A lot more than most, Sérgio Maria’s career has been about transition and transformation. In a working life aiding standard enterprises navigate the upheavals of new technology, he has also rethought his personal route along the way.
For extra than a ten years, the forty eight-yr-aged senior electronic executive, who life in São Paulo, has labored with organisations adapting to electronic disruption and innovation, 1st at Google and now with Brazilian media and enjoyment team Rede Globo. All the even though, building the techniques to set himself in others’ footwear, divine their business enterprise wants and connect how he can aid has been at the centre of his career.
Throughout twelve decades at Google, Maria’s core perform was developing interactions with publishers, which include newspapers, broadcasters and suppliers. “In 2011 in Brazil, the news industry was pretty averse to Google,” he remembers. “I could not have a conversation with a newspaper CEO — they wouldn’t even react to my calls.”
The icy reception was comprehensible. At the time, electronic was decimating the standard news industry. Readers have been locating their news on the web, advertisers have been pursuing them and the print profits design was having difficulties.
From this backdrop, the Brazilian was tasked with locating areas in which the competitor could come to be a collaborator. He joined Google as a strategic husband or wife manager and at some point rose to come to be director of world wide partnerships for Latin The united states and Brazil across broadcast, news and commerce.
“Google has the advertising and marketing sales position that competes with all the other teams for advertising and marketing budgets . . . and that is how it is going to perform permanently,” Maria acknowledges. “But I was in a team that was wanting at the other facet — which is, how can we aid these partners acquire them selves, be extra efficient in the way they do their business enterprise and also make profits?”
He also labored with journalists, conveying how to mine Google facts for investigative perform he taught publishers how technology could aid them recognize users’ conduct and he assisted optimise cell solutions. The world wide accumulation of such perform grew into the Google Information Initiative, which supports journalism in the form of a training centre and an innovation fund, for illustration.
Right after twelve decades at Google, Maria was at a crossroads. If he stayed, the subsequent step would be a move overseas, in a new position and society. That did not match with his personal designs, so he made the decision to consider a career crack, commit time with his spouse and children — he has three sons — and replicate on his subsequent move.
CV
2004-2005 Product or service and providers director, Oi Web
2006-2007 Product or service manager, Brasil Telecom Web
2007-2011 Strategic husband or wife manager, Google
2011-2016 Head of strategic partnerships, Latin The united states, Google
2016-2017 Director of world wide partnerships, Latin The united states, Google
2017-2019 Director of world wide partnerships: broadcast, news and commerce, Google
2019-current Director of new business enterprise improvement, Rede Globo
Careers, he suggests, are a three-phase journey. At the starting, professionals’ techniques tend to be extra technological. Then they may perhaps come to be individuals professionals, supplying up a lot of the functional perform and building techniques in leading teams and developing a eyesight. The 3rd is the executive amount, wanting at firms strategically in the extensive expression.
Maria was ready to transition to the 3rd phase. So in 2018, even though at Google, he enrolled for the counsellors improvement programme, a company governance training course, at Fundação Dom Cabral business enterprise college in Brazil.
“It was proper for that instant in my career,” he suggests. “It let me make investments some time to recognize the strategic position of boards far better and how to then impact the administration crew of the organisation.”
The programme, which he finished at FDC’s Belo Horizonte campus, prepares upcoming board associates. Together with training the ideas of administration and governance, it explores how to utilize this — for illustration, contributors prepare for and direct mock conferences of directors.
The return to official finding out was “amazing”, Maria suggests. His career crack meant he was spared balancing spouse and children, perform and analyze throughout the training course, which was taught in two 7 days-extensive blocks a couple months aside. This allowed him to have interaction absolutely, he adds, something that those people contemplating about executive classes need to be ready to do.
“People need to be well prepared to continue to be offline and join to the individuals on the training course and join to the training course by itself,” he suggests. “It is anticipated that you participate a good deal and there is real worth in bringing your encounter. It enriches the conversation and the functional exercise routines.”
This also usually means pupils need to share any challenges or areas for advancement with classmates. “Be current, be sincere and be fearless,” Maria suggests. “The extra you are open, the extra individuals will be ready to aid you and you will be ready to aid [other] individuals.”
A person of the rewards was developing a powerful network of like-minded peers, and Maria carries on to aid individuals continue to be in touch as a class ambassador.
The programme has assisted in his position as director of new business enterprise improvement at Globo, which he began past June. “It’s not the unique technological things that I use,” he suggests, “It is a lot extra of a frame of mind modify on how to glimpse at and strategy things in the extensive run, wanting at what is in the minds of executives and the board.”
Globo may perhaps be Maria’s biggest obstacle but. As aspect of its electronic transformation, the enterprise announced past yr that it was bringing some of its enterprises collectively in a single team, which include broadcast and cable tv firms, its web page and movie on-demand from customers service.
Together with the interior modify, Maria is working on developing this new media technology business enterprise for advertisers. “The chance is how to combine all these mediums,” he suggests, so that advertisers can connect their messages seamlessly across all of Globo’s channels. For illustration, he adds: “Can we glimpse at the journey when individuals move out of Tv set and go to an app to keep on consuming the information?”
This strategy and information would aid advertisers recognize what information works ideal in which and when. It also rewards customers, he suggests, in that adverts need to truly feel a lot less jarring if picked in such a way.
“We however serve interruption,” he suggests. “But we have to have to make interruption a lot far better in a way that is connected to the information and to what is related to individuals.”
It was the scale of the obstacle that persuaded Maria to consider the position at Globo. When the main executive offered his eyesight for the business enterprise, three elements clicked into put: the amount of transformation a realisation that Maria could use his training in electronic and rapid-moving environments and locating something that he was good at and energized about.
“I mentioned, ‘OK, three or 5 decades later, if I glimpse again and we have been ready to implement the amount of transformation that the eyesight suggests, I’m going to be pretty proud of that.’ And which is a legacy I’m going to go away. Chatting about a media team, it is in fact a legacy that my little ones are going to know about.”