Some people create companies. Others prefer to create connections between people, ideas and opportunities. It is in this second space that much of the career of Jorge Duarte Bruno is to be found, a businessman who has been bringing together training, consultancy, networking, investment and technology in a shared vision for business development.
It all began with a simple unease. Jorge saw people with talent and ability, but without access to the knowledge, networks, capital or opportunities needed to turn that potential into results. That reality shaped the way he came to see entrepreneurship. “Entrepreneurship also means identifying problems, building solutions, mobilising people and creating economic and social value.” Over time, this vision gave rise to different initiatives. Business Touch Holding became the unifying point of a structure that includes The School of Mastermind Academy, dedicated to skills development, Business Touch Consulting, geared towards business strategy, Global Business Network África, focused on connections and opportunities, and Global Business Investment, concerned with bringing businesses and capital together. Added to these are Xavaq, in digital commerce, and the Clubs, conceived as permanent business communities. More than a collection of projects, Jorge sees in these initiatives different pieces of the same construction.
It is in this chain that his role takes on meaning. Jorge emerges as a meeting point between the different needs of the entrepreneur. Someone may start with training, then need to structure the business, find partners, reach the market and, later on, look for investment.
People before companies
At the root of this vision is a conviction: stronger companies begin with better-prepared people.
“No economic transformation can be greater than the capacity of the people who carry it out.” For Jorge, Mozambique needs professionals capable of running companies, reading markets, controlling costs, selling, negotiating and using technology. He therefore advocates training that is less concerned with certificates alone and more oriented towards what each person can actually do with the knowledge acquired. This concern takes on particular importance when he looks at young people. Rather than seeing young people merely as beneficiaries of programmes, Jorge prefers to see them as economic agents, capable of creating companies and generating jobs. But turning potential into solid businesses takes more than a good idea. It takes skills, mentoring, capital, technology, a market and access to networks. That is precisely where the various initiatives intersect.
A network where business happens
Another central element in Jorge's career is the building of relationships. “I see networking as an invisible economic infrastructure.” The image sums up his philosophy well. Just as a road allows goods to circulate, a business network allows information, trust, knowledge, capital and opportunities to circulate.
That is why, at the forums and meetings he promotes, Jorge tries to go beyond the simple exchange of contacts. The result may be a businessman finding a supplier, an investor discovering a project, a company reaching a new distributor or a young person meeting someone able to guide them. Global Business Network África was born of this idea. The Clubs seek to take it further, turning occasional meetings into communities that remain active throughout the year. “An event happens in a day, but a community remains.”
Thinking beyond Mozambique
Jorge's ambition goes beyond national borders. In his view, a Mozambican company should not look only at a market of just over 30 million consumers, but should recognise the country's position as a gateway to Southern Africa and to other markets on the continent. Technology can make this approach easier. It is in this space that Xavaq emerges, designed to bring sellers and consumers closer together and to help local companies reach new markets. For Jorge, the future lies in African companies that are more connected to one another, with the capacity to grow, compete and think on a larger scale. “I don't want to build just a big organisation. I want to build a relevant organisation.” The difference, he explains, lies in the impact. The aim is to grow GBNA as an African business network, strengthen the Clubs, expand Xavaq and develop mechanisms for investment, incubation and acceleration, while keeping the training of people as one of the foundations of this construction. Perhaps that is the best way to understand Jorge Duarte Bruno. Not only through the companies or initiatives he is linked to, but through the bridges he seeks to build between them. And that is also how he imagines his legacy. “If I build one company, there is one company. If I build a hundred entrepreneurs, there are a hundred companies.”
More than leaving behind a set of brands, Jorge wants to leave a culture of building, where knowledge generates business, relationships open up opportunities and Mozambican companies learn to look at a market much larger than the one that begins and ends at the country's borders.
