Meet The EMBA Class Of Entrepreneurs: Executives Today, Founders Tomorrow 

Rodrigo Borges
Rotman School of Management 

Venture name & date of founding: Nrolled
Date of founding: 2023
Program: Rotman Executive MBA 

 Tell us about your career background: I graduated in advertising and worked as a copywriter and creative director for some years. Then started working in tech, focusing on marketing and project management. Finally, I moved to sales, as if I had not changed careers enough. 

 What is your business/venture? Nrolled is a workforce operating system for hospitality and events. It combines venue CRM, workforce management, payroll automation, and a managed staffing marketplace into one connected platform. Our core value is predictability in an industry used to chaos. 

 What inspired you to found this business? My two co-founders and I are immigrants in Canada. We understand the feeling of being an outsider and how hard it is to find an open door in the job market. After some thought about what venture we could build, we realized that facilitating connections between temporary workers and companies could benefit both parties. 

 Why did you enrol on the EMBA? I moved to Canada in 2021 without a professional network. In 2022, I realized that a good way to build connections would be to join a program at Rotman. The EMBA seemed the most reasonable program considering the stage of my career. 

 How was the EMBA helped you/your business? Nrolled wouldn’t exist without enrolling in the EMBA program. For a start, I met my partners in class. 

In the EMBA more broadly, the topics and classes that made the most difference in my entrepreneurial life were negotiation, self-knowledge (specifically, a class called Special Topics in Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management) and the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL). 

Negotiation was a topic touched on in more than one class. After participating in several sessions with my peers, I understood that negotiation is an exchange of different perspectives on value. And understanding what value means to someone else is an important key to selling anything. 

The Special Topics in Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management (Inner Change for short) got to me in a weird way. Throughout the class, I thought I needed to change some aspects of myself substantially, especially my approach to conflicts. I’m non-confrontational by nature, and I decided to change that to advance my career. In the end, a series of reflections brought me back to where I started: nobody is like me, and no one can do what I do. I made some adjustments and moved on. That’s an empowering way to start an entrepreneurial path: being the one who values yourself most. 

CDL put me in contact with many amazing entrepreneurs, with their mindsets and energy. It was an inspiration that also gave me the confidence to start Nrolled. 

In the end, being in a room with great professionals and some time can make a lot of difference for one’s vision. 

 What’s the one thing about the EMBA that you think is undervalued? It’s hard to make friends after 30. This is a great opportunity to make some. 

 What’s next for your business? We are preparing to enter new markets and expand our reach in Canada and the US. We’re actively seeking investment to accelerate our growth. 

 Would you recommend the EMBA to other entrepreneurs? If yes, why? While the EMBA is not entrepreneurship-oriented, there are opportunities within the wider business school and the University I could learn from. I could take advantage of initiatives for entrepreneurs, such as the Creative Destruction Lab at the Rotman School and the Entrepreneurship Hatchery at the University’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. Both helped me reframe my vision of the startup world, which continues to guide me at Nrolled to this day. 

 NEXT PAGE: Diego Clavero, INCAE Business School 

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