One Take with Bob Oliva

One could safely say Bob Oliva not only witnessed the perfect storm in seeing the print industry grow and expand substantially, then implode… he actually survived and thrived, pivoting into a wonderful second career and now lifestyle.

All while remaining one of the nicest guys in the industry.

Decisive moment: At 11, Bob was uprooted from his native Cuba and brought to the US as part of the “Peter Pan Program”. He was supposed to be housed in an orphanage but, at the very last minute, an uncle took him in. In his words: “your life is gonna be disruptive, it's gonna be non-linear, so you have to just roll with the punches”

Unpredictable change: In 1995 Craig’s list took the internet by storm and basically destroyed the classified advertising industry. Classifieds were 50% of the typical newspaper’s profits.

Another, in 2005, 2006 businessmen began reading papers on their phones, not in print, which destroyed the circulation of the Miami Herald’s international edition.

And management did nothing.

Coping with change: Bob saw the writing on the wall and created “O Americas Group”, which not only created an international media organization, but organized high level events and much more.

Counseling a CEO: First, the experience that anybody over 55 has stored. We're like a chip. You store all the information in the chip. You're hiring that person according to all that information that they have stored, all that knowledge that they have stored.

Second, you still have to hire the person with the right attitude and the right amount of information and be able to grasp the new information to move forward.