São Paulo – The businesswoman heading one of the market-leading retail chains in Brazil and who founded the group that brings together over 100,000 women shared her life story this Wednesday (31) at an event at the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC) headquarters in São Paulo. Praising the fast pace of everything that happens in the Arab world, Luiza Helena Trajano brought a message of optimism to the participating entrepreneurs and about the importance of female contribution to public policies.
The board president of Magazine Luiza and president of the Women of Brazil Group [Grupo Mulheres do Brasil] spoke at the roundtable “Female entrepreneurship experiences in the Arab world,” in which Brazilian executives Helena Araújo, from BRF; Maria Prado, from FAME; and Alessandra Stefani, from Mac Jee; told about their experiences with the Arab market. ABCC and women’s committee director Claudia Yazigi Haddad moderated the discussion.
Read also on the event:
- Brazilian businesswomen share experiences with Arab world
- Women of Brazil Group creates branch in Dubai
Using the example of Magazine Luiza, which employs around 40,000 people directly and generates work for almost 100,000 indirectly, Trajano encouraged female entrepreneurs and pointed out their social role. “We are very happy to generate employment. I think that after health, employment is what gives people the most freedom. And we have female entrepreneurs here. It doesn’t matter if you’re giving one, two, or three jobs. It is giving dignity to people to support their families,” she said.
Trajano told about the early days of Magazine Luiza, created by his aunt, who in the late 1950s left her job as a saleswoman and opened a store to generate employment for her family. After talking about how her mother raised her, always saying, “you are capable,” Trajano also spoke about her aunt. “She never had a crisis; she never said, ‘we can’t,’ she always thought we were capable, and she traded like Arabs.”
Trajano joined the business at a very young age and reported some innovations in the network, such as the use of digital rooms in the 1990s, the decision to audit the company also in that decade, the search for a partnership with a bank in the area of financing, the concern with staff, and the digital sales operation parallel to brick-and-mortar stores. “We knew we wanted to grow,” she said.
Civil society
The businesswoman said she always wanted to set up a civil society group. Women of Brazil emerged after a two-and-a-half-hour meeting between women preparing for a panel with Brazilian federal government representatives during the administration of former president Dilma Rousseff, to which female entrepreneurs from low-income neighborhoods were also called. “We got together for one goal, but another came out,” she said. The affinity they had between themselves spurred the creation of the current group.
Today, the Women of Brazil Group brings together over 100,000 women as a non-political-party network to defend female leadership in building a better country. “Today, we have 22 causes we make happen. I can’t track what Women of Brazil is doing worldwide. We can’t follow it; there’s so much, so much you can’t imagine,” she said. The idea is for the group to influence Brazilian public policies as a civil society initiative.
The ABCC’s women’s committee, WAHI – Women who Inspire – has started a rapprochement with Women of Brazil, and some cooperation actions have already been carried out. The event held this Wednesday was promoted by both groups. Women of Brazil also visited the United Arab Emirates earlier this year and recently opened a branch in Dubai in the Arab country.
Translated by Elúsio Brasileiro
