Matias Birrell R.

Matias Birrell was born in Santiago de Chile, in 1966. At the age of four, the whole family (parents plus eight more brothers) moved to Spain where they lived nine years. Back in Chile, he completed school and got the civil engineering degree in 1991. After twelve years of professional experience, he got an MBA to understand better all the business jargon and trends.

In 1997, after reading The Goal, by Eliyahu Goldratt, Matias felt as if the lights turned on, because that book explained so simply and in plain language management subjects that were presented so complicated so far in college courses.

It was in 2000 that Matias decided to become an expert in the Theory of Constraints (TOC) as was known Goldratt's theory. In 2002 there was a fortunate event for which Matias could meet Goldratt himself. Two years later, he produced a write up to summarize his current understanding on TOC. After submitting this small booklet to an expert and friend, he was encouraged to complete the book. This was his first book, published in spanish under the title of "Simplicidad Inherente: Fundamentos de la Teoría de Restricciones" (Inherent Simplicity: Foundations of the Theory of Constraints).

In 2006 Matias was invited to join Goldratt Consulting. During these years he has been engaged in several projects, analyzing hundreds of companies, delivering workshops and lectures, and presenting in international conferences on the various subjects of TOC. Not only fortunate, he considered himself privileged for having worked closely with Dr. Goldratt till his last days in June of 2011.

In 2012 a new book was conceived to present again his current (improved) understanding of TOC. This time he recruited the help of Javier Arévalo, who is the co-author of this new book, that will be published under the title of "Forget the Urgent!" In this book, TOC is explained in a practical dialogue between a CEO and a TOC expert, and at the end there is a full reflection of why TOC is a true base for a science of management, making simple what was presented in complex language in the last century. Hopefully, management of any type of organization will become simple using TOC and humanity will be able to build greater things upon this knowledge.