Having lived for more than 25 years in Latin America and the Caribbean, I have come to admire many traits of the region’s businesses.
Finland is known for its education system, technological innovation, transparent institutions, and high levels of trust. Latin America, meanwhile, is frequently viewed through the lens of political volatility, economic instability, and social challenges.
Yet, this perspective overlooks an important reality: Some of the most innovative, resilient and ambitious companies in the world have emerged from Latin America.
As Finnish companies search for growth in an increasingly uncertain world, there may be valuable lessons to learn from their Latin American counterparts. They may include a little more boldness, a little more speed and risk-taking, and a greater tolerance for uncertainty.
A caveat before we begin: Latin America is not one place, and many Finnish companies are already bold, fast, and global. The contrasts below are generalizations, offered to provoke reflection rather than to describe every company in either region.
Learning to Thrive in Imperfect Conditions
Finland is one of the world’s most stable societies. Regulations are predictable. Institutions function. Infrastructure works. Transparency is high. Business planning can often be done years in advance with reasonable confidence.
Much of Latin America operates under very different conditions.
Companies regularly navigate currency fluctuations, political transitions, changing regulations, and economic crises. The result is that many firms develop an organizational muscle that is less common in stable environments: adaptability.
While Finnish companies excel at optimization, Latin American companies often excel at improvisation.
This distinction may become increasingly important. The world itself is becoming less predictable. Geopolitical tensions, technological disruption, climate-related events, and changing trade patterns are creating uncertainty even in traditionally stable markets.
The companies that succeed in the future may not simply be those that execute the best plan. They may be the ones that adjust most quickly when the plan stops working.
The Courage to Act Before Everything Is Known
Finnish business culture often values careful preparation. Decisions are typically based on data, analysis, and consensus.
These are tremendous strengths. However, they can also create a tendency to wait for certainty.
Latin American entrepreneurs rarely enjoy the luxury of certainty. They often work in environments where perfect information simply does not exist. As a result, they learn to act with incomplete information and adjust as they go.
There is a saying among entrepreneurs that if you wait until everything is perfect, you have already waited too long.
The remarkable rise of Mercado Libre, founded by Marcos Galperin in Argentina in 1999, illustrates this mindset. The company expanded across Latin America despite fragmented logistics systems, unequal digital infrastructure, and numerous economic challenges. Instead of waiting for ideal conditions, it built solutions around existing obstacles and eventually transformed many of those obstacles into competitive advantages.
For Finland, the lesson is not to become reckless. It is to recognize that uncertainty is often the normal state of business rather than an exception. Sometimes moving fast creates knowledge that planning alone cannot provide.
Relationships Matter More Than Many Finns Realize
One of Finland’s greatest competitive advantages is trust. Business can often be conducted efficiently because people trust institutions, contracts, and processes.
In much of Latin America, trust operates differently. Relationships frequently play a larger role in commercial success. Business leaders spend significant time cultivating networks, maintaining personal connections, and investing in long-term relationships.
This is not simply a cultural curiosity. It is a business capability. Many of the region’s most successful companies have built growth through deep customer relationships, local partnerships, and personal credibility.
Finnish companies entering international markets can sometimes underestimate the importance of this human dimension. A technically superior solution is not always enough. People often choose to work with organizations they know and trust.
Latin America reminds us that business remains deeply personal, even in an age of digital platforms and artificial intelligence. The strongest organizations combine institutional trust with human trust.
Innovation Through Constraints
Finland invests heavily in research and development. It has world-class universities and a sophisticated innovation ecosystem.
Yet innovation does not only emerge from abundance. It also emerges from scarcity.
Many Latin American entrepreneurs operate with limited access to capital and higher financing costs than their European counterparts. This forces companies to become extraordinarily resourceful. Instead of asking, “What can we build with unlimited resources?” they ask, “What is the most effective solution we can create with the resources available today?”
Few companies demonstrate this better than Nubank. Starting in Brazil, the company challenged traditional banking by focusing relentlessly on customer frustrations and removing complexity from everyday financial services. What began as a startup grew into one of the largest digital banks in the world, serving well over 100 million customers.
Nubank’s success was not primarily the result of having more resources than its competitors. It was the result of using technology creatively to solve problems that traditional institutions had accepted for decades.
For Finnish companies, this raises an interesting question: what innovations might emerge if organizations deliberately embraced more constraints rather than automatically seeking additional resources?
Building Global Ambition Early
Finnish companies are international by necessity. The domestic market is small, and successful firms typically look abroad relatively early. Nevertheless, Latin American companies often demonstrate a particularly strong form of growth ambition.
Many grow across countries with vastly different economic conditions, regulatory environments, cultures, and consumer preferences. They develop a flexibility that allows them to succeed in highly diverse markets.
A powerful example is Grupo Bimbo, which grew from a Mexican bakery into the world’s largest baking company, operating directly in dozens of countries and serving many more through partnerships. Its success was not based on simply exporting Mexican products. The company continuously adapted to local markets while maintaining a coherent corporate identity.
For Finnish firms seeking growth beyond Europe, this lesson is increasingly relevant. Global expansion is not about replicating the same business model everywhere. It is about balancing consistency with adaptation.
Capital With Global Ambition
Venture capital shows the same contrast. In Brazil, where macroeconomic conditions can shift quickly, many VCs push portfolio companies to prove their unit economics and customer acquisition early, with little reliance on structural safety nets.
Chile offers a lesson closer to Finland’s situation. With a small domestic market, many Chilean startups are built from the seed stage to scale across Latin America, expanding quickly into Peru, Colombia, or Mexico.
Finnish startups also tend to look abroad early, but often to nearby markets. Perhaps Finnish investors could encourage more of them to skip the “Finland-first” validation phase and test directly in large markets such as Germany, the UK or the United States.
Risk-Taking: Multilatinas with Innovation and VC Arms
Many large Latin American companies have set up innovation and venture arms to grow globally. Outward foreign direct investment from the region has grown from roughly US$10 billion annually in 2004 to roughly US$50-70 billion annually (source: UNCTADstat and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics). These so-called “multilatinas” are expanding and investing in companies and startups relevant to their industries.
Should large Finnish companies show the same courage to become global? Many still dedicate few resources to global growth, sales, and marketing, even though their products have global markets. Those markets will not open by themselves; they require a deliberate effort.
The contrast would be even sharper if we compared Finland with the United States or Singapore, but the Latin American comparison is instructive precisely because these companies often grow from smaller and more volatile home markets.
A Partnership of Complementary Strengths
The purpose of comparing Finland and Latin America is not to declare one model superior to the other. The real value lies in understanding how different strengths can complement each other.
Finland offers lessons in trust, governance, education, sustainability, engineering excellence, and long-term thinking.
Latin America offers lessons in adaptability, speed, creativity under constraints, relationship-building, persistence, and boldness.
The future will likely reward organizations that maintain Finnish discipline while embracing Latin American agility, that continue planning carefully but are willing to act before certainty arrives, and that value efficiency while developing resilience.
In a world that is becoming more complex and less predictable, that combination may prove extraordinarily powerful.
And perhaps that is the most important lesson of all: The next generation of successful Finnish companies may not simply be the most innovative or the most efficient. They may be the ones that learn how to be a little more Latin American.