whatsoever, and look what it’s done.

Marcelo Lu:

Yeah, a large population for the land size, but they do a lot of investment in manufacturing and they produce things and I am really sometimes surprised how Canada has not taken advantage of all the resources that it has. I’ll give you just one example, we recently made an investment decision to invest in a battery materials plant in Finland, 400 million euro investment, be able to supply 300,000 electric vehicles. And in order to be able to do this cathode material, which is the battery material, you basically need a couple metals, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and then lithium and graphite. And we had to go to different countries in Europe with different regulatory systems and try to combine all this and make that investment in one location. So you can imagine the complexity of doing such an investment.

Why are we not saying Canada will be the hub of battery materials? You have all the ingredients here, you have all the setup here, you have all the knowledge, the talent here, so why not?

Goldy Hyder:

So why not?

Marcelo Lu:

So one thing, I had to actually go inside BSF and start doing a tour and tell them this is what Canada has, they said, “No, they don’t,” I said, “Yes, look Canada …” so people outside of Canada don’t even know the brand of Canada.

Goldy Hyder:

They think oil and gas.

Marcelo Lu:

They think oil and gas or they only think about resources more on the nature side. That needs to be a bigger call out for foreign direct investment into Canada that allow people to know what is inside here. I had to also explain to a lot of colleagues what the OilSense is and how big it is, the operations, and how much opportunity that is for the chemical sector. That is, I think, a huge blind spot. Canada should be able to be hub for downstream industries from resources that it has here and that is in mining, that is in oil and gas. The downstream for oil and gas is petrochemical. Petrochemical is the beginning of everything that we touch as far as clothing is concerned, as far as food packaging, as far as car parts, aerospace. That is why it’s so interesting to be in a chemical industry. You touch many different industries and I think Canada has all the ingredients, it’s just a matter of putting in the soup and then making it tasty.

Goldy Hyder:

Let’s talk about BSF and its current form. I have to be honest, most people think of it as cassette tape still, grabbing your pencil and putting the tape back in and spinning the cassette around. So clearly that’s not what it does anymore, and its company’s still there, it’s growing, it’s got leadership like you’re providing, you’ve got, I think, 11 production facilities in Canada, just walk us through the footprint.

Marcelo Lu:

So we have 11 sites. Our biggest business here in the ag space is actually 50% of our business goes into crop protection and seed business, which just basically recently got affected by trade disputes and political disputes. We have a large business in construction, more than 200 million goes into construction, additives that go into construction. We do quite a bit in the mining space. We have customers like Magna, Linamar. We do quite a bit in cosmetics, that is more of Quebec operation, there’s a lot of cosmetics in there. So very much-

Goldy Hyder:

Very diverse portfolio.

Marcelo Lu:

Very diverse. And we have 1200 colleagues across Canada.

Goldy Hyder:

When you’re making the case for Canada for further investment as a place potentially, I hope, of innovation, what’s your message to your boss?

Marcelo Lu:

This is always very good discussion because as you can imagine, all these ideas are coming from all countries that we are. So we are more than 80 countries. So all the country managers are saying something about-

Goldy Hyder:

Making the case, yeah.

Marcelo Lu:

… making case making the case. Now what I’m trying to make people aware is the resource side of Canada, which to my point that I made earlier, very few people know about the magnitude of what is there.

Goldy Hyder:

How mineral rich we are.

Marcelo Lu:

People talk about Africa, people talk about Chile, people talk about China and-

Goldy Hyder:

Tell them about the Ring of Fire.

Marcelo Lu:

Exactly. And I think that takes time because then people say, “No, but I don’t have that information,” then we give the information then they say, “Oh, but the investment decision needs to have infrastructure there built out, which Canada doesn’t have.” But then I’m making the case that we are going to get there and hopefully we are, so that becomes an ongoing process. But I think here, to go back to your point, the question is, I’m trying to take away The Wizard of Oz curtain, that Canada really has a resource rich untapped market here that we can do a lot more.

Goldy Hyder:

What I hear you saying is two things there. One is we need to do a better job of telling our story in terms of all that Canada has to offer, not just the parts, that’s one component. But the second component that struck me was what you’re saying is is even though your bosses are across the ocean, they’re well aware of some of the infrastructure challenges that we’re facing here.

Marcelo Lu:

Sure. It’s not the first time that we have looked at Canada for investing, and the challenges remain surprisingly the same, or unsurprisingly.

Goldy Hyder:

Or unsurprisingly.

Marcelo Lu:

When you think about doing a potential next petrochemical hub, and I don’t speak now of BSF, I speak of the Chemical Industry Association, to do an investment in Alberta, for example, you need outlets. And for you to be relying only on rail is an issue. For you to be relying only on pipeline is an issue.

Goldy Hyder:

You need multiple vehicles out.

Marcelo Lu:

Intermodal, right. And I think that is a struggle that there is, that the horse really needs to come before the carriage.

Goldy Hyder:

That’s a self-made issue, right?

Marcelo Lu:

Yeah, exactly, yeah.

Goldy Hyder:

We like to talk about being a leader, what it means to be a leader today. I guess the standard question is what’s keeping you up at night these days?

Marcelo Lu:

Yeah. On the leadership one, I have an interesting thing that happened to me when I arrived in Canada. One of the things that BSF provides when you become a senior executive, especially in a new country, allows you to get a coach. When I arrived in Canada, I said I definitely want to make use of that. And this particular coach was very interesting because she works with metaphors and she said, “Marcelo, what kind of leader are you? And give me the energy level.” She likes to have historical figures. So I said, “Oh, this is interesting. I like to do things and I like to be aggressive, like Joan of Arc.” And then she said, “Oh, this is very-”

Goldy Hyder:

I thought you were going to say Pele.

Marcelo Lu:

No, no, no. So she said, “This is very interesting, okay, why?” And I said, “I like to move things, I like to cut through the barriers, just get things done.” And after the second session she said, “Okay, I like Joan of Arc, I like the intensity, but you know that she dies at the end.” I said, “Okay, good point.” So we need to evolve from that. So maybe let’s think about something that is more targeted. And I started thinking and I said, “Okay, we are a global company,” and I said, “Okay, the biggest challenge that we have is to raise the Canada flag very high in BSF group.” So I said, “Robin Hood,” because it needs to be targeted, you cannot just fluff everything around. It needs to be this is the real opportunity here in Canada, for example, battery materials may be an interesting one, and it’s really providing a platform that the people that have a little bit less voice-

Goldy Hyder:

Yeah, fighting for the little guy.

Marcelo Lu:

… in the BSF group is able to [inaudible 00:30:59]. So I said okay, good, so that is another one. And the final one, when I finished my coaching session, she said, “Okay, now we need to evolve out of that. It’s still too rebellious, you don’t want to be considered the outcast.” And I said, “Okay, leadership then is really Jedi, to be able to be there when I’m not there anymore.”

Goldy Hyder:

That’s deep.

Marcelo Lu:

Yeah, yeah, no, and she was able to get me very deep and I started thinking about it and it’s a little bit playful, it’s Jedi, but it’s really true. It’s having a philosophy, having a vision of optimism and positiveness, but one that after you leave, hopefully there’s something that stays behind as a good legacy.

So that is a little bit where I go for leadership and things that keep me up at night is not being able to give Canada a voice, making sure that my 1200 colleagues come home every day safe. That is, for me, the biggest thing. When I wake up every day I wake up and I look at my phone and I say, “Please, I do not want to have an event-”

Goldy Hyder:

An event.

Marcelo Lu:

… because that is, for me, would be disastrous.

Goldy Hyder:

And you don’t really need to be regulated to do that, that’s just hard.

Marcelo Lu:

It really is. The promise of I’ll get you a nice job, you’ll be happy here, but I’ll get you also home safe. And the last thing that really keeps me up at night is making sure that I have at least a positive legacy. There are some things that maybe I do that are a little bit unpopular or not, but in the equation, the net, I would like to have it a positive and leave something good behind.

Goldy Hyder:

Do you have any leaders that you admire, besides Yoda, that you emulated yourself after?

Marcelo Lu:

My grandfather, yeah.

Goldy Hyder:

Why?

Marcelo Lu:

I think his journey is a very interesting one.

Goldy Hyder:

And he was Chinese?

Marcelo Lu:

Chinese. He was born in mainland China, grew up during the two World Wars, start of the Chinese Revolution, said, “Okay, this is not for me. Let me try to migrate to the US.” Got a nice no, cannot come in. Then I know some people in Brazil, so maybe I go there. Opened up a dry cleaner, sold door-to-door Chinese artifacts, all with that with five kids, not knowing the language, wrote the first Chinese Portuguese dictionary, got all the five kids to university in the US and in Brazil. And really, for me, left a very net positive philosophical Jedi like impression.

So one of the things that I worked with my coach was to find a moment before every big presentation, every big, let’s say, speech that I would do is to find a moment to yourself, like a mindfulness moment. And she always says you need to tie this to an image. And the image that I always go to is my grandfather when he was doing tai chi with me and teaching me how to do tai chi, I go back to that exact one. It’s where I find my peace before some big event. So to the birth of my son, which just happened a couple of weeks back. I’m very nervous person when it comes to health stuff, and I had to go back to him to say, “Okay, calm me down because I need to make my wife calm.”

Goldy Hyder:

You mentioned your wife and that you have children. Those kids came about only in Canada, even though you were in Hong Kong and tried very hard to have the kids.

Marcelo Lu:

Yes.

Goldy Hyder:

Tell us the story about that.

Marcelo Lu:

In 2009, I have a childhood friend from Brazil who got married and he said, “Oh, my sister is single, so I need somebody to come in the church with her during the procession,” and he said, “Okay, I need to choose somebody who is the farthest away so that nothing happens.”

Goldy Hyder:

And the rest, as they say, is history, yeah.

Marcelo Lu:

So the guy coming from Hong Kong to Brazil should be the one going into the church with my sister. And I don’t need to tell you this.

Goldy Hyder:

Yeah, I think we know how it ends.

Marcelo Lu:

How it ends. So she came to Hong Kong and we got married a year after and I always wanted to have kids, she wanted to have kids. And we started trying and it’s amazing, we only find out later that many people go through this, but we had very tough time to get pregnant. We went through several treatments, did all sorts of things that drank water backwards, whatever is in the book we tried, just didn’t work. And to the point that we needed a change of environment, so we loved Hong Kong, loved being there, but we said we really need to be close to family because it’s only the two of us.

So instead of being two flights away from Brazil, let’s be only one flight away. And that’s where Canada became an interesting option. And when we came here we said okay, we give up, and we give up at least for a year and then we look at other options. There are great options also there. And I don’t know what happened, we drank the water and breathed the air in Canada and all of a sudden we had a baby, Maria Louisa. Then after her we drank more of the water and breathed the air and here comes the second one.

Goldy Hyder:

You should bottle that water up and send it around the world.

Marcelo Lu:

Yes, yes. No, and it’s a wonderful thing. We are very happy, of course.

Goldy Hyder:

Of course, that’s great.

Marcelo Lu:

And we’re happy to contribute to the Canadian population as well.

Goldy Hyder:

Well we need it, as you well know, thank you for doing your part. China, obviously you’ve just mentioned your admiration for your grandfather as a hero to you, we’ve talked about your time in Hong Kong, you’ve talked about the values you’ve learned from China, starting with patience and long-term thinking. We’re in a place right now where we’re seeing the evolution of China to real superpower status and it’s imminent before it becomes the world’s largest economy. You know we find ourselves as Canada right in between the scenario between the United States and China, how do we go forward?

Marcelo Lu:

Great question. My grandfather always said back in ’92, I was a kid then, I only realize it now, that there will be a time when people answer to China because he saw the way it’s developed. We can argue, and there’s a lot of good argument, that one political system may not be the most appropriate, but one thing is clear, they really have a way to get things done. Again, one could argue the right way or the wrong way, but it develops.

Goldy Hyder:

It’s remarkable.

Marcelo Lu:

It is remarkable. But they also need to do it. And I think few people realized this, and I heard a great interview when I was in Hong Kong by Jackie Chan, of all people, explaining why China needs to be this way. If they do not develop the country the way it is developing and grow it, they will have bigger issues on social unrest. So it is developing in that way.

Now anything that goes against the interest of being able to develop China into that respect, it becomes a problem. You have different pressure points in China, so you have the internal social issue, they need to grow, have the US now saying wait a minute, the trade balance is not fair, so you need to do something about it, so it creates a little bit of a pressure point. They change the political system there that now President Xi is able to stay a bit longer. So there is this thing, and anybody that gets stuck in between, in this case here, Canada, they basically have the economic power now to retaliate and they will do this out of national interest. One could argue again whether it’s the right way or the wrong way, and again goes back to what my grandfather used to say is you should always be very careful to comment on other countries political system and tell other countries what to do.

I think we are in a world now that everybody has an opinion about everything. And today it may look like you have the high moral ground, but tomorrow it may be very different. So to that question, how Canada is fitting into this, all I can say is Canada should look after its own interests. Once you start looking after other people’s interests or wanting to play friends with neighbors in the south or other neighbors, but at the detriment of another relationship, it can retaliate. And to your point, it is a tricky situation. You definitely do not want to be caught into topics that you have nothing to do with. And I think that’s an unfortunate case where Canada has gotten involved there, in a way.

Goldy Hyder:

I’ll let you off the hook, you’re not running to be minister of foreign affairs, but I thought it was an interesting question because of your pedigree. It’s one of the issues of our time that we are going to have to navigate, and I agree with you, we should put Canadian interests above all else. So let me lighten the mood a little bit and talk about how do you relax, how do you unwind?

Marcelo Lu:

So I used to go a lot to the movies because that is the only time that I have really to myself. Nobody can talk to me when I’m watching-

Goldy Hyder:

Yeah, and you can’t be on your phone either at that point.

Marcelo Lu:

Can’t be on the phone. Unfortunately I don’t do that anymore, or fortunately because we have kids. So the way I do it is the unwinding goes into my commute. When I’m commuting, I am listening to podcasts or I’m just listening to music. Just recently, I think three or four months ago, I reorganized all my music. I have more than 5,000 songs in my library and just playing shuffle, it really brings out a lot of good memories. One of the things that I always wanted to do is to write a book, so I think at the ripe age of 38, I think I have a couple of things that I would like to put on paper. So I’m using music now to trigger memories so that I’m able to put some of these ideas in a document and then eventually I’m able to write about it. But music is really helping me lighten the mood or think about other things other than work or issues that are out there in the world challenging us.

Goldy Hyder:

Writing. Well, tell me what you’re writing?

Marcelo Lu:

Yeah, as I mentioned, I’ve always wanted to do it. And I got this also from my grandfather, believe it or not, that he was an avid writer.

Goldy Hyder:

He was a really wise man, wasn’t he?

Marcelo Lu:

Yeah, for me he was, yeah. And I’m biased, and I’m happy to be biased on this.

Goldy Hyder:

Well, he sounds like the Yoda of your family, as you said.

Marcelo Lu:

Yeah, and he wrote a lot. And unfortunately I didn’t learn enough Chinese to be able to read everything, but he always mentioned that people should have their own library and create their own library because that is the knowledge. And one of the things that I always asked him, “Okay, but why did you leave China and everything?” He says, “I left China and left everything there, and I came to Brazil with $200. But there is one thing nobody will ever be able to steal from me except Alzheimer’s, and it’s what is up in my mind. The mind is an incredible thing and I believe in writing it down.”

So since then I’ve been wanting to write and just observations that I’ve had, experiences that I’ve had. Everybody has their own experience, but I think I’ve had a blessed and very privileged experience so far, and I would like to write it down and the people I’ve met and the experiences I had, the places that I’ve worked, the difficulties that I went through with family, I think this is wonderful stuff to put it down, at least for my kids. And if somebody else wants to read it eventually, they are more than welcome to.

Goldy Hyder:

Well, thanks for sharing that with us. Let me ask as a final question, if I may, it I mean it’s kind of odd to ask someone who’s still in his own 30s, but what advice do you have for emerging leaders and young leaders and people just starting out their career today?

Marcelo Lu:

I think something that worked with me, and I see it working with all of our young talent is people that are curious, and the message to young colleagues or young people need to be simple. I think a lot of times we give academic answers, curiosity. Curiosity brings entrepreneurship, curiosity brings the next level of an innovation. Curiosity makes you ask the very good question that you should always ask, why? Why am I doing this? Is just curiosity and people should not have a problem with you asking that question. Let me put it this way, if people have a problem with you asking why, then the issue is not with you. It’s with the person not being able to answer that. So if there is something that I think young people should be thinking about is how to keep yourself always curious and not get stagnant in any kind of way.

Goldy Hyder:

Great advice to end on. Now, before we wrap, we have a bit of a tradition you would know as an avid listener of Speaking of Business, we want to end with a bit of a word game. I’m going to say a bunch of words and you’re going to tell me the first thing that comes to your mind. All right, so why don’t we kick it off. Immigration.

Marcelo Lu:

Potential.

Goldy Hyder:

China.

Marcelo Lu:

Curiosity.

Goldy Hyder:

Technology.

Marcelo Lu:

Hope.

Goldy Hyder:

Disruption.

Marcelo Lu:

Comfort.

Goldy Hyder:

Family.

Marcelo Lu:

Everything.

Goldy Hyder:

Canada,

Marcelo Lu:

Potential, hope, and everything.

Goldy Hyder:

Excellent. Thank you very much for doing this, appreciate it.

Marcelo Lu:

I appreciate it as well, thank you very much.

Goldy Hyder:

Thanks again to Marcelo Lu for being my guest on this episode of Speaking of Business. Subscribe now for more conversations with Canada’s top innovators, entrepreneurs, and business leaders. Search Speaking of Business wherever you find podcasts. Or visit speakingofbiz.ca, that’s biz with a Z, to join our email list and follow us on social media. Until next time, I’m Goldy Hyder.