Imagine our bewilderment upon learning that 28-year-old Franco Cabral, COO of Adcorp Media Group, earned $97K in his first year—when he was just 20 years old—at the Irvington-based seller of supermarket advertising. Those staggering wages, driven by his own sales, ignited an eight-year climb to the C-suite, where he now reigns as an equity partner of the 82-person company.
Adcorp CEO Peter Broccole hired Cabral in 2005 as a part-time independent sales contractor at Broccole’s employer at the time, TV Fanfare, which also sells local advertising. A year later, Broccole founded Adcorp Media Group and brought Cabral into the fold. Then a Tufts University student taking prerequisites for med school, Cabral dropped out to pursue his sales career. “I decided I loved what I was doing,” says Cabral. “I saw Peter’s company wasn’t even scratching the surface of what could be done.”
By 2007, 23–year-old Cabral was the sales manager leading a team of five. In 2008, he invested to become an equity partner. (His share is now 35 percent.) A year later, he was appointed SVP of National Sales. By 2010, at just 25, Broccole promoted Cabral to COO. It’s no wonder: Due in large part to Cabral’s stewardship, the company’s sales ballooned from $700,000 in 2005 to $8 million in 2012, averaging 35 percent annual growth. It was explosive; Adcorp moved offices four times in seven years, doubling its office size with each move (tripling office size with its last move). The company is on track to generate $10 million in sales in 2013.
And Cabral remains one of the company’s top sellers. “I lead from the front,” he says. “I’m the guy that everyone in the room views as the best of the best, which stems from me being actively out in the field, practicing, selling, always getting better.”
Last March, together with Broccole, Cabral launched Adcorp Latino, which caters exclusively to the Latino market. That company is on track to bill $1.5 million in sales this year. Yet Cabral is far from satisfied: “I want to be the number one company in the US doing what we’re doing in the next five to 10 years.”
â–º For more 2013 Wunderkinds, click here.
â–º For more from 914INC’s Q2 2013 Issue, click here.
