Should a company bolt corporate responsibility onto its org chart as a formal department, or let it grow out of the work itself? Alejandro Betancourt López answers yes to both, and he sees no contradiction in wanting a structured program and an organic one at the same time.
His investment group, O’Hara Administration, spans energy, finance, technology and consumer retail, and that range has given him a wide view of how social programs actually take root inside a business rather than sitting off to the side as a press release.
Structured, and Also Organic
“I think social responsibility is something that should be structured as a department. I do believe it comes natural also,” he said. The formal side gives it budget and accountability; the organic side keeps it honest.
“Once you make an investment in an emerging market and you see you need talent and you create a pool for-or try to form a pool of talent by creating an environment, building formation centers and all of that-so it goes hand in hand,” he added. Building capacity, in his telling, is both good citizenship and plain operational sense.
Eyewear for People Who Can’t Easily Get It
At Hawkers, the Spanish eyewear company where he serves as president and largest shareholder, social work has centered on vision care. The company has built programs aimed at communities with limited access to eyewear. The effort links a real health need to a product the company already makes at scale.
That closeness to the core business is part of why it holds. A brand that sells eyewear and then widens access to it is extending something it already does well, which makes the effort easier to sustain year after year.
An Electric Fleet by 2026
Auro Travel, the Spanish ride-sharing service where he holds a founding stake, has committed to moving its entire fleet to electric vehicles by 2026. The pledge tracks both tightening regulation and what riders increasingly want, so it satisfies compliance and customer preference in one move.
It also shows how an everyday operational call can carry a social charge. Choosing electric over combustion is a fleet decision and an environmental one at once, and for Betancourt López that overlap is exactly where responsible business tends to live. Both moves share a logic. He picks causes close enough to the core business that they can outlast a single budget cycle rather than fade the moment attention moves elsewhere.