A recent article on BusinessBecause.com highlights the career and accomplishments of George Washington School of Business MBA graduate Mariane Maier Nunes. The piece features her as the CEO of ICOM, a community foundation that hopes to drive social innovation in her native country of Brazil.
ICOM was established to strengthen local communities with social investment. Since forming in 2005, ICOM has impacted over 800 non-profits, 284,000 people and granted over $500,000 to community-based organizations. The company is based in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, in the city of Florianópolis, an area known as Brazil’s Silicon Valley.
Nunes became CEO of ICOM in June, 2016, making her a heavy hitter in “Bazilicon Valley.” She has worked to boost social and economic development and philanthropy in Latin America and has served a stint developing a women’s leadership program with the Peruvian government.
BusinessBecause.com recently interviewed Nunes and asked her what plans she has for her company moving forward:
My goal is to change the reality of the Brazilian non-profit sector….My main projects include the creation of a movement of social investors – companies and people – to help strengthen communities in Santa Catarina, and in Brazil. And I’m working to scale ICOM’s Transparency Portal to reach over ten thousand non-profits nationwide.
She was was asked how has an MBA changed her career path:
During the MBA at GWSB, I was able to get involved in many projects which helped me understand where I wanted to go. Among them, a consulting project in the area of social innovation for a cosmetics company in Peru.
Out in the field, exposed to people living in poverty, I felt that my personal mission was to return to Latin America, and work towards a better quality of life for all, one community at the time.
I wanted a career change and a leadership position that wouldn’t take long to reach. Here I am, five years after graduation.
She was asked why she decided to pursue an MBA at GWS:
I realized I was not satisfied with my career in the financial industry in Brazil. And I wasn’t sure in which direction I wanted to go.
An MBA would give me the opportunity to get to know myself better and find a fulfilling career in the long term. I chose GWSB because of its reputation in the international development field and its proximity to many international, multilateral institutions like the World Bank and the IMF.
Read the whole interview at BusinessBecause.com