“I was born to be an entrepreneur,” says Bruno Pelikan, who grew up in São Paulo, Brazil, in a multi-generational family of bakers and grocers. “I had that romantic view of starting a business that genuinely met people’s needs, driven by a passion for creating something meaningful.”
Bruno earned his law degree and did volunteer work abroad before launching his career in business development with a global paper company. However, his drive to start his own business soon took hold.
“My father gave me a piece of advice,” he says. “Pay attention to whatever problems you live and want to solve.” Bruno had trouble finding a mechanic for his car. That sparked an idea to help other motorists in his situation. In 2016, he joined his first program with Stanford GSB Executive Education, focused on entrepreneurship.
That same year, Bruno founded CarGuru – an online business connecting consumers with auto services providers in Brazil. Then, something unexpected happened.
“Transportation and logistics companies came to me saying, ‘We don’t want your service; we want the software behind your service.’” Bruno learned the transportation industry in Brazil was lagging behind in using digital technologies to support their operations. With road transport being the dominant transportation mode used by industries and businesses, challenges such as aging fleets, a labor shortage, and inflation drove up costs and made it even harder to get consumer goods into stores. Bruno wanted to make their jobs easier.
So in 2019, he shuttered CarGuru and co-founded Rabbot, offering software solutions for transportation companies to digitize, monitor, and automate their fleet operations. “We’re on a mission to transform the logistics industry by enabling companies to thrive in a highly dynamic environment,” says Bruno.
After five years, Bruno grew the company to support 6.6 million vehicles and 40,000 users, generating over $100 million in ROI for clients, he shares. With an infusion of $10 million from investors throughout Rabbot’s journey, Bruno was poised to scale up the company’s operations and expand to serve more customers.
Bruno’s responsibilities include strategic leadership, team development, financial oversight, market expansion, and product innovation. “I needed deeper insights and skills to further refine my abilities and become the transformative leader Rabbot needed at this critical juncture,” he says.
He decided to return to Stanford GSB Executive Education and attend the two-week, on-campus Executive Program for Growing Companies.
Becoming a Transformative Leader
The Executive Program for Growing Companies is focused on the needs, challenges, and opportunities of startups and other companies that are looking to drive and sustain growth. The curriculum covers strategic leadership, winning through innovation, scaling excellence, and much more, and offers participants the opportunity to apply the content learned to a real-world business challenge in discussion group exercises.
“The program’s emphasis on practical, real-world business strategies is exactly what I needed to drive Rabbot to new heights and ensure our long-term success and industry leadership,” Bruno says. “It reinforced the importance of clarity in communication, strategic focus, and building resilient teams. It also helped me tackle challenging topics, like culture, from a practical angle rather than a theoretical or fuzzy one. Most importantly, it inspired me to approach my role with renewed confidence and purpose.”
Bruno enjoyed learning with other leaders from different industries. As a CEO, he appreciated the camaraderie with other executives, including veteran business leaders who shared their years of experiences and insights, while welcoming his perspectives on the future. “I made deep connections,” he shares. “The whole experience prepared me to tackle the next phase.”
Focusing on the Road Ahead
With investor support, Bruno’s company is ready to expand its services to customers across Brazil, creating a business model he’d like to take global. His goal is to improve his country’s economy by streamlining the transportation industry, delivering efficiency to its customers, and helping them reduce costs to better serve their markets.
After completing the program, Bruno immediately put what he learned to work, referring to his takeaways when crafting the framework for his company’s new strategic plan.
“We’re in a great moment — years of market expertise and best practices, combined with the largest database of heavy assets in Latin America, have positioned us to drive real industry transformation. We are excited to introduce unmatched innovation to the market through our AI models powered by our proprietary database,” Bruno notes. “And all of this is tied to the lessons that I learned at Stanford GSB. Now, we are prepared for this to be a major year for Rabbot. We feel energized in a way that I never felt before.”
Bruno hopes to expand Rabbot’s reach to help more transportation companies harness the power of technology, and improve their own business growth. “We are reshaping an industry and the ecosystem here. With AI-driven automation, we are building the future of fleet operations and logistics across Latin America.” He still has the entrepreneur’s heart, he says, inherited from his family. But now he has the knowledge and skills to take his dream even further.
Says Bruno, “I’m definitely a different person and leader, and Rabbot wouldn’t be what we are right now and what we’re aiming to become without Stanford GSB.”
