It is commonly known that when a couple reaches its 15 years of marriage, they celebrate their crystal anniversary, a material that symbolizes clarity, transparency and honesty in the relationship.
What an useful resource popular tradition presents us with, leading us to reflect on the fifteenth birthday of a company like Próxima, which began as a personal project, became an entrepreneurship, and is now a family.
My partner Lucila and I have used the analogy of marriage dozens of times to define our relationship of more than 14 years: we both have different ages, different skills, strengths and even creeds; but we are absolutely aligned in values and completely faithful to respect, trust and mutual admiration.
Statistics say that most small businesses do not survive the five year mark, because having good ideas and working hard is not enough to maintain a company. There are hundreds of reasons that can make you fail, just to mention a few: a bad choice of your partners, the lack of financial expertise, market volatility and why not, a pandemic.
Próxima has already surpassed the barrier of 5 years, 10 years, and today, 15 years. We have felt the urgent need for change, as well as the frustration of a goal not being reached according to our expectations, but not once we felt fear or despair.
The wise say that sometimes you win and sometimes you learn. We have won many times, and in each step that we have taken in these 15 years we have learned to do new things, to do things better, to make an impact with what we do and to have more fun while doing it.
Our three values (made-up words from two spanish concepts each) Feliquilibrio (in spanish «felicidad», happiness + «equilibrio», equilibrium,), Comprofianza («compromiso», compromise + confianza, trust) and Creatibertad («creatividad», creativity + «libertad», liberty) are proof that we are not too worried about making up and using words not yet approved by the Royal Spanish Academy; our switch to teleworking more than 6 years ago is evidence that disruption lives among us; our commitment of more than 5 years to Carbon Neutrality is proof of the coherence that we promote in our business, and the ecoins program, which we launched two years ago, has become a new regional social enterprise and confirms that the mix between innovation, communication and persistence makes us unique.
Today, more than ever, transparency and honesty are required from leaders and organizations: transparency to recognize that we are all vulnerable and in need of greater solidarity and collaboration; and honesty to recognize that it is necessary to change the current system of wealth generation. Clarity and coherence between what we think, communicate and do will be indispensable if we want to succeed in this planetary test.
In Próxima Comunicación we are ready to continue walking, creating, and above all to continue believing. Thank you all for being part of this family.
Happy 15th Crystal Anniversary!
Karla Chaves Brenes
General Director