The event held in partnership with Crculo de Criativas Brasil was attended by Luiza Helena Trajano and renowned names in the country’s communications.
The event “Circulando: More Women in the Market”, held in partnership with Crculo de Criativas Brasil and headquartered at ESPM, brought together renowned female names from the national market last Tuesday (28).
Focusing on the visibility and strengthening of the role of women in the communication industry, the meeting featured panels that aimed to point out the pains that the female public still faces in the market, such as the lack of women in leadership and the prejudices faced by this portion of the population.
The beginning of the work took place in a chat with the president of the Board of Magazine Luiza and president of the Women of Brazil Group, Luiza Helena Trajano, who took the stage together with Adriana Cury, founding leader of the Crculo de Criativas Brasil, and Paulo Cunha, professor and coordinator of the Communication and Advertising Course at ESPM, who mediated the conversation.
During the conversation, Luiza told about the beginning of her career, coming from the city of Franca, in the interior of So Paulo, and her path to becoming one of the most renowned women in the country, in addition to the challenges she encountered along the way.
“I’m a woman from the countryside, so imagine me arriving in São Paulo to show a company that was totally unknown at the time… Three things helped me a lot along the way. The first was that I was born into a family that had already had women for 70 years. entrepreneurs. Second, I am an only daughter and only niece, and an only daughter has incredible self-esteem, right? I think I am. And third, I have a lot of faith. I believe that when we do good, evil does not come us,” said the businesswoman.
Luiza also stated that, from the beginning, she recognized the difficulties faced by women in the corporate world, but that she never let herself be shaken and that professional life is made of cycles.
“I believe in the fusion of masculine and feminine, but we still have a very large distance. I confront men, because they were created in a different way in terms of business management. Today, the market is completely different and it is important to understand that we are learning The world needs leadership and being a leader will take people further than they imagine”, he pointed out.
The businesswoman also used her space to encourage students who were in the ESPM auditorium to “start now” the projects they have in their drawers and lose their fear of making mistakes.
“I wanted to launch a movement here that is ‘for now’. The world is too fast for us to keep putting things off. Start doing it, don’t care too much about what others will think. The first thing is not to be ashamed of making mistakes , of being in places. The best quality I have is not having a commitment to getting it right, because it is from rehearsing mistakes that we learn. Of course we are afraid, but the only way to overcome this is to say that we are afraid and try anyway. Redirect the fear and do it”, concluded Luiza.
Then, it was the turn of the ESPM stage to be taken over by renowned names in the communication market, such as Samantha Almeida, Director of Innovation and Diversity at Globo; Dilma Campos, founder and CEO of Nossa Praa and Head of ESG at BPartners; Letcia Rodrigues, CD of FCB/Brasil and co-founder of Perifa Lions; Michele Levy, partner of the consulting firm Filhos no Currculo, and Renata Leo, ECD at David, on the panel “Prejudices: This topic needs to be removed from our guidelines”, moderated by Ana Paula Dolabella, Head of HR and the Nucleo de Inclusion at ESPM.
The conversation started with the provocation “why do we still need to talk about prejudice?”, and the participants’ response became unanimous: because it’s not over yet.
“We’re going to keep touching on this subject, but what I wanted to talk about a little towards the future. If we go back a little bit in the past, that was a time when there was no notion or perception of this prejudice, but today we have it. This is it. it means that we are the agents of breaking this and, if two generations from now prejudice continues to exist, we have failed. We cannot think that the world can continue in this way. We know and it is up to us to recognize and understand what we have to do to change”, said Dilma Campos.
During the speech, Samantha Almeida also pointed out the need to identify objectives and recognize what is non-negotiable for each one. “Conformity doesn’t fit, but it’s worth a healthy evaluation because the excess of challenge leads us to exhaustion, but the excess of conformity leads to frustration. So, some excessive comforts will need to be balanced so that the public that is uncomfortable has a little more of comfort,” said the Globo executive.
Renata Leo, was in line with Samantha’s line and, during her participation, stated that the communication market “was not born to be the most diverse in the world”. “The world of advertising was born out of a boys club, who got together, smoked their cigars and made the decisions. But over time, we realized that things needed to change. So yes, the discomfort of a few is a small price to pay for social progress.”
During the conversation, the guests also discussed some specific prejudices, such as social prejudices linked to inequality, lgbtphobia, ageism, machismo and matriarchalism in the work environment.
On the social front, Letcia spoke about the creation of Perifa Lions and how the project presented UNASP Capo Redondo students, the initiative’s birthplace, with an opportunity to enter the market.
“Our trigger for creating Perifa was the phrase ‘professor, I never left Capo, how do you want me to leave So Paulo?’, said by one of the students there. They came from a region that was not seen by the market and not even by professionals, those talents were far from the market and the vacancies did not reach them. This sentence meant a sense of lack of belonging and that is why we founded Perifa Lions. There we understood that the market needed to see these talents and these talents needed see themselves in this market”, explained the DC of FCB/Brasil.
Letcia also used her space to celebrate the increase in enrollments in the 2023 project, which went from 38 enrollments the previous year to 125. “This is a reflection of this sense of belonging. and understand that they can be a part. We live in a vicious cycle of ‘who nominates’ and it is important that these young people occupy places in companies and occupy the big festivals. This was our biggest motivator”, concluded the executive.
As for prejudice against the LGBTQIAP+ community, Renata Leo believes that the agenda has to be debated “from top to bottom”, with the literacy of company leaders.
“This is a daily agenda and they need to understand that this is a priority. We have to train and employ these people. It is a fact that acronyms have advanced a lot over the years, but T, for transsexuals, has been left behind. We have to be ashamed of that . The literacy of company leaders is important to make these people feel the discomfort of not having trans people on their staff. As long as things don’t change, we need to think about it and look for it. As a leader, you can’t run away and none of them should sleep peacefully while this doesn’t advance”, highlighted David’s ECD.
On the subject of machismo and racism, it was Dilma Campos’ turn to speak and, in her speech, the executive stated that women, especially those with children, were the ones who lost their jobs the most during the pandemic and also pointed out that the data on the growth of female entrepreneurship should not be treated with the glamor of market advancement.
“The layoffs of these women generated the entrepreneurship movement for survival, but this came with enormous glamour. When we analyze it, this increase only happened so that these women would have a voice, because in the market, this was taken away from them. According to the UN, the world will only achieve gender equality in 280 years. We have to evolve and accelerate this. So, yes, literacy is needed, but more than that, we have to commit to the cause”, scored Dilma.
When the topic turned to children, Michele Levy also brought up the fact that 40% of women leave the job market after becoming a mother and, for her, one of the ways to resolve this issue is to show this part of the population that It is possible to be a mother and be successful in your positions.
“We have to look up and see what is possible. When we have children, we have a daily laboratory of innovations at home and these are skills that add to the market. Children are strengths and not career barriers, but companies need to create a conducive environment. In addition, we need to talk about culture as well. We need to naturalize the arrival of a child as a quality of life”, said Michele.
The last debated topic brought to the conversation was ageism and, in this regard, Samantha Almeida highlighted the need to rethink the age box.
“Age does not affect all groups in the same way. It affects women in a very cruel way. Today, the perspective of life has increased and we need to review cultural issues on this topic because people will not engage in practice if the theoretical not exist,” said Samantha.
Furthermore, the executive also spoke of the importance of mixing ages in learning.
“Just as we need to learn from those who have been in the spaces for a long time, we also need to learn from the innovative look of those who are arriving. We need to understand that we are talking about ourselves, not others, because if everything goes well, the generation that will need to think about ageism the generation that will survive and that is us”, completed Samantha.
Another point raised during the conversation was nonconformity as the fuel for change, highlighted by Letcia Rodrigues, who stated that change only happens through nonconformity and that this is the only way society will move forward.
As for Michele Levy, progress will also come when conversations about combating prejudices leave the bubble of converts.
“We need to talk to men, bring them into this conversation. So, men, use your voices, don’t be silent! Because if you remain silent, you will let things perpetuate themselves. Don’t allow that to happen”, completed the consulting partner Children in the Curriculum.
