The Ten Principles of Roberto Madan -Lessons on leadership, resilience, and legacy from a century of life

In the world of Hispanic marketing, Roberto Madan was widely respected as one of the early figures who helped shape how a major American company engaged with the U.S. Hispanic market.

At McDonald’s, he was more than a successful owner-operator. He was part of a small group of pioneering Hispanic leaders who helped the company understand that reaching Hispanic consumers required more than translating advertisements. It required cultural understanding, trust, and long-term commitment to a community that was rapidly becoming one of the most important forces in the American marketplace.

His work helped open doors for Hispanic entrepreneurs within the McDonald’s system and contributed to a relationship between the brand and the U.S. Hispanic community that continues to this day.

But the story of Roberto Madan did not begin in a boardroom.

It began in Havana.

Before becoming a respected figure in Hispanic marketing, Roberto Madan had lived a life that seemed pulled from a novel. As a young man he knew Fidel Castro personally. After the revolution, he was arrested by the new regime, imprisoned, and eventually escaped from prison and fled communist Cuba.

When he came to the United States, he arrived with little more than determination.

At his side was his wife, Ana María, the love of his life and an essential partner in everything they would build together. Ana María had earned a Ph.D. in Cuba, and like Roberto, she understood that education would be their path forward.

Together, they rebuilt their lives in New Jersey, both finding work as educators and teaching at the same high school. It was a partnership defined by shared values, discipline, and a belief in the future they were creating for their family.

His first job paid a dollar and a sandwich in a factory. From there he slowly rebuilt his life. He bought a gas station in New Jersey, became a high school teacher and coach, and decades later—well into his mid-fifties—began the business career that would ultimately define his legacy as a McDonald’s owner-operator.

Roberto Madan lived to be one hundred years old.

Years ago, I had the privilege of sitting with him and asking him to tell me about his life. What followed was not a lecture or a set of carefully prepared lessons. It was simply a man recounting the chapters of his journey—his youth in Havana, prison, exile, the early years in America, and the long climb that followed.

When I recently revisited the transcript of that conversation, something began to stand out. Threaded throughout his life story—his youth in Havana, the years of upheaval, the long process of starting over in America—there were moments that revealed his unique approach to life.

Sometimes it appeared in a passing remark about work. Other times in the way he described adversity, family, or opportunity. At first they seemed like simple observations.

Only later did I realize that those remarks, taken together, revealed something far deeper.

The ten principles of Roberto Madan.

1. Move through life step by step.

“Paso a paso,” he said.

Roberto believed success rarely arrived in dramatic leaps. It came instead through steady progress—small victories accumulated over time.

“If you set small goals,” he told me, “you reach them quickly and you feel victorious.”His own life reflected this philosophy. When he arrived in the United States, there was no grand opportunity waiting for him.

Over time he built stability. He eventually bought a gas station in New Jersey, learning the rhythms of American business one day at a time. His education from Cuba opened another door. He became a high school teacher and coach, helping guide young people while continuing to search for the next opportunity.

None of it resembled the mythology of instant success often attached to immigrant stories. Roberto Madan’s life unfolded slowly, across decades.

And then, in his mid-fifties, long after many people imagine their path is already set, he began yet another chapter. He became a McDonald’s owner-operator, opening a restaurant near Wall Street and building a business that would sustain his family for decades—a legacy his daughter and granddaughter continue today.

2. Never measure your life against someone else’s.

“Never look at what the man next to you has,” Roberto said.

Comparison, in his view, was the quickest path to frustration. Every person’s journey unfolds under different circumstances—different starting points, different obstacles, different opportunities.

The only path that truly matters is your own.

In many ways, that advice feels even more relevant today, as we now live in an era where social media constantly invites us to compare our lives to carefully curated versions of other people’s success. But he understood something fundamental: progress rarely happens on a schedule that looks like anyone else’s.

His own life was proof of that. Measured against someone else’s timeline, that path might have looked slow. Measured against his own determination, it was exactly right.

Because in Roberto’s view, success was never about keeping pace with others.

It was simply about moving forward.

3. Education is the one thing no one can take away.

For a long time Mr. Madan believed he had arrived in America with nothing. Then one day he realized he had brought something invaluable. “I thought I came with nothing,” he said. “Then I realized I came with my education. And education is everything.”

It was that education that eventually allowed him to leave factory work and begin building a new life. After losing everything to a totalitarian regime, Roberto came to understand something profound: education is the one thing that can never be taken from you.

4. Accept reality and work with it.

Roberto did not waste time resisting circumstances he could not change. “When something bad happens,” he said, “I don’t cry. I ask how to fix it.” That mindset shaped the way he approached the enormous changes that came after leaving Cuba.

In Havana, he had lived a comfortable life. His days revolved around tennis matches at the Vedado Tennis Club, afternoons by the pool, and evenings at cabarets listening to artists like Benny Moré and Olga Guillot. It was a world of social clubs, friends, and familiar rhythms.

All of that disappeared the moment he left Cuba.

When he arrived in the United States, the reality was very different. There were no social clubs waiting for him, no familiar status, and no easy path forward. For many people, that kind of fall—from comfort to hardship—might have produced resentment or bitterness. Roberto saw it differently.

He accepted the new reality and went to work.

There was no sense of victimhood in the way he described those years. He and his family simply understood that their lives had entered a new chapter. And rather than dwelling on what had been lost, they focused on what could still be built.

5. Do not live in nostalgia.

When we spoke about Cuba, Roberto said something that stayed with me. “My Cuba died.” It was not said with bitterness. It was simply a recognition that the world he had once known no longer existed.

Many exiles preserved the past as a permanent refuge, holding tightly to the memory of a country that had disappeared. He chose something different. He honored the life he had lived in Havana, but he refused to freeze his future inside it.

Instead, he reframed the experience of exile entirely. “I didn’t emigrate looking for opportunity,” he told me. “I emigrated to change my life.” That distinction mattered to him. It meant accepting that the past had ended and that the only meaningful path forward was to begin again.

For Roberto, America was not the end of one story. It was the beginning of another.

6. Work is not a burden—it is a privilege.

Well into his late nineties, Mr. Madan continued getting dressed in his trademark suit and tie and driving himself to the office each morning. Once there, he remained engaged in every aspect of the business, reviewing the numbers with the careful attention to detail of a seasoned CPA.

Roberto always spoke about work with enormous appreciation. For him, work represented something larger than a paycheck. It meant independence. It meant the ability to support his family, rebuild his life, and shape his future in a country that had given him the chance to begin again.

Whether he was working long hours after buying his gas station, teaching and coaching students, or later running his McDonald’s restaurants, he approached work with the same quiet enthusiasm.

For Roberto, work was never something to escape. It was the privilege of having the freedom to build a life.

7. Never spend money before you earn it.

His philosophy about money was simple and disciplined.

“Spend the money however you want,” he said. “But only after you earn it.”

That mindset was shaped during the early years of his life in the United States, when every dollar mattered. At one point he found work in a vitamin factory in Philadelphia. Each week he traveled there and stayed through Friday before returning home to his family. Before leaving, he packed five sandwiches—one for each day of the workweek. By Friday, he admitted, the sandwich wasn’t very good anymore. But he ate it anyway.

What mattered was not comfort. What mattered was responsibility. Those early years reinforced something Roberto never forgot: financial discipline is not about deprivation. It is about independence.

Spend what you want, he believed—but only after the work has been done and the money has been earned. Never spend money before you earn it.

8. Family is the true measure of success.

For all of Roberto Madan’s accomplishments in business, the subject that animated him most was his family.

“My family is my world,” he told me.

Everything else—his success as a McDonald’s owner-operator, his influence within Hispanic marketing, and his efforts to open doors for Hispanic entrepreneurs—existed within that larger purpose.

Nothing reflected that more clearly than the pride he felt when speaking about his daughter, Ana Madan. Over time she developed into a highly respected McDonald’s owner-operator in her own right, eventually becoming the first female president of the McDonald’s Hispanic Owner Operators Association.

His son, Pepe, also followed in his footsteps, becoming a McDonald’s owner-operator and continuing the family’s presence within the system.

He also spoke with deep satisfaction about his grandchildren. Education had always been central to his philosophy of life, and he took enormous pride in the fact that every one of his grandchildren understood its importance and had graduated from college.

For Roberto, this was the true measure of a life well lived. Not simply the businesses he built, but the people who would carry forward the values that shaped them.

9. If you succeed, create opportunity for others.

Roberto believed success carried an obligation.

Over the years I saw this commitment firsthand.

One example that has always stayed with me involves Steve Samuel, whom I know personally. Steve’s career began in an untraditional way. In 1984, he was a teenager when he got his first job at one of Roberto’s McDonald’s restaurants. He was fired on his first day. But Steve came back and asked for another chance.

Roberto agreed—but on one condition. Steve had to re-enroll in school and finish his education.

It was a pattern that defined the way Roberto helped people. He was willing to open a door—but only if the person walking through it was willing to do the work.

Steve did.

Over time, he built a career within the organization. He became a supervisor on January 1, 1990, and eventually rose to serve as Director of Operations, a role he held for more than three decades. After years of what was described as exceptional commitment and drive, Steve began the process of becoming an owner-operator. He completed the program in just five months—a process that typically takes several years.

In 2023, Steve Samuel became a McDonald’s owner-operator in Atlanta, Georgia.

 

For Roberto, success was never simply about the businesses he built. It was about the lives that could change when someone was given a chance—and when someone else cared enough to insist that they rise to meet it.

10. Enjoy the life you are given.

Near the end of our conversation, Roberto reflected on the long arc of his life—from Havana to prison, from exile to opportunity, from factory work to business success.

He spoke with pride about his daughter Ana. He spoke about his grandchildren and their commitment to education. And I could not help thinking about people like Steve Samuel, whose life had also been shaped by Roberto’s belief that opportunity must always be paired with discipline and education.

Then Roberto said something simple.

“I enjoyed my life every day.” Few people can say that honestly. Fewer still after one hundred years.

But Roberto Madan could.

Because in the end, the meaning of a life is not found in the circumstances we inherit, or even in the successes we achieve. It is found in the paths we open for others—and in the values that continue long after we are gone.