São Paulo – From a humble childhood on the outskirts of São Bernardo do Campo, in the São Paulo metropolitan area, to a successful career in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. This is the story of Glaucia Sousa, who three years ago used her savings, went to the emirate to study English, and settled there. Today, she has established herself by providing consultancy services to Brazilian companies that want to enter the Emirati market and mentoring expatriate women on financial awareness.
In November 2020, Sousa set herself the challenge of learning English at the age of 35. “Here in Dubai, I had to make it. I worked at the English school and in the cafeteria, and then I set a goal to work at Expo 2020, and I achieved it. There, I improved my English, and consultancy opportunities began to arise. I went online and created a YouTube channel to show my life to people like me – women over 30 years old, living in an exchange – giving them information. Then I started providing financial planning consultancies for expatriates and companies,” she said in an interview with ANBA.
With expertise in the finance industry and a career spanning over 15 years, Sousa said clients seek her because her experience is trusted. “Currently, that is my focus. I continue serving Brazil with companies with this socio-environmental awareness, providing consultancy with financial planning,” she said.
Sousa provides financial mentoring for expatriates, primarily Brazilian and Latin women who move to Dubai with their husbands. “I am the first black female financial coach in all the UAE. I talk a lot with Brazilians going through life and career transitions. It’s more of a matter of managing money to change their lives. Here, with expatriates, in most cases, the issue is emotional and financial dependence, not having access to accounts, and inability to plan their own future. There is something in our [Brazilian] subconscious mind of not talking about money. Women often arrive here, and their husbands work a lot. Some don’t even speak English. It’s something delicate that can generate depression, anxiety, and many divorces. Financial awareness is on a different level here. It is much more about financial and emotional independence,” she declared.
To deal with these issues, Sousa suggests expatriates create a plan for financial independence, which includes talking to their families about money, taking courses, and other aspects.
“In 2022, a survey was carried out among the Brazilian community in Dubai, and, on average, 53% of expatriate women were undergoing psychotherapy and taking medication for anxiety or depression,” she said.
Sousa’s mission is to support people in having a balanced life through financial awareness. “And I see this in everything, both in consultancy and coaching. I see that my mission here is to make people’s lives more balanced and peaceful and raise awareness on what it’s like to live here,” she said. On her social networks, Sousa gives tips to prepare people better to travel to the emirate.
Life and career path
Sousa’s professional inspiration came from her mother, who had three children to look after and took them to work as a saleswoman. “My mother sold everything. She was a peddler – nowadays they call that an entrepreneur – and since I was five or six years old, I followed her and developed this thing of listening, being with people, and negotiating,” she said.
With a technical degree from SENAI in ceramics and plastic, Sousa learned about sustainability and spent more than 12 years working with sustainability projects and sales and later started giving training to companies. “SENAI invited me to teach, and I found my place when I was working with other people discussing a topic I already liked,” she said.
The consultant obtained an undergraduate degree in Commercial Management, an MBA in ESG Business Management, and a specialization in Neuroeconomics and behavioral finance. “I specialized in neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and later coaching. Later on, I studied conscious and sustainable financial education – which I translated as sustainable finance, in the sense of better consumption and minimalism – which was a big challenge when coming to Dubai, which is very flashy, so I started talking about essentialism, of what is essential for each person,” she said.
Volunteer work
“Volunteering allowed me to experience other cultures, such as Thailand, Nepal, Egypt, Turkey, and Argentina,” said Susa, who, despite having been based in Dubai for three years, considers herself a digital nomad and lived for about a month and a half in each of these countries doing volunteer work.
“I had been doing social actions in Brazil for over ten years. After coming here, I wanted to learn about other cultures, always working towards female empowerment. Now, I’m planning the next ones for Indonesia and Kenya. I take ten percent of my earnings to carry out these social actions and continue with the mission of talking about financial education,” she said.
At COP28, Sousa worked as a volunteer for the Mulheres do Brasil (Women of Brazil) group in the media and PR department and participated in some events held by the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC).
Contact
Instagram: @glauciasousa.financas
Youtube: Conexões pelo mundo
Translated by Elúsio Brasileiro
