The cost of overexpansion: how Juan Valdez grew by entering fewer markets
Key takeaways
- Camila Escobar joined Procafecol as CEO in 2018 to find a company with a strong home base and a scattered global presence.
- With locations shuttered and revenue shrinking, Escobar s team ran the numbers on every market.
- The lesson isn t that Juan Valdez found the right five markets.
The cost of overexpansion: how Juan Valdez grew by entering fewer markets Quartz · Jeffrey Greenberg / Universal Images Group via Getty Images Anthony Lopopolo Tue, June 16, 2026 at 4:00 PM GMT+7 5 min read. A version of this article originally appeared in Quartz’s Leadership newsletter. Sign up here to get the latest leadership news and insights straight to your inbox.
Camila Escobar joined Procafecol as CEO in 2018 to find a company with a strong home base and a scattered global presence. Juan Valdez, the Colombian coffee brand that Procafecol is tasked with commercializing, had expanded into nearly 40 markets, from Aruba to Australia. The footprint looked impressive. The results weren t. More than 80% of revenue still came from Colombia.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced a reckoning. With locations shuttered and revenue shrinking, Escobar s team ran the numbers on every market. A target list of 10 countries shrank to five: Brazil, Mexico, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. The goal was to increase international sales from 20% to 40% of total revenue. Four years later, the company is outperforming its targets in each market, logging double-digit growth, and recorded its highest EBITDA in history in 2025.