Why He Bought a Failing Airline with Germán Efromovich, Owner of Synergy Group and formerly CEO Avianca Airlines

When you meet someone who has built companies across aviation, oil and gas, shipbuilding, and hospitality, you expect them to have one defining story - the moment that changed everything.So I asked Germán Efromovich exactly that.What was the trip, the flight, or the experience that changed the way you lead?His answer caught me off guard.“There wasn’t one,” he said. “It was an evolution.”The more we talked, the more that answer made sense.Germán doesn’t think in defining moments. He thinks in accumulated experiences.He told me about growing up in South America after his parents rebuilt their lives following the Holocaust. For a period of his childhood, his family lived in a shipping container. He laughed while telling stories about accidentally blowing up his mother’s brand-new stove because he didn’t understand the difference between 110 and 220 volts, then nearly burning down the apartment after trying to wire a lamp himself.Most people would call those failures.He called them education.That curiosity, and the willingness to learn by doing, became the thread that ran through his entire career.When we started talking about Avianca, one of Latin America’s oldest airlines, I expected a story about aviation. Instead, he talked about pattern recognition.“I’ve always believed that where there’s a crisis, there’s an opportunity.”It’s a philosophy he’s lived over and over again. Before Avianca, he built businesses during periods of hyperinflation. Later, when the airline entered bankruptcy, almost no one wanted it. He made what he thought was an intentionally low offer just to end the conversation.The offer was accepted.Listening to him, I realized he doesn’t run toward risk because he enjoys uncertainty. He runs toward it because he’s trained himself to see what might exist on the other side.That may have been my biggest takeaway from our conversation.We often think great careers are built around one bold decision.Germán reminded me they’re usually built through thousands of small ones—staying curious, solving the next problem, and seeing opportunity a little earlier than everyone else.Maybe that’s what separates entrepreneurs from everyone else.Not that they take bigger risks.They simply see different possibilities.