S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 Money and telecommunications are the business of the Brazilian Luciano Ferreira. At age 39, he is the financial vice-president for the Middle East and Northeast Africa at Ericsson, a Swedish telecom network and service company. Living in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, for a year now, he is in charge of 23 countries, among them 16 Arabs: Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, North Sudan, Iraq, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Jordan, Djibouti and Egypt.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy team is spread throughout ten of the 23 countries, and our responsibility is to analyse and report operational, client and contract finances, set actions to improve the financial performance, care for the quality and transparency of finance,\u201d says the executive. Before arriving in the Middle East, Ferreira worked at Ericsson Brazil, one of the company\u2019s most important units in the world, and also at Ericsson\u2019s unit in Australia.<\/p>\n
The opportunity to work in Dubai arose during an internal restructuring process, which reduced the number of regional units from 23 to 10. Ferreira, then, flew from Oceania to the Middle East, with scarce knowledge of the Arab world, but lots of curiosity.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst I went to Turkey, where I got an idea of what the region was like. From there I went to Dubai, where I came into greater contact with Arab culture. It was a pleasant surprise. I was concerned about adapting myself to the culture, but as I arrived I saw that it was much nicer than I thought, that the people were open, friendly, they received you well, I was very glad,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
His area of operation, which, aside from the Arab countries, also includes Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Turkey, Ferreira caters to 50 major clients of Ericsson\u2019s. With such a vast area to tend to, the problems are many. \u201cThe weekends in each of the countries are on different days. In Saudi Arabia it is on Thursday and Friday; in Iran, on Wednesday and Thursday. In order to handle it, you must work every day. I can only have a meeting with my entire team on either Monday or Tuesday. Working in this region requires a lot of dedication,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n
The telecommunications market in the region is quite varied too, says Ferreira. \u201cThe countries vary a lot in terms of their level of development. There is a huge disparity. Some countries have more mature, more technology-intensive network, whereas others have still a long way to go and call for greater financing. It is quite challenging,\u201d he underscores.<\/p>\n
Married and the father to a couple of two-year old twins, Ferreira claims that it was easy for his family to adapt to the new life. \u201cThe city of Dubai is very easy on expatriates. I have Arab friends and my children, who attend an international school, speak Portuguese, English and a bit of Arabic. My daughter\u2019s best friend is an Iraqi,\u201d he says. \u201cThe cost of living is great and the quality of life is much better than in Brazil,\u201d he finishes off, stating that he should spend another two years in the emirate and then head off to a new continent.<\/p>\n
In his routine of constant travel, he explains that he has been to Turkey, Oman, Qatar, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan and Jordan. The next destination? Saudi Arabia, in August. The only Brazilian in his department, Ferreira claims that it is not easy to attract Brazilian professionals to the Middle East. \u201cThe Brazilian currency is real strong and the Brazilians\u2019 wages end up being too high, depending on where you allocate them to.\u201d Nevertheless, Ferreira invited one of his colleagues at Ericsson Brazil to join the group, and next month he will have a fellow countryman in his team in Jordan.<\/p>\n
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Brazilian Luciano Ferreira is Ericsson\u2019s financial vice-president for the Middle East and Northeast Africa. He is in charge of 23 countries, and the Arabs\u2019 communications pass through his hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2313,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-38793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-economy"},"wps_subtitle":"The Brazilian Luciano Ferreira is Ericsson\u2019s financial vice-president for the Middle East and Northeast Africa. He is in charge of 23 countries, and the Arabs\u2019 communications pass through his hands.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2313"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38793\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}