Luiza Trajano, the multimillionaire who seeks to change Brazil from behind the scenes

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazilian Luiza Helena Trajano, considered one of Latin America’s most influential CEOs, has now taken the reins of a group of businesses formed to step up vaccination in the country, a challenge she combines with running her company and gender equality activism.

Trajano, born in 1951 in Franca, SP. transformed a small network of stores in the interior of São Paulo into a retail empire (Magazine Luiza) with over 50,000 employees nationwide that has weathered several economic crises.

A few years ago she landed on the prestigious Forbes list and in 2020 became the wealthiest woman in Brazil, but her trajectory goes beyond the business world. “Since I was a child I have always been closely linked to my country’s causes, whether social or economic,” she said in a virtual interview with Efe.

ACCELERATING VACCINATION IN THE COUNTRY HARDEST HIT BY THE PANDEMIC

Aware of her influence, the businesswoman recently launched the “United for the Vaccine” front, which acts in different areas and collects private donations to facilitate transport, storage and administration of the antiviral vaccine doses in the Brazilian public health system.

Trajano stresses that the front’s goal is not to “commercialize vaccines,” as has been raised by other entrepreneurs who seek the acquisition of antidotes to immunize their own companies’ employees, at a time when the country is suffering from a shortage of doses in the international market.

“We do not believe in that. I am not against the groups that want to buy, I want to make it clear, but until 60% or 70% of the population is vaccinated, it is useless to vaccinate civil servants and leave the rest unvaccinated. There are not enough vaccines in the world,” she said.

With over 368,000 deaths and 13.8 million Covid-19 cases, Brazil is currently one of the hardest- hit countries by the pandemic, which has brought the health network to the brink of collapse in a large part of the country, including her home town of Franca.

The worsening situation in Brazil is coupled with the slow pace of vaccination. Just over 12% of the population has been administered the first dose, while only 4% of Brazilians have been inoculated with the booster.

ACTIVISM TO REDUCE THE GAP BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN

Straightforward, charismatic and with a folksy tone, Trajano has become one of the most respected voices in Brazil. Her name has even been considered in politics, but the president of Magazine Luiza’s Board of Directors rules out taking a step forward in that direction.

“The great transformations do not start from a hero or heroine. They come from an organized civil society that thinks and knows what it wants for Brazil. I am non-partisan,” she stresses.

“What I want is to continue being a non-partisan politician, doing strategic planning. No country gets ahead if it does not know what it wants for the next 10 years in education, health, employment and housing”, she declares.

She prefers to act in the background. For the past 8 years, she has led the Grupo Mulheres do Brasil, which counts as members 87,000 women around the world “from different social classes, colors and religions” who fight to encourage women’s participation in all areas, including business.

Brazil, the businesswoman recalls, has only 7% of women on the boards of directors of publicly-traded companies, a figure that drops to 4% if company owners and daughters of company owners are excluded.

Aware of the gap that still exists between men and women in the business world, the group has submitted a proposal to Congress to establish quotas in both private and public companies so that the presence of women on boards of directors may reach 30%.

“If we were to wait for meritocracy,” she says, “it would take more than a century to reach that goal.” “I am totally in favor of quotas, they are part of a transitional process to correct inequality,” she stresses.