NORDES Consulting is a boutique firm specializing in business management, divestitures, mergers & acquisitions, and project management. Its tailored solutions leverage proven best practices, and by keeping frameworks streamlined and lean, NORDES allows clients to focus on their core business, no matter the circumstances in which they find themselves.
Rodrigo Rodríguez-Novás can tell you as much about freediving as he can about business; he’s an expert in both, and when you consider them closely, they’re not so different. Freediving requires intense focus and an ability to stay calm despite literal mounting pressure. The consequences of panicking are dire, but masters can reach depths the rest of us can only dream of.
The ability to remain calm while holding his breath at depths over 160 feet is one that Rodrigo has translated to his nearly two decades in the corporate world. “It allows me to work well under pressure, to problem-solve more effectively and efficiently, to mitigate crises, and to keep the end goal in mind,” Rodrigo says. “I’ve cultivated these skills over the course of my career, and I pass their value—what they’ve helped me to achieve—onto my clients.”
Rodrigo worked at Citi across different functions and geographies for close to sixteen years, during which time Miami’s burgeoning startup culture drew Rodrigo’s attention and held it. While completing Wharton’s Mergers & Acquisitions Program in 2019 it was clear to him how small companies and large enterprises could learn from one another. Rodrigo had spent years helping Citi to become leaner in its processes—something that startups had no choice but to do. At the same time, he could also see what different organizations needed to scale in a way that they often could not. This led him to see that he could offer his clients a luxury typically reserved for established companies: time and space to think creatively and in broad terms.
Rodrigo Rodríguez-Novás, Founder and CEO
It’s important to Rodrigo that companies do not miss out on the information they need to scale. “It’s gratifying to me to reveal a new perspective to smaller companies,” Rodrigo says. “So often startups fail not for lack of a great idea but for lack of execution. I want to give all of my clients the chance to succeed on the merit of their idea and on the support I can offer them through my own experience.”
But there is another aspect of Rodrigo’s experience that suits him especially to helping entrepreneurs: he is one himself. “I really have an intimate understanding of my clients’ concerns, and I’m happy to be able to help,” he says. “In starting my own business I was looking for a personal challenge—which I found—but more satisfying to me is to take everything I’ve learned from the corporate world and pass it on to others, beyond just tapping into it for myself.”
NORDES comes from “North East” in Galician, the language of the Spanish region where his family comes from. The name demonstrates Rodrigo’s dedication to personal identity—key for any business or businessperson—but it also corresponds to what Rodrigo, being an economist, visualizes as success: the top-right quadrant of a graph. The cardinal direction to get there? NORDES.
“I had the pleasure to work with Rodrigo on the launch of a fintech startup. Rodrigo is a focused, results-oriented, self-motivated executive. He is extremely well organized and detail-oriented with a strong ability to think strategically and outside the box. When working on the project, Rodrigo stood out by his problem-solving capabilities and his attention to detail. His organized approach to tasks and willingness to help other team members proved to be one of his greatest assets. He is a good listener who can also convey information clearly and effectively to individuals and groups and he stands out as a team leader by gathering tasks and responsibilities among team members to effectively achieve any given goal. It has been a pleasure working with Rodrigo and I look forward to continuing working with him on other projects.”
– Benno Tross, Founder & CEO, Paysco
