There has never been a doubt in my mind that my brother would be successful. After all, he's my father's son. See what I did there? ;)

Let me explain why I think so, and take you back to Santiago de Chile around 1945.

My father is the youngest of 4 brothers, all destined for good stuff when their father, a successful lawyer, passed away at an early age and left the family in shambles. My grand mother was forced to take on a few jobs in order to support the family, and the eldest brother joined the army. Since the family was obviously in a difficult situation, Grand Mother, a VERY tough cookie, made it very clear to the boys that life is hard as nails and they would have to grow up quickly. So the boys studied and developed themselves and worked jobs on the side.

She was very fortunate to have welcomed and raised 4 intelligent sons that would look out for one another in these difficult circumstances and the brothers, well disciplined by GrandMa, started working and studying hard in order to secure their respective futures. No one else would do that for them, they learned fast. Even though their mother was often not around due to the heavy burden of having to raise a family of 4 by herself while working a minimum of 3 jobs, the brothers grew close and helped one another through these tough times. Respect.

As the eldest brother quickly became a highly decorated army officer, the next 2 brothers obtained full scholarships in the USA at Ivy League universities, and Dad became a top 1% scholar at the University de Chile and managed to play in a successful folks band which won the South American folk music competition and put out 2 records.

Failure was not an option.

Yep. My dad is a Rockstar. Literally. The Chilean Folk version of a backstreet boy ;) It has been said that he played guitar with Julio Iglesias (true story) and shared a changing room with Jimmy Cliff (also a true story).

In this period he fell in love with a super cute Gringa named Helene from that far away Europe while she was stationed in Chile with her Dutch family, and after she went back to Holanda to pursue her career, Dad, madly in love with this Gringa decided to be a Little Loco and leave his easy life in Chile to conquer Mom's heart back in the Low Lands., with just a few bucks in his pocket. And you wonder where I got my Crazy Gene ;)

These were not easy times since the Netherlands did not recognise his Architectural degree, they made him redo his entire degree in order to be able to do his thing. While working a full time job. In Dutch. Which he did not speak....Mom spent the same amount of years translating and helping dad every night, and she was honoured during the ceremony for her efforts, for which she really should have received her own degree (in my opinion). She sacrificed her time for dad and also worked part time job’s on the side while raising us 3, and the de la Fuente boys were not the easiest kids as I recall.

Then again: Failure was not an Option.

I guess what I am trying to say is that we are a rather stubborn and determined bunch. I am quite sure that the genetic cocktail mom and dad created helped tremendously in this process, for both are as determined as can be. My dutch Grandfather worded it as follows in his many 'Let me tell you about life' sessions

'Ron, you should not find an excuse not to do something, you should find an excuse to DO IT'. I miss him, he too was hard as nails with a heart of gold, up to the point he unfortunately left us on his way to the 'second level' where I am sure he is still instilling his correctness on the next generation. I remember he helped me write (yes handwritten) my application letters for my internships and first jobs and made me redo them time and time again until they were perfect. Thanks Opa, you were awesome.

So back to Pat. When my brother was around 12 years old, mom asked us what we wanted to be when we grow up, as any mom would ask her kids at some point. As I have still not grown up, I assume my answers included Navy Seal, Fireman, and a Transformer.

Pat on the other hand wrote down that he wanted to be a successful international businessman and a millionaire before the age of 40. When he was just 12. Let me see if I can find it so you can read it yourself. This determination has made his dreams come true and made him an exceptional businessman, husband, brother and son. He somehow had it all planned out from early age.

Pato was accepted to Hotelschool the Hague, Institute for International Hospitality Management in Feb 1992 as one of the first international stream students. Like all of us graduates he combined education with work and lots and lots of fun at the university bar and whit his fraternity.

The 4 year program at HTH is pretty tough, and only a small percentage of applicants are accepted. Outside of the academic qualifications, HTH conducts extensive interviews to ensure that these future managers of the world are in line with the successful graduates all around the world. HTH graduates are found managing some of the most impressive and premium hotel chains in the world.

There were no subjects in particular that my brother excelled in, however HTH was the place his interest in wine was sparked. Beverage studies was one of the  compulsory courses in this international hospitality university, which all of us absolutely loved for the simple reason that you could spend the day tasting amazing wines, whiskeys and other alcohol. While studying. By day. I am actually grinning while writing this, thinking back at how empty the spitting bowls were during these sessions.

Even though he was an average student, he completed the 4 years course in 4 years, which app. 5% of the school actually does. Most students in those days chose to enjoy their time at HTH for another 6 to 18 months to enjoy their student life. In the netherlands the government paid students (at that time) a monthly allowance which made life a lot easier and allowed for more partying.  

Not my brother though.

He was chosen from of a large pool of international students to pursue the elite Corporate Management Traineeship at Hyatt International, he could not wait to leave HTH to pursue a real career, work and make lots of money. Most students I know took time off during and after their HTH time, however Pato jumped straight into work and did not look back.

The corporate traineeship took him to the Grand Hyatt in Jakarta where he spend 6 months working as a Food & Beverage manager while quickly climbing the ranks in the Hyatt system.

This quickly got him promoted to Manager of the famous JJ’s club in the Grand Hyatt in Hong Kong. He was back home on the island he loved so very much.

JJ’s was nuts. That is pretty much how my brother describes it until this day ‘I used to head to work around 3pm, to get ready a busy night. JJ’s was the hottest, coolest club around, and in those days pretty much every night was Friday. I usually closed the club around 3-4, did my closing duties until 5-6am, then went for a pint of Kilkenny’s and a slice of pizza and would fall asleep on my plate. Every day. My parents somehow though I went of the deep end as I turned into a vampire slowly, living at night’’

JJ’s was also the place where my brother first was introduced to the world of fine wine. Being one of the most exclusive clubs in Hong Kong at the time, Pato was quickly introduced to the most expensive and exclusive wine portfolios in Hong Kong and quickly started building relationships with the bigger wine suppliers on the island.

At the same time Pato started dreaming about the next opportunity, and the entrepreneurial bug started flying around his head. Wine was always on his mind, because in his JJ’s time, he started investigating how to build websites (after all, it was 1999..and even registered a URL, www.wineshopasia.com. Pato believed that the internet could be a very nice platform to sell wine, not B2B but to consumers. He started writing his business plan, however his venture was cut short when Pato was headhunted by  Dai Chong Hong  to help start up a wine division in their retail division. This was the break my brother was waiting for and definitely righht up his alley.

Selling Wine

Pato and his team were pretty good, and quickly started opening accounts for the new department, and wine sale started to grow.

The adventure did not last for long, because Pato quickly saw the opportunity to follow his dream of becoming an entrepreneur and using an outside investor Links Concept was created. The dream came true.

Sales were doing very well, the company grew, positions were being filled however Pato and his silent partner did not agree on every strategy of the company. This finally resulted in Pato deciding to go all the way, and buy out his partners 100%, resulting in Links being his and his alone. Go Entrepreneurship!

From this moment The Links organization went through explosive growth, and the team has not looked back only forwards.

Even Though Pato does not speaking about his sales, the grin on his face tells enough..’We do well. We work hard and sell a crazy amount of wine and champagne at the moment. And I do not see us slowing down anytime soon. The Wine pallet of our core markets is constantly developing, and the demand for premium wines is growing daily.