RJRGLEANER Honour Awards 2019 | An ordinary man doing extraordinary things

Recipient: Johann ‘Yoni’ Epstein

Category: Special Award: Business

 

 

Many have titled him as a fast-rising businessman with multiple awards in Jamaica’s Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), but Johann ‘Yoni’ Epstein, the founder of itel-BPO Solutions, just wants to be remembered as an ordinary man who can ‘roll’ with any level of the cultural classes.

Epstein’s journey in the world of business began in 2012 with seven employees and one client, but a year later, that number increased to 120 workers. The growth was partly attributable to a second location Epstein had set up in The Bahamas, offering end-to-end customer solutions to the country’s Ministry of Tourism.

Fast-forward eight years later, the 40-year-old businessman now wears the titles of the founding director of the Business Process Industry Association of Jamaica (BPIAJ), chairman of Alpha Angels, founder and CEO of itel-BPO Solutions, and chairman of CarRental8.com. This year, Epstein will add the 2019 RJRGLEANER Honour Award to his list of outstanding business achievements.

Epstein was selected for a special award in the business category for the creation of the largest uniquely Jamaican BPO entity, operating in five countries with a large network of experts.

But his rise in the industry was not without nights of questioning whether the business would find its place in the budding industry or become an epic failure. Epstein’s success also took a skill that he dared not let his employees or stakeholders see – dark days had him frequently coaching himself to regain insight on what was truly important in business.

“In 2014, we won what we thought was our first big contract. Things were not always rosy so we borrowed money, got a new facility in Montego Bay and went on the hunt to launch a campaign for this client. But about August or September of that year, the guy stopped returning phone calls and emails, cut off our access and we weren’t sure why,” CEO recalled.

“At this point we had hired new people and we were losing money, so I decided to sue them for breach of contract. They then countersued me for breach of confidentiality. We wrote letters back and forth but at the end 2014, I questioned whether I was going to focus all my energy on fighting something that might be a nail in the coffin for our company, or drop it and focus on growth.”

The decision was to focus on growth.

THE GROWTH

By summer 2015, Epstein managed to secure new contracts which not only brought an end to itel-BPO’s losses but also created an opportunity for the CEO to retain the staff hired for the failed contract.

So phenomenal was the growth that the company had to seek new space in Kingston to better service its growing client base. A year later, Epstein had set up a group of investors to acquire a client it had in the rental car business, Car Rental 8.

“At that point we started to figure out the business development techniques. That acquisition allowed us to grow footprint to 550 employees here in Jamaica,” the graduate of the Manchester-based Belair High School said.

“That’s about the size when larger clients start to look at you and say, ‘if I give you a 100 seats, it’s not going to cripple your business’. So we began engaging with Hilton Hotel and it took us about a year to convince them that we were the right vendor.”

But there was also a change happening in the market that later proved beneficial to the growing business.

“This is when we started to hear larger players saying that they wanted to work with the smaller vendors because they would get better service, more access to the owners and the C-level employees to resolve issues in a timely manner,” Epstein said.

Hilton awarded itel-BPO with the contract in late 2016 and it triggered the build-out of itel-BPO’s Montego Bay-based head office and campus. From there, it was uphill for the customer contact operation.

Today, itel-BPO has footprint in Jamaica, Bahamas, United States, Mexico, and last year broke ground for a 20,000 square-foot centre in St Lucia after giving up a 30 per cent stake in the business to PanJam Investment Limited and Portland Private Equity.

Epstein now employs 3,000 individuals across the group and has a target of an additional 5,000 staff by 2025. Three hundred jobs will come from the two-storey development in Vieux-Fort, St Lucia, which is expected to come on stream on April 1, 2020.

INTERESTING FACTS

* In his time away from the office, you can be sure to find Johann ‘Yoni’ Epstein playing and mixing recorded music. He has been fuelling his passion for music since his teenage years and today considers himself as a budding disc jockey.

* The social media images of Epstein participating in the annual Sigma Sagicor Run say it all. He enjoys running for health and wellness but also partakes in activities just for fun.

* Epstein is also a nature lover, but he particularly loves to get lost in time while fishing and sailing the ocean.

* A family man, Epstein this year celebrates his 10th anniversary as a husband. The union has produced two children, El and Aiden.

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENTS

* 2013 – Johann ‘Yoni’ Epstein was recognised as one of the 50 most influential business executives in the BPO throughout the Caribbean and Latin America.

* 2016 – Entrepreneur of the Year by Nearshore Americas.

* 2018 and 2019 – itel-BPO Solutions awarded the Growth Excellence Leadership Award by Frost & Sullivan.

* 2020 – itel-BPO recognised as Caribbean BPO Employer of the Year and Caribbean BPO of the Year by Caribbean Association of Investment Promotion Agencies.

* 2020– itel-BPO named in top 20 BPOs globally, top five for voice of the customer by HFS, and a leading global analyst firm for IT and business services.

BUCKET LIST

* Johann ‘Yoni’ Epstein is targeting growth of an additional 1,000 employees in Kingston for 2020.

* itel-BPO Solutions wants to secure more clients in Kingston, St Lucia and Monterrey, Mexico.

* The itel-BPO CEO is also keeping an eye out for more regional acquisitions.

* itelBPO hopes to hit a target of an additional 5,000 new hires across the region over the next five years.