By John Gude
My firm, Boyden Global Executive Search, has operated in Brazil since 1968, and I would venture to say that we know this market very well. We have just published The Boyden Report: Brazil for our friends and clients, and I just could not resist talking to you about the information that you can find in this extensive document. There has been a significant shift in Brazil’s global stature, and Boyden presents the views and insights of seven senior business executives to hear why they believe that this country is now walking on the ‘big stage’.
Who are some of these people? For the most part, they head Brazilian subsidiaries of global companies, and they are noted drivers of key businesses and other organizations that are prominent in Brazil. They include people ranging from the Presidents of Abbott Laboratories and Caterpillar in Brazil to the Chairman of CleanStar Brazil Bioenergia.
Brazil is moving and growing fast on the world stage, and if you question this, look at some of these facts:
Brazil had the world’s best-performing major current against the US dollar last year, with a 36% advance according to Bloomberg.
Brazil was home to the worl’s largest IPO in 2009. Santader Brazil’s IPO valued the bank’s Brazilian subsidiary was valued at more than the whole of Deutsche Bank worldwide.
Sao Paulo is among the world’s top five futures and options markets.
Brazil was home to the world’s fastest growing car market in 2007-2009.
Brazil was a major source of stability for many multinationals in the global recession that started in 2007.
32 out of the 50 largest companies in Brazil are foreign multinationals. But there are also 5 fast growing, Brazilian companies that have achieved recognition as serious multinational competitors in markets ranging from food to aircraft.
The World Bank predicts that if Brazil continues on its current path, it will move from being the tenths largest economy in the world to the fifth largest by 2016. As such, Boyden reports that the FTSE Group positions Brazil as an ‘Advanced Emerging Economy’ along a different level of the development curve than the other so-called BRIC countries.
Given its stage of development, the contributors to this report provide a compelling case for the solid foundations of the ‘new’ Brazil. They point to the political system, where the country has apparently achieved stability in the form of a robust, established democratic republic. In terms of infrastructure, they talk to the banking systems and financial markets as large, stable, and relatively mature.
Brazil, it is pointed out, has new opportunity drivers that are unique in Latin America. One driver is the consumer market, with millions of people who suddenly have purchasing power. This shift is said to be dramatic, as people are moving from Class D to Class C or Class C to Class B. By some estimates, over 30 million people have been lifted out of poverty and given discretionary income.
A second energy driver is the country’s emergency as an energy superpower based on its oil production and reserves. But it has also taken a lead in on the energy stage through its growing renewable energy credentials including hydro-electric power generation and its well-known investment in the production of ethanol fuels.
Our people ‘on the ground’ tell us that there is an optimism and a pulse of positive activity and growth that is pulsating throughout the country. One of our long-term partners in Sao Paulo says “I have never before witnessed such optimism here as I do today.” Another long-term Boyden partner states “Brazilians always used to joke that they lived in the ‘eternal country of the future’ but it seems that our ‘future’ has now arrived”.
Would you like to know more about Brazil? Would you like to know our view on hiring in Brazil as a major executive search firm? Simply download the entire Boyden report on Brazil by clicking here.
