The eternal apprentice: how Hernando Rubio turned learning into his greatest advantage

There is a story that Hernando Rubio remembers with special clarity. It has nothing to do with fintech, investment or technology. It happened many years before founding MOVii.

When he was just a young man and, together with a friend, he decided to enter a piece of land without permission. The owner released three rottweilers that began to chase them. His friend found refuge in a garage. He ended up in front of a pool he would never have tried to jump over… until that moment.

He got it. When it was all over, he understood that he was capable of doing things he would never have imagined if there had not been a reason to try them. Since then he turned that experience into a metaphor for understanding entrepreneurship.

“You run as fast as the dog chasing you. If a French poodle chases you, you go slowly. But if three Rottweilers chase you, you discover a speed you didn’t know you had.”

During the conversation he returns to that idea several times. Because, beyond the companies he has created or the positions he has held, Hernando Rubio is convinced that growth occurs when one decides to face challenges that seem too great.

Learn by doing

Long before creating MOVii, Hernando Rubio had already discovered that the most valuable learning was not always in books.

While studying engineering he decided to work at the same time and began selling household appliances door to door.

That experience, he remembers, was a true school about people, business and resilience.

Over the years he founded companies, led teams and participated in different industries, but he never abandoned the conviction that practice teaches as much as theory.

Intelligent is he who learns from his own mistakes; Wise is he who learns from the mistakes of others.

• What did those first years of working while you studied leave you?

The university gave me a very important foundation, but I think I learned 80% of it by working. There I understood how people, businesses, and the problems worth solving really work.

That learning also shaped his way of leading. Today he assures that he continues studying, reading and talking with entrepreneurs from different industries because he understands that no one builds a company only with what they already know.

“Intelligent is he who learns from his own mistakes; Wise is he who learns from the mistakes of others”.

Build a company with purpose

When talking about the origin of MOVii, Rubio avoids focusing on the technology. He prefers to explain the problem he tried to solve.

From a very young age he observed the difficulties that millions of people face in accessing the financial system and understood that this exclusion limits their development opportunities. The arrival of digitalization allowed him to turn that concern into a concrete project.

• What prompted you to create MOVii?

I always had the concern of how to make the financial system stop excluding people. When the right technology appeared I understood that it was time to try it.”

However, he insists that the real driving force was never to develop a fintech, but rather to build a company with a purpose. In his opinion, companies only manage to overcome difficult times when there is a sufficiently important cause behind them.

“I am not going to die until I ensure that any person or any business can pay or be paid digitally, regardless of their social status.”

That same conviction explains another phrase that has accompanied him for years and that he keeps written in his house:

““He who does not live to serve, is not useful to live.”comments Hernando Rubio.

Learning is also evolving

After decades of entrepreneurship, Hernando Rubio continues to describe himself in the same way: an apprentice.

He believes one of the biggest mistakes a founder can make is thinking they’ve already found all the answers.

The emergence of artificial intelligence, for example, is seen as an invitation to study again.

More than a threat, it represents an opportunity to question what you already know and understand how industries evolve.

For him, that ability to adapt has been one of the keys to his career.

Markets change, technology advances and companies evolve, but curiosity must remain intact.

Never stop learning

As the conversation nears the end, the question stops being about MOVii and becomes about him.

• What advice would you give today to an entrepreneur who is just starting out?

May you never stop learning. The world changes too quickly to believe that one already knows enough. You have to read, listen, ask and, above all, act. Learning without action is of very little use.

The answer seems to summarize his entire career. From that young man who walked the streets selling appliances to the founder of one of the most relevant fintech companies in Colombia.

Hernando Rubio has changed industries, companies and responsibilities. However, there is something that remains intact.

The search for new “rottweilers” continues. He continues to set challenges that force him to leave his comfort zone.

And he remains convinced that true growth is not in accumulating certainties, but in maintaining enough curiosity to continue learning.

Perhaps that is why, after so many years of undertaking, Hernando Rubio still prefers to define himself in only one way: An eternal learner.