Juan Grobler
Three companies founded. Three sold. One bought back to build again.
Juan Grobler has spent more than 26 years building companies rather than inheriting them, first in South Africa and now in the United States. That has meant the full arc of a business: starting it, finding the market, hiring the team, scaling it across borders, selling it, and, in the case of Global Footprints, buying it back to build its next chapter.
A company that only works because the founder is in the room hasn't been built yet. Juan's approach to scaling starts from that idea: the job of a founder is to put in place the people, systems and culture that let the business grow beyond any one person, including the founder.
He discussed this with UBS on the Leadership Lounge, in a conversation about scaling companies, exits, leadership, culture and the role of AI.
“You can’t be the ‘magic’ in your business. You have to duplicate yourself through people, systems and culture.”
Read the full article: The Founder Cannot Be the Magic in the Business
Juan Grobler on the UBS Leadership Lounge, “From Founder to Scaler: Building a Business That Runs Without You”, 16 April 2026
Listen to the episode on UBS ↗Companies
2015 – present
Founder & CEO. A capital projects software platform for integration, cost intelligence and project controls: Global Integrator connects ERP, scheduling and engineering systems; CostHub and LEMS deliver real-time cost, labour and project intelligence. Acquired by an AI company in 2023, where Juan led the integration as Chief Customer Service Officer; reacquired by Juan and re-established as Global Footprints Holdings in 2025, with offices in New York and Miami Beach.
Global Footprints ↗2004 – 2015
Founder, Managing Director & Board Member. A management consulting firm providing ICT services to the industrial, mining, telecommunications and retail sectors in South Africa. Sold to a listed South African technology services group in 2015.
2004 – 2009
Co-Founder & Managing Director. Maintenance and logistics for gaming and digital entertainment equipment in South Africa's casino and hospitality industry, serving the country's major casino and hotel groups. Grew to around 70% of its market. Sold to a South African gaming and hospitality group in 2009.
Global Footprints
2015
Juan founds Global Footprints to fix a problem he had seen on large projects again and again: cost, schedule and field data spread across systems that do not talk to each other. The company builds Global Integrator, a platform-as-a-service integration layer, and the Footprints360 products, CostHub and LEMS, on top of it.
2015–2023
Global Footprints delivers for project owners and contractors across the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, in energy, mining, transportation and the public sector. On one UK rail programme, according to the company, Global Integrator cut weekly reporting from six hours to thirty minutes.
May 2023
An AI company acquires Global Footprints to expand its data integration capabilities. Announcing the deal, Juan said the combined integration and AI/ML tools could “connect to multiple data sources as part of an extract, transform, and load process or a larger enterprise AI/ML initiative.”
2023–2025
As Chief Customer Service Officer at the acquiring company, Juan leads the integration of Global Footprints, runs the cost engineering P&L, and manages teams in the United States, South Africa, India and Australia on a follow-the-sun development model.
June 2025
Juan reacquires the platform and re-establishes Global Footprints Holdings in New York. “I believe that the future of business lies in seamless, AI-driven solutions,” he said at the time.
Today
As Founder and CEO, Juan is scaling Global Footprints through strategic partnerships, product expansion and capital formation, building it into an enterprise data and intelligence platform for major capital projects.
Sources: PR Newswire, 31 May 2023 · PRWeb, 9 June 2025 · globalfootprintsinc.com
Before founding
1998–2000
Software account manager. Established IBM's software business in KwaZulu-Natal, selling application development, middleware, database and data warehouse software to manufacturers, banks and retailers. Ranked among the top three software account managers in South Africa in 1999, represented South Africa in IBM's emerging-markets unit, and attended IBM's Software Account Managers' Leadership Institute in Tarrytown, New York.
2000–2002
Contracts manager, then client service executive, at a joint venture of the Wooltru Group and Datatec that ran SAP and retail e-commerce systems on an outsourcing basis. Introduced a governance process for contracts management and worked on due diligence and risk analysis for the company's acquisitions.
2002–2004
Retail business development director, responsible for strategic and key accounts across systems integration, infrastructure and outsourcing, before leaving in 2004 to found his first two companies.
What building has taught him
Management systems, delegation and decision rights that hold up when the founder steps back.
Three exits, from the founder's side of the table, then buying a company back. Earlier, due diligence on acquisitions at Affinity Logic.
Building businesses in South Africa and the United States and delivering work across Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific.
Culture designed and maintained deliberately, not left to chance as headcount grows.