Background

I was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but I have already lived in a lot of different places. When I was three years old, my family moved to Portugal to live in Lisbon and later on in a very rural city between Mafra and Ericeira. This was a very pleasant experience because my three older sisters and I could run freely throughout the neighborhood playing with the other kids. This was the first time that I was an international student, so I had to develop my social skills and empathy to adapt very quickly in a new culture. After two years my family came back to Rio. Once more I had to adapt while I was finishing high school. Finally, I joined IBMEC-RJ to pursue my Bachelor’s degree in Economics. Immediately after completing my undergraduate education, I started a part-time MBA program at IBMEC-RJ and completed Advanced Studies in Business Administration.

Career Path

I started my career at the BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank) working with infrastructure projects during the subprime crisis. After graduating, I switched careers and started developing business plans for startups in various industries including solid waste management, wedding planning, and event ticket selling. While I was working in this sector, I was invited to become a part-time statistics professor, and became the youngest professor at IBMEC-RJ teaching undergrads and later on MBA students. Two years after graduation, I was invited to become the National Operations Coordinator of Corporate Solutions at IBMEC-RJ. I oversaw the logistics, operations, finance, and legal departments for the Leadership Development Corporate Courses. After two years, I was invited by one of the IBMEC’s founders to join his business school, IPL – Leadership and Performance Institute, in Sao Paulo, where I started to develop my turnaround skills and a passion for restructuring processes. It was at this moment that I realized that I wanted to help businesses solve complex, global problems, which is why I applied to UNC Kenan-Flagler.

Interests and Hobbies

I am passionate about Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DIB). I am involved with different clubs and projects at UNC that enable me to give back to my community and help bring awareness to the student body. Those clubs and projects are the Pride Club, Community Service Club, Net Impact Club, Carolina Women in Business (male ally), Dean’s Fellows, Nonprofit Board Consultant, MBA Ambassadors, and Kenan Institute, becoming a Kenan Scholar. The Kenan Institute is providing me with an amazing opportunity to work with Dr. Jim Johnson and Lingmei Howell to understand how the current student body faces DIB at UNC and what actions we can take to increase awareness of this topic. In my free time, I enjoy cooking, watching horror movies and drama series, listening to electronic music, and talking to my family and friends from Brazil.