From Clicars to the Alex Rivera Foundation: Carlos Rivera embarks on social entrepreneurship

If Carlos Rivera in Pablo Fernandez featured on the cover of our June 2022 issue, we were lucky journalistically that their publication coincided with maximum news such as the sale of Stellantis through its subsidiary Aramis.

When asked about their future plans after the sale, Pablo has already told us about his many new business projects (Clikalia, Clidrive, Clicollege, CliBrAIn), But Carlos assured that after traveling around the world with his family, he wanted to rethink his future around the third sector, and he made it happen.

Just two years and more than 125 meetings later, on January 16, the Alex Rivera Foundation was finally born. “After selling the start-up Clicars, he wanted to start a business again, but in the social sphere, to apply everything he had learned to improve the planet. After analyzing the various needs in the world (unfortunately, they are unlimited), I decided to focus on Down syndrome, given that I have a 37-year-old younger brother with this genetic change..”

From Clicars to the Alex Rivera Foundation: Carlos Rivera embarks on social entrepreneurship
Carlos Rivera listens to the words of Alex Rivera during the presentation of the Foundation that bears his name.

Longer lifespan, different problems

And that’s exactly what the Alex Rivera Foundation wants to focus on, the adulthood of this group. “Over the past 30 years, the life expectancy of people with Down syndrome has increased dramatically. This brings with it a number of challenges to which we must respond.such as premature aging, death of caregivers, lack of autonomous resources and much work to be done in housing and employment,” he explains. Anna Marshallgeneral director of the foundation.

Ana Marshall, CEO of the Alex Rivera Foundation
Ana Marshall is CEO of the Alex Rivera Foundation.

A former JP Morgan, Marshall has spent 23 years in management positions within the organization, “travelling and managing very interesting projects such as opening our office in Saudi Arabia, managing teams in geopolitical crisis situations such as the war in Russia and Ukraine or the creation of a European hub after Brexit , to make it clear that I wanted to bring my knowledge and experience to other environments and groups and explore different ways of doing things,” he explains.

So when he found out about Carlos and Alex’s project, “I haven’t thought about it since It allowed me to create an impactful project, expand my experience of general management with an entrepreneurial spirit and contribute to social value “to a group with which I am very sensitive (I have two children with disabilities).”

FAR allows me to bring social value to a group that I am very sensitive to (I have two children with disabilities)

Anna Marshall

Employment, housing, visibility

The Alex Rivera Foundation aims to focus on three main areas: employment, housing and visibility. “In the field of employment, We want to contribute to the creation of jobs for this group, open the horizon to new sectors and new jobs and improve the quality of existing employment. In terms of housing, we focus on helping the group access housing that is tailored to their level of autonomy and their moment in life,” explains Marshall.

Carlos Rivera and Ana Marshall, managers of the Alex Rivera Foundation
Rivera and Marshall run this foundation, which seeks to improve the quality of life for adults with Down syndrome.

Among housing options, for example, highlight the possibility “the opportunity to access shared apartments as well as promote new housing solutions inspired by successes in other countrieswhere complementary groups or different groups can co-exist with support services synergy,” concludes the CEO.

Focus, equipment and technology

Carlos Rivera’s task is to “manage the Foundation as if it were a startup in terms of ideas, launch, dynamism, etc. This gives us more opportunities to collaborate with other organizations.”

The main thing is to manage the Fund as if it were a startup

Carlos Rivera

I The keys to managing a project like this are “the same three keys to running a business:

1. Focus on the customer/user. To better understand their needs, we conducted more than 120 interviews with social actors around the world.

2. Building a very powerful team, with impeccable values ​​and tremendous performance power.

3. Smart use of technology and artificial intelligence, as a means, not as an end in itself

Record for the presentation with the highest number of likes by a person.  Alex Rivera Foundation
More than 250 volunteers participated in the creation of the largest one I like it a person

Biggest Human Like

For the presentation of the Foundation, listed in the Guinness Book of Records: the largest I like it person in the world, consisting of more than 250 people.

Under the motto “Together we break records”, They launched it at the Torre Picasso Esplanade in Madrid in collaboration with the Prodis Foundation, the Gil Gaillard Foundation, the Juan XXIII Foundation and other organizations associated with Plena Inclusion Madrid. He was also helped by Deloitte.

Some of the participants in the Guinness World Record for the most liked person
Some of the volunteers are preparing to participate in the Guinness World Records.

From Clicars to the Alex Rivera Foundation: Carlos Rivera embarks on social entrepreneurship

Isabel Garcia MendezJournalist with a long career in economic journalism, innovation, entrepreneurship and management

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