Name: Luis Miguel Garcia
Position: Red Bulls CFO
Age: 49
Where I’m from: Mexico City
Where I call home: Basking Ridge, N.J.
Focusing on right now: Negotiating deals for friendlies at Red Bull Arena and business planning for '17.
Best advice: What I tell my sons -- and what my dad told me -- is never compromise your integrity. Stick to the truth. You can’t control the outcome of everything in life or business, but if things go wrong or right, you will always be able to look at other people in the eye, and that’s the most important thing.
A must for a new hire: The soft qualities and abilities of a person are very important -- how they’re going to integrate into the team, that they’re going to be a good team player, that they’re going to put the team first, even ahead of themselves. I want to make sure they’re going to live by our values and standards and try to focus on the overall good of the organization, which I think sometimes is the toughest piece to achieve when you’re hiring.
Exec I admire most: I worked for the NBA for five years before coming to Red Bull, and when I joined I started working very closely with MARK TATUM, who is now Deputy Commissioner & COO. His way of approaching things, how great he is at listening to people, his ability to simplify things and focus on the important stuff, while always being really kind, optimistic and relatable, was always very impressive to me.
Best book I’ve read this year: As it relates to business planning, I’ve been reading "TEAM-BASED STRATEGIC PLANNING" by C. DAVIS FOGG. Something we’ve been trying to do a lot here is make our strategic business planning much more inclusive and aim at making sure everyone in the organization at least has a chance for their voice to be heard. The book was very straightforward and pragmatic in terms of what to do and what not to do. We took some good ideas that we’ve incorporated into our business-planning process for '17.
First thing in the morning: When I get to the office, the first thing I do besides having a shot of espresso is try to focus on checking email. We have our headquarters in Austria, so I make sure there are no issues or no requests or nothing unplanned that we need to focus on that day. Once I get over that email review in the morning, I try to avoid email for most of the day, or at least through just after lunchtime so I can try to focus on the job.
Talking tech: Fans are using their smartphone to buy tickets, have the phone becoming their tickets, to manage their accounts from their phone, to upgrade their seats or their food, buying tickets for the next game on their phones. There’s just so many things that are happening all at the same time, and so quickly, that at some point it’s becoming a challenge for many venues and professional teams to keep pace with mobile. We’re keeping up as best as we can, and within MLS we’re at the forefront of technology, but by the same token, we need to continue to make efforts every single year to stay ahead of the curve or at least with the curve.
Must-have music: Most of the music I listen to is in Spanish. There’s a rock band from Mexico called MANA that I enjoy. Normally either at home or in the car I’m listening to internet radio based in Spain that I love. It’s mostly Spanish pop music.
Food for thought: I love cooking and eating out. To no surprise, Mexican food is my favorite, but sometimes at the grill at home, just preparing a nice cheeseburger is also great. In terms of going out, the city just has so many good restaurants that it’s tough to pick one, but the beauty is that you can always find a great place to eat in the city.
How I unwind: I spend most of my time with my family -- my two sons and my wife. My favorite show is “GAME OF THRONES.” That’s something I really enjoy, whether it’s a new episode or going back a few seasons and watching a past episode again.
Day in the life: I’m very much involved in all areas of the business, supporting the entire organization. Here we have essentially three big entities -- obviously the first team, the stadium and all of our academy training programs. It’s just helping move things forward, and although in finance everything is based on timelines and deadlines and planning, there’s also a piece of it which is the day-to-day unexpected. Every transaction and everything every day could be different. You just have to be ready for it.
