About Gabriel Pataro

It took Gabriel Pataro a little while to find his genuine career passion. His undergraduate degree was in public relations, but he realised sales and technology was ultimately where he most fitted in. Although even after a few minutes of conversation with him, one realises he would have been a polished PR executive, if he had persisted with that career option all those years ago.

His dabbling in the field of public relations came after he spent his school years dabbling in a very different area- electronics and electromechanics, in his home city of Buenos Aires. “Yes that was my high school years and I used to actually compete in mathematics competitions and physics competitions,” he explains. His high school at the time (Escuela Philips) had a linkage with electronics giant, Philips, and he says it was a great education to get at a time when the Argentinian economy was facing severe challenges.

His primary degree (at UADE) was in Public Relations, a field a little bit closer to his role nowadays. But it was still a big leap for him at the time, he explains. “I realized I was perhaps a little bit too structured, and I was lacking a bit on the social side of things. I wanted to improve my communications understanding and I found a passion for working with people, talking with them and the PR was really good for me, to expose myself, to get confidence, with things like public speaking,” he states.

He says the benefits from this degree are still being collected to this day. “I'm happy to speak. I love numbers, I could be looking into data and numbers all day, but I really enjoy as well the human side. So that's a really nice balance that I think I found in my life,” he declares.

After his degree in the PR field, he graduated and found himself soon working in the sporting goods industry, with the renowned brand Wilson, known particularly for sports like tennis and golf and for a brief appearance in the Tom Hanks movie, Castaway!

As it was early in his career, Pataro decided to expose himself to as many departments as possible in the company. “So, I worked a bit in marketing. For example, I did some market research, I did some journalism, a little bit of writing, press releases and after that, sales”.

He laughs looking back now as he had never played tennis in his life, but was a decent tennis racket sales person. “I was in charge of coordinating all the shipments from around the world to go to Argentina, all the paperwork, and one of the most interesting parts was forecasting. So can you predict how much demand there will be for shoes, tennis rackets, bags, all of those bits will be required in 6 months from today based on previous trends?” He says this work was interesting and he loved coming up with formulas that could help manage demand flows.

On the surface at least the job sounded interesting and Buenos Aires is a city many fall in love with. So, the direct and obvious question to ask is – what made him wave goodbye to all this and strike out with an MBA?

He responds: “Well I wanted to have a global career. And I realised, well, I can maybe expand my opportunities in South America, maybe go from Argentina to Brazil or other places. But I really wanted to have more of a global impact, and I have that in my background. My family is from Italy originally, I have Italian nationality, so I wanted to do an MBA, in English and in an English-speaking country. And so, then I narrowed the choices down, probably to either Ireland or the UK”.

But a meeting with head of the UCD MBA programme in 2007, Nick Barniville, proved particularly persuasive. “So, he blew my mind. We met face to face, and when he told me about the program, and I got to meet some of the faculty. I was really, really excited, and also I came with my wife. So, we were at the time not married. And it was an incredible experience. I realized UCD would be the place,” he recalls.

His plan after studying for an MBA was to stay in Dublin and work for a few years, but it wasn’t anymore defined than that, and as he says himself “I’m still here’’. Of course it was not always plain sailing, for example in the academic year of his MBA (2007/08) the world was undergoing a global financial crisis, although he believes having come from Argentina was a help in navigating this bumpy era.

“I saw how my country bounced back after such a thing, and I said, ‘look, it doesn't matter’. Yes, we're in the middle of a recession, but things can be turned around, and if you put a lot of effort and focus in and you drive hard, things can happen for you. So, I kind of approached it with positivity,” he recalls.

That same positivity and collegiality helped him land his first role, post-MBA. A friend from the MBA class had secured a role in US tech giant, Oracle and Pataro was able to get him to refer Pataro himself on to the company for any future roles. Fortunately, one came up and by 2009 he was a business development consultant with the company in Dublin. He says this initial role had him identifying business opportunities, generating pipeline and giving these leads to someone else to convert, but that would change in time when he switched companies.

He joined a small startup in Dublin in 2011, who were establishing their European office. This small start-up went by the name of LinkedIn!

“When I was finishing my time at Oracle, I realized, that I wanted something smaller where I could have more of an impact and develop my own business. I wanted to become an Account Executive, which is where you are in charge of closing the deals and signing those contracts with customers. The very interesting opportunity I saw with LinkedIn was that the company was about to grow and they were looking for people with initiative, entrepreneurial spirit with some experience in business development, because you have to generate your own pipeline of opportunities,” he explains. He says the initial training provided was good, but at a certain point employees have to take control. He says his manager gave him a laptop and said, “there you go, now go and conquer the world”.

“I was one of the first employees of LinkedIn in Dublin, and I was there for 6.5 years, and during that time I evolved from individual employee to a management role”, he explains. Thankfully for Pataro promotions were something he managed to acquire during his time there.

“Thankfully. Yes, I think they always gave me a lot of space to try things, and they were not just about what's your revenue. They used to measure performance on leadership, leverage and results. So, leadership - how are you inspiring others to accomplish big objectives? Secondly, on the leverage, how are you being more effective? How can you really help others to be much more effective and then results will flow. Yes, they always rewarded people with the best results in the teams,” he explains.

Despite these wonderful years, he was ready for a new challenge and in 2017 it was time to make a jump. “I was looking for something new again, a small company trying to really grow and scale and that's when I joined Docusign”. The opportunity came via a mentor, who he respected greatly, who suggested he talk to someone in Docusign at that time. He explains that in 2017 Docusign was very small in Dublin. “There was an opportunity for me to to help and develop something, and I am still there. So now I am Area Vice President (or AVP). I lead a team of managers and account executives, focusing particularly on a region which includes Germany, Austria and Switzerland,” he says. 

He summarises his current role very well. “So, I went from just let's say, managing a team of account executives, to managing managers, and then at the point managing VPs, who manage managers, who manage account executives,” he smiles, explaining it all. He says while Docusign remains a somewhat low-key presence in Europe, it is the opposite position in the US market

“I can say, for example, once I travelled for a business trip to America, and I was stopping in customs and it was like ‘Okay, give me your passport, etc’. And it was like ‘ok, Gabriel, etcetera. And he's like, Where do you work? Docusign? And the guy was like can I give you a hug. I was like whoa! There is a big, big love for docusign in America that you don't see that yet in Europe,” he says.

He says the Docusign operation in Dublin is firmly international and that is its strength.

“Absolutely. That brings like different hobbies, different ideas. Something, for example, I started playing recently is backgammon with one of my colleagues at work. And I try to get better, to look different places, different cultures, different nationalities. People have different interests,” he explains.

Being Argentinian itself has been a big bonus for Pataro. “Yes, people talk to me about Messi or rugby player Felipe Contepomi,” he concedes. While he says Irish people know a lot more about Argentina than just sport, football does remain an international language of sorts. He is very much embedded now in the city and regards Dublin as a major European tech hub. He has no plans leave it and in his estimation the ecosystem here is only likely to grow and deepen further.

Panel

Reflecting on your time at UCD, what experience stands out as particularly impactful or memorable?

I had many incredible experiences, but I must say that attending Pat Gibbon's strategy classes in my MBA was life changing.

He inspired me to think in a very different way about business and explore challenges and opportunities with a much wider vision.

This new approach helped me to marry strategy and tactics in all my work experiences and had long lasting impact on my career.

Is there a particular book or song you have carried with you for much of your life?

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is a book that made me dream about my future and fuelled my ambition in life. A few years after reading it, I flew from Argentina to Spain and walked over 200km of El Camino de Santiago. It was my first time coming to Europe and this experience built my confidence. It’s a memory that I always go back to when confronted with difficult situations. In particular, walking over that long distance, with no map, following ancient yellow marks left by other pilgrims, and reaching my final destination gave me a strong feeling of trust and collaboration in our world.

What's the best piece of advice you've ever received, funny or serious?

My grandparents gave me two pieces of advice for my life: Be a good person and Dream Big. We are all unique and we must choose the path we believe is best for our life.

These words from them, many years ago, still resonate with me and I try to live and act by those ideas.

What's a hobby or activity you've always wanted to try but haven't gotten around to yet?

I would love to write a book one day. It's very difficult to find time to do that today, so I often write posts about business on LinkedIn instead. Hopefully, someday I can compile and expand them towards a book on my experiences in business.

If you could have a conversation with any historical figure, who would it be and what would you ask that person?

Julius Caesar would be my number one choice! I love history and the Roman Empire in particular. He crossed the Rubicon and changed Rome forever.

If he was alive today, I would ask him how he conquered his fears and inspired an army to cross that river. That decision had no safety net and could have cost the lives of everyone involved. Easy to read about it, but extremely difficult to execute.

January 2025