When Martín García Huidobro finished Commercial Engineering, he had an idea that still accompanies him: industries are not written in stone.
While many of his colleagues were looking for a traditional path, he tried to build a startup called Camping por Chile, a kind of Airbnb for campsites when that model did not yet exist in the country. The idea did not prosper, but it left him with a feeling that would mark the rest of his career. He had not failed for lack of conviction. He had arrived too early.
“I was always trying to look at what things could be done better. With Camping por Chile we were a little ahead of the market”
That need to question what was established ended up leading him to consulting, then to a master’s degree in digital business in Madrid and, finally, to the world of artificial intelligence applied to human resources. But there is something that, he says, never changed.
“The desire to do things differently”
Complexity is the real problem
For eight years he worked leading digital transformation projects. He constantly needed to coordinate with technology teams and, time and time again, he received the same response. It couldn’t be done. Martín was never satisfied with that explanation.
• Why did you decide to learn programming if you came from the commercial world?
“I need to understand why not. The only way to question those ‘no’s’ was to learn the language of programming and understand how things really worked”
Learning to program was not a goal in itself. It was a tool to make better decisions and talk as equals with technical teams.
Today he admits that he practically no longer writes code. Artificial intelligence changed that part of the job. What remains essential, he says, is to understand how technology works to imagine new solutions.
That learning also changed the way he looked at business. Living in Madrid allowed him to stop thinking about local companies and start wondering from day one if a solution could scale to other markets.
“Living abroad broadens your mind. You begin to think about any business from scalability and not only from Chile”
Artificial intelligence does not replace people
Today Martín leads the commercial area of Genera, a platform that automates human resources processes such as remuneration, attendance control and digital signature. Its goal is not to replace equipment. It’s giving them back their time.
• What problem does Genera seek to solve?
“We want human resources teams to return to the main reason for hiring: connecting with their team. Artificial intelligence should help them with administrative work, not with treating people”
That is why he insists that automating does not mean delegating all decisions to an AI. In human resources there are regulated processes…
sensitive data and legal responsibilities that still require human oversight.
“AI cannot make a mistake by paying a salary. This is where regulatory challenges, data privacy and responsibility for decisions appear”
At the same time, he believes that companies that do not incorporate artificial intelligence will lose an important competitive advantage. Technology allows you to arrive better prepared for a meeting, automate reports and spend more time understanding clients and teams.
The key, he says, is for AI to work for people and not the other way around.
Lead with data, without forgetting people
Martín has two phrases that his team already knows by heart: “What is not in the CRM, does not exist.” And the second: “The data kills the story.”
For him, leading also means building a culture where decisions are made with evidence and not intuition.
But that obsession with data changed after living in Madrid. There he understood that productivity is not always above people and that a leader needs to dedicate time to knowing his team’s motivations, not just their results.
“People are much more important than tasks”
He also applies that philosophy outside of work. The father of two young children, he tries to clearly separate work decisions from family decisions.
You may get back a business opportunity, he says, but not a moment with your children.
That is why he organizes 30-minute meetings, eliminates everything that does not add value and concentrates administrative work during the day to dedicate the afternoons to his family and, when necessary, return to work at night.
When asked what advice he would give to Martín who had just left university, the answer came quickly: “Trust your instincts”
Because, looking back, it ensures that all the decisions – even the ones that seemed like mistakes – ended up connecting the dots.
And that doing things differently is still the best way he knows to build something new.
