Haroldo Jacobovicz is a Brazilian entrepreneur and telecommunications industry pioneer. He founded Horizons Telecom, the country’s first international long-distance company. As General Manager of Horizons, he uses his technical expertise in telecommunications and venture capital to help fledgling entrepreneurs obtain growth capital for their start-up companies. Haroldo Jacobovicz’s father and mother were civil engineers who moved to Curitiba from São Paulo. He received his primary education in Curitiba and learned much from his parents. He studied his whole life and was always very focused. He became very interested in technology and the business approach, which led to his diversion from civil engineering to information technology and telecommunications.
After graduating from the Federal University of Paraná, he was employed by Electron império to work on their Latin American division. After three years, he worked full-time in this division and managed the technical aspects and human resources of the subsidiary companies of Electron. In 1983, Haroldo Jacobovicz left Electron to start his own company, Andrade Computer Systems, which was later renamed Horizons Telecom. His career choice was that of being a hardware engineer. To be an entrepreneur, you have to have a vision and not just be interested in the technical area.
His education and experience in telecommunications extend back to when he was involved with one of Brazil’s first computer companies. This experience and years of experience as a technology entrepreneur have formed Haroldo Jacobovicz is a true “real-world” Renaissance man.
Jacobovicz’s entrepreneurial vision and efforts have brought new products to the telecommunications market in Brazil, resulting in more than 3.2 billion dollars of market capitalization additions. In a country with one of the highest international telecommunications tariffs, his efforts have helped make long-distance calling relatively affordable.
His goal was to create a Brazilian-owned enterprise that could compete internationally. Horizons is one of the most successful Brazilian companies founded by a young entrepreneur, and its high-quality service has made it a leader in the long-distance market.