The ROAR Podcast: Ferran Prieto

In September of 2015, Pau Gasol sat down with an engineer who never worked a day in sports and asked him to help build Pau's version of Magic Johnson Enterprises. The job description? Be Catalan in Barcelona, Spanish in Madrid, and American in the United States. And know investing, startups, and how to lead a team. Nearly 11 years later, Ferran Prieto is still doing exactly that. Farhan is the CEO and Managing Director of Gasile 16 Ventures and Managing Partner at Everest Advisory Services, where he helps athletes build what comes after their playing careers. He took the long road to get here, engineering and supply chain in the automotive industry, corporate strategy and venture work at General Motors, and four years inside Dan Gilbert's startup ecosystem. In this conversation with Caroline, Ferran explains why an American star can promote his business the day after a loss, while many European athletes feel they can. He walks through the three pillars of Gasol's 16 ventures, Powell's role in the Olympic movement, the Gasol Foundation's fight against childhood obesity, and an investment portfolio that includes an early stake in the WNBA. He makes the case that women's sports are still undervalued. He says that when investors evaluate a franchise today, one of the first questions is whether the team controls the real estate around the vendor. Plus, how he uses AI to evaluate deals, including the time, the tool, a broken formula, and a proposal spreadsheet, and why a human still hasn't checked the work. I'm Bryce Clinton, and this is Aurora Podcast.

Welcome to the Roar podcast. I'm your host, Caroline Balvardi, and with me today is Faram Prieto, CEO and Managing Director of Gasol 16 Ventures, as well as Managing Partner at Everest Advisory Services. Welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me.

So you've had an exciting summer. So before we jump in, I do have to congratulate you on the World Cup. So I don't know if you want to share a couple seconds of your I don't know where you were, what you were doing or what that means to you. But I imagine it's it's pretty exciting for you this summer.

Very exciting. It's really funny because we, I was actually watching the game with a friend of mine who's not even Spanish. So we were just watching it at his house and that was fun. He loves Spain, loves Madrid, but he loves both of them for some reason. But he really enjoyed it. The funny thing is, this is the second World Cup that Spain has ever won on the men's side. 2010 was the first one, 2026 this one. And those are the two years that I actually bought a home. And I moved to a new home, which is funny because I told my wife that, hey, you know, it's really funny that the tweet we bought a home, Spain won the World Cup. My wife said, well, then this is the last World Cup Spain will ever

win.

Because she's done moving.

Yeah, moving is not that fun. But yeah, I do wonder if there's something to that, though. I don't know.

Maybe we need to buy another home in four years, you know, when we actually host the World Cup.

Very good. Well, congratulations. And this is the one time where I get to, that was my one bloodline left in the World Cup. So I was excited as