Her Story
About Mariana
She is the Founder and CEO of Brazilvantage, an advisory firm helping executives and growth-focused institutions turn Brazil’s complexity into actionable business strategy and opportunity.
As a Brazilian economist with more than 10 years of experience across international organizations, private-sector advisory, and cross-border strategy, her work is shaped by helping people, organizations, and ideas connect and expand across borders.
Her background includes work with the OECD and the World Bank on macroeconomic research and public policy, Endeavor on the expansion of Latin American startups into the U.S. market, the Center for Clean Air Policy on climate-resilience initiatives in Francophone Africa, and a private family office on philanthropic initiatives.
Raised between Brazil, France, and the United States and currently learning her seventh language, she holds an M.A. in Economics and Business from Sciences Po Paris and studied at Northwestern University and the Kellogg School of Management.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Mariana
01What do you attribute your success to?
To curiosity, integrity, discipline, and the ability to turn complexity into useful insight.
Curiosity has taught me to understand different perspectives and ask better questions. Integrity has always guided me to do work that is useful, honest, and aligned with who I am. Discipline has helped me move from ideas to execution. And my ability to connect information across cultures, industries, and perspectives has allowed me to help others make clearer, better-informed decisions.
That same mindset led me to build Brazilvantage. I saw a gap between Brazil’s business potential and how prepared many organizations are to navigate it, and I chose to build a company around the value I knew I could deliver.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Do not wait until everything is perfect to start building.
Many of us wait until we feel fully prepared, credentialed, or validated before taking action. But if you have deep knowledge, lived experience, discipline, and the ability to solve a real problem, you already have a strong foundation.
We often confuse preparation with hesitation. Brazilvantage was born when I stopped treating a market gap as just an observation and started building a solution for it.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Take your expertise seriously and build around it.
Deep knowledge is not just knowledge. It can become a company, a platform, a solution, and a source of influence. If you have specialized expertise or lived experience that helps solve a real problem, communicate it clearly, seek feedback, and keep refining it.
Do not let worries or societal expectations stop you from achieving your dreams and becoming the best version of yourself in the process.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest opportunity is that current geopolitical shifts, supply-chain realignment, and market diversification are pushing more U.S. organizations to look internationally, and Brazil should be central to that conversation.
Brazil is too big to ignore and too complex to improvise. It is one of the world’s largest economies, a major U.S. trading partner, and a strategic market across energy, agriculture, infrastructure, aerospace, digital services, and consumer growth. In 2025, U.S.–Brazil goods trade reached an estimated $94.3 billion, and Brazil was Florida’s top bilateral merchandise trading market.
The challenge is that Brazil is often misunderstood. Some organizations underestimate the opportunity, while others underestimate the complexity of it. Brazilvantage exists to close that gap by delivering practical strategic intelligence for clients evaluating business opportunities in Brazil: What matters, what can go wrong, who matters, and what to do next. Learn more at www.brazilvantage.com.
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