Interview with Ricardo Huancaruna, interviewed by Andrea Lluch, Lima, Peru

About this book

Ricardo Huancaruna discusses his impressive career in the Peruvian coffee industry as the leader of the highly successful Perhusa Group. In the interview, he reflects on Peru's extended period of macroeconomic turbulence and describes some of the strategies adopted by his group to survive and thrive in this uncertain environment. Huancaruna also explains how the coffee industry, in particular, adversely affected by protracted periods of violence and terrorism, and how the company had to adapt new strategies to communicate with clients and secure credit. These challenging circumstances, however, helped the group's capacity to respond quickly and innovate new solutions to keep operations running smoothly. These abilities, Huancaruna explains, helped give the group a competitive edge, which proved highly advantageous in the 1990s with Peru's market opening. In the interview, Huancaruna also reflects on his own management style--his thoughts on diversification, long-term planning, and conservative indebtedness. He also discusses the long history of his family's business and his thoughts on the recent shift towards professionalization. Huancaruna concludes the interview by describing the group's philosophy on corporate environmental and social responsibility. He talks about the recent move towards organic certification, the impact of changing climate on the industry, and how his group works to promote sustainability and responsible harvesting practices. He also talks about the group's long commitment to the eradication of rural poverty, and some of his efforts to provide basic services where the state has failed.