Pedro was an athlete in the nineties, and represented Brazil in the Olympic Games in Barcelona (1992) and Atlanta (1996) in the 400 and 110-meter hurdles. Chiamulera did not win an Olympic medal, but is quick to point out that he reached one of the top goals of any Brazilian athlete, which is to participate in the world's largest sporting event.
When asked about what led to the change from athlete to entrepreneur, Pedro explains that his career as an athlete let to a scholarship to a US university where he graduated in Computer Science. He returned to Brazil and four years later decided to abandon his athletic career.
"I had a lot of entrepreneurial experience at home. My father was an entrepreneur and his role model inspired me. Of course it was not easy at first, but the transition itself was easy as my training as an athlete helped me pursue my dream."
Fifteen years ago, when ClearSale was created, there were a lot of issues, especially in terms of business management, something that was very new to Pedro. He explains that he lost 22 of the 25 employees he had due to the internet boom of the mid 2000s. He overcame this thanks to two important factors. The first is what he learned as an athlete, which game him resilience, the ability to hear "no" a lot of times and handle his own insecurity. It especially taught him persistence and to follow his dreams. The second was the arrival of Bernardo Lustosa, who is a statistician and excellent administrator, and helped him organize and manage the company. Today Bernardo is a partner and COO, together with Mauro Back, VP of IT and people.
During the interview, Pedro explained about ClearSale's end-to-end fraud management solution and the company's strategy for 2016, such as consolidation in North America and in off-line transactions for Telcos, Insurers and Credit Card Issuers.