Raúl Romero Havaux
“The challenge is to integrate different perspectives into a more complete reality… Yes, and also…”
No one is smart enough to be wrong all the time.
Therefore, we all have some part of the truth. The challenge is not to prove who is right, but to integrate different perspectives into a more complete reality. That is the spirit of “Yes, and also.”
Throughout my life, I have worked with very different people and organizations. Along the way, I learned that what matters is not only results, but impact—and that for this impact to be constructive and sustainable, it must be grounded in a purpose greater than ourselves, one that includes us and transcends us.
I am convinced of something simple and demanding at the same time: the most revolutionary act I can undertake is to try to become a better person.
“I much prefer provoking reflection to giving lectures”— Raúl Romero Havaux
Books
My ideas put into circulation: from purpose and consciousness to a story about soccer that is, in reality, a story about doubt.
Re-evolución Personal 2.0
My most recent project
A system for finding your life purpose and becoming a better person. My most recent work, focused on helping people live a more meaningful life.
Get it here
Duda
2014 · My first novel
A story that could have happened during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. My first venture into fiction.
Get it here
Conscious Capitalism
Founder of the Mexico Chapter
Since my beginnings as an entrepreneur, I have always been interested in the impact companies have on development. In the 1980s, I became involved with and was an active member of Business for Social Responsibility. I am still moved by the “social activism” of some international companies that dared to put issues on the table that had traditionally been left to NGOs. Perhaps what attracted me most during those years was the close relationship these brands and cases generated with more “conscious” employees and consumers. I still remember the day I decided to step away from the “movement.” During one of the sessions, I shared a table with several Vice Presidents of Corporate Social Responsibility from some of the least “responsible” companies on the planet. I realized that this corporate “revolution” had already become an institutional movement pursuing public relations and image more than a structural evolution of the business model.
For many companies that joined the wave, this new “consciousness” at the end of the last century generated positioning and even strong returns: we all want to “save the planet” and “help homeless children.” I believe I witnessed the birth of what we now understand as woke culture. With the passage of time, I came to understand that this period of recognitions displayed in corporate reception areas, almost like Michelin stars, was the natural evolution of the first wave of “committed” entrepreneurs that had extended for more than 200 years and that we know as philanthropy. From philanthropy to Social Responsibility. From the individual giving back, to the company giving back to society. Years later, new models emerged for understanding the role of business, and one of those that most caught my attention was Conscious Capitalism.
What attracted me to this “new wave” of “business philosophy” was a fundamental principle: if a company is managed by creating value for all stakeholders while pursuing a higher purpose, not only does it achieve much better results—as has been documented over the past 20 years—but the world becomes “a better place.” For this reason, I decided to bring the movement to Mexico and founded the Mexico chapter of Conscious Capitalism. In my understanding, this represents the third wave: from philanthropy to Social Responsibility to Conscious Capitalism. In other words, from the individual giving back what they “took too much of,” to companies contributing to society, and finally to companies that neither “take” too much nor “contribute,” but simply conduct their business by creating value for all stakeholders.
During the years I was involved in this “movement,” I developed a more complete perspective on organizations, to the point that today one of the most powerful practices in my work as a consultant is Future Search, a strategic planning process that begins with a higher purpose and includes the creation of value for all stakeholders and holders. But like every “revolution,” over time it becomes conventional. In this case, I watched the idea of “consciousness” become a banner for moralism that, far from promoting freedom and prosperity, established rules of the game that were contrary to the market and detrimental to organizational agility and business flourishing. So in 2025, I decided to leave the movement and the organization in Mexico.
Today, my understanding is that this evolution—from Philanthropy to Social Responsibility to Stakeholder Capitalism—represents, on the one hand, the human desire to have a better impact through free enterprise, while at the same time becoming public-relations mechanisms that are far from effective in solving the problems companies face in today’s context and that the world demands they address. Each of these turns in business philosophy has undoubtedly contributed to better business practice, and what works in each of them should be carried forward into the present. At the same time, each of these evolutionary stages has produced a “morality” that distracts from fundamental ethical principles and from the sense of merit and freedom that lie at the origin of entrepreneurial creativity, along with the RP book.