Presenting

12 Industry Leader FR : How did you get started in the fl ower industry? J.A.: It was a family business. My grandfather had an investment in a small miniature-carnation farm in the late 1980s, and the farm didn't do very well. I had just graduated from an M.B.A. program, and my grandfather asked me to take a look. And I never went back to anything other than fl owers. I've been in the business almost 30 years and have worked in the retail, wholesale, importing and growing segments. at all helped me get the skill set and experience I needed to make Alexandra Farms what it is. FR : While you were attending college, what did you plan for your career? J.A.: I grew up in Colombia and went to an American high school there, but I always knew I was going to go to college in the States. I studied economics in Boston, and then I got a master's degree in business, in New York. At that time, Colombia was beginning to become a major player in the cut fl ower business, and fl owers were becoming part of Colombian culture. ey were incredibly special. I had a sense of pride in that, but I never thought I'd be in the fl ower business. FR : When you started in the fl ower business, the Colombian market was really taking off . How was it being part of an industry that helped change the country's culture away from the drug trade? J.A.: It was interesting! e Andean Trade Preference Act [ATPA] was enacted by the U.S. in 1991 to encourage Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru to reduce drug- crop cultivation and traffi cking. e U.S. granted tariff preferences to qualifying products—in our case, fl owers—to foster trade and help eliminate the drug business. However, the drug business was in another area of Colombia, and you couldn't replace cocaine with roses in that area because cocaine grows in very wet, hot areas and roses grow best in cool mountainous regions. So I'm not sure if the ATPA deterred the drug growers, but it did help the fl ower business. At that time, Colombia was a country of 36 million people, and there were maybe 1,000 people dedicated to drugs, but [the drug trade] is what people remember. So the fl ower people were really trying to show off another side of Colombia, and it was an amazing time. FR : Other than that, what have been some of the positive eff ects of the fl ower industry on the people of Colombia? J.A.: Before fl owers, there was a dairy industry and an agriculture industry in Colombia, most employees of which were men—so men were bringing home the money. And it was a paternalistic society where the men often were not as nice to their wives as they should have been. Women were often powerless and in bad situations, but then the fl ower growers began providing Jose ( Joey) Azout Alexandra Farms FR talks with the president of Alexandra Farms, a boutique grower specializing in nostalgic, romantic, fresh cut garden roses in Bogotá, Colombia, about his amazing company, the fl oriculture industry in Colombia, and the soaring popularity and demand for garden roses. By Jules Lewis Gibson

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