RACHEL MAIA
Las Memorias conversadas® son historias de vida escritas en primera persona por Isa López Giraldo.
Graduated in Accounting, Postgraduate in USP in Finance and with specialization courses in Vancouver-Canada and Harvard-USA, Rachel began her career at Seven Eleven as Controller for seven years, then worked at Novartis Pharmacy for 4 years at Tiffany & Co, where she was responsible for the arrival in Brazil and stayed for 7 years and a half as CFO and was responsible for the expansion and growth of the Danish brand Pandora in Brazil where he was ahead of the brand as CEO for 7 ½ years.
She is part of the “General Council” of the Danish Consulate and Danish Chamber, as well as a member of boards such as the committee of presidents at the American Chamber of Commerce, the Young Presidents’ Organization, the Institute for Retail Development, the Brazilian Women’s Group and the Development Council Economic and Social.
Rachel is the mother of a girl and plans to adopt another child. Among his favorite activities during leisure time are children’s play and reading.
She also dedicates her time to the care work: she has worked for 8 years as a volunteer of the needy families from the outskirts of the Society of the Vincentians in São Paulo and dedicated herself for 12 years to the youth of the Catholic Church. Today it supports the Cafu Foundation and other non-profit institutions.
I’m an executive, I am a mother and I have a seven-year-old daughter. I am a luxury brand for more than 18 years.
For me, life is a daily empowerment. Every single day I see people look up to me; they look for a hero, for someone that can empower them. This makes me feel proud, because my mother empowered me every single day when I grew up. Now I ask myself: what can I do to help others? That is what I learned; this is what really moves me. For me its not enough to sit on the chair of a president, and renegate things.
I am the founder of an institute in Brazil called Capacitame. We want to empower people with education. I use my influence with other presidents to offer them jobs. So, for me, its about going to bed and being able check the box: I didn’t only make someone more profit, I gave education and a future job to someone in need. That’s what I’m doing now. This is the reason why I think I can have a good balance in my life. It’s not just my corporate life, I have my personal life in which I have responsibilities, and they make me move, but the most important is my strength: people.
I can’t sit in my chair and look around and see people’s weakness. I need to support them, and to do that I ask myself: how can I support them to improve their position, their vulnerability? I realized I can empower them through education, but then I realized that it wasn’t enough, because I gave them knowledge, but they need a check in order to buy their food, their clothes, to come home with something to offer to their family; so every time I did big speeches, at the end I asked people I moved with my story to offer those that I have helped through Capacitame a position.
- You must be very observant and sensible towards others, and to other’s situations.
Yes, yes I am. I am also writing a book, with Global about my trajectory. I will become an ambassador for Audi, and becoming part of the board of the Danish embassy. I know I still have a lot of room to learn.
- What advice do you consider is the most important to succeed as a person in life?
I think, knowledge is power, you must read around to find knowledge, to get what you want. You should focus, you cannot just dream. You should dream, wake up, and plan.
- Yes, and make it real.
To dream is wonderful, but it’s just the first step. We must wake up and plan, have a strategy on how to reach that dream. We must focus, because every single day we have a different plan. If you notice, every day we figure out something different, but we cannot change all the time, we must have a goal a main goal. We wake up and realize what will be the next step and we might go off road, we might need to fix that, because at the end of the day we are one-hundred-percent clear about what the goal is. We must have focus, it won’t be a straight path, but there is a goal.
- Where have you found your inspiration to become so creative as a leader?
First of all, in God, because God is something I got from my mom. My mother taught me how we should believe in something. We cannot be human and not believe in something. After God, my mother is my main mentor. After my mom I have a main mentors, the founder of Natura Company (a very big beauty consultant company) he is someone that helps me everyday with business life, but at the end of the day I come home and thank God for letting me come back home to my daughter, and for letting me accomplish everything I have done, and the good opportunities I have learned from.
I have been a with a church for more than 23 years, on how to improve teenagers life. I’m 47 seven years old, and I know I started early on trying to help people around me. I usually go to the poor side of the city, not just to give food to the people, but also to try and give hope to the people.
- What are you thinking in this moment?
Honestly, I was thinking to get out of the corporate life, but when this invitation came up, I realized I’m too young to stop. I can continue to run the corporate life to tell people that they can too, despite their gender and race, especially gender. Often when I’m in a business table, I’m the only woman there. So, I think I must continue to run on the corporation to tell people, woman, that they also have a chance.
- What do you like people that surround you to get from you?
Sorry to be repetitive, but I think hope. No doubt.
