In conversation with… Luiz Brito
Luiz Brito is dean at FGV EAESP, Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo da Fundação Getulio Vargas, in Brazil. Here, he tells Ambition editor Colette Doyle about the importance of forging regional connections, why MBA alumni need to embrace the concept of reskilling and how he’s inspired by the philosophy behind “the second curve”
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to be in your current role “I trained as a chemical engineer and built a career at an international company, Bunge Global, for 23 years, until the late 1990s. I took on several senior leadership positions in different parts of the world, including Thailand, Spain and the UK, mainly in the food and agribusiness fields. This was followed by a four-year period at Dixie Toga, a Brazilian packaging company. “Having accrued this extensive management experience, I decided to embark on a new phase of my life and study for a PhD at FGV, focusing on research, teaching and academic life. I joined FGV as a professor in 2003 in the field of supply chain management and completed my doctorate in early 2004, then this new phase took off. When the school started looking for a new dean in 2014, I was selected as one of the candidates and took up the role the following year.” What have been the highlights of your career to date? “On a personal level one of the highlights has been the development of my academic career, which started later in life. It meant I was able to develop a well-rounded academic profile, including research. This helped to shape our DBA; the programme launched in 2016 and has been a great success. One inspiration behind it was the idea of The Second Curve by Charles Handy [Handy argues that for an organisation to survive, it must proactively start a new path of innovation while the first one is still successful, rather than waiting for decline]. “The reimagining of our MBA portfolio was another important achievement. By 2015, we were witnessing a gradual decline in [enrolments on] our traditional programmes, which had proved so successful in the past.
This is partly because regulation of the academic sector in Brazil is very flexible, which permits lower quality offers that compete solely on price. Fortunately, we were able to create a large portfolio of professional master’s programmes, adding the official master’s degree to our MBA suite. While before we were struggling to enrol 100 students a year, now we have several hundred and the numbers are still growing. The DBA also complements this portfolio really well. “Another achievement was the development of a solid culture of research within the school. We were already quite strong in applied research and impact through our applied research centres (of which currently there are more than 20), but academic research was below international standard. Through several related initiatives such as faculty renewal, a strong incentive system and the joint appointment of international faculty and visiting professors, we were able to increase our academic research substantially. With around 150 core faculty, we now produce close to 250 peer‑reviewed publications per year. Quality has also improved significantly; the number of publications in journals rated three-star, four-star, or world-leading (4*) in the Chartered Association of Business Schools’ Academic Journal Guide rose from fewer than 20 in 2015 to 50 in 2025.” Do you believe that in the 21st century, with the rise of alternative providers such as LinkedIn and Coursera, the MBA can still stand out in the marketplace? “A true MBA is not about content. Coursera, LinkedIn and other sources are still focused on providing content – they are a natural complement to learning. The MBA is a journey that combines content with experiences that shape personal growth. It is like condensing into a couple of years the kind of
12 Ambition • ISSUE 1 • 2026
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