15 Faces behind famous Brazilian brands

You are probably tired of seeing the faces of founders of internationally known brands such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or Coco Chanel. But would you recognize the faces of entrepreneurs and creative directors of successful Brazilian brands if you bumped into one of them on the street?

O awesome.club found photos of the mega-entrepreneurs behind companies that have become a benchmark in their respective sectors in Brazil, such as Sadia, Embelleze and Colcci. Check out their success story.

We started our list with a Mexican businessman who made his mark in Brazil, Carlos Slim. He founded Claro in São Paulo in 2003.

Carlos is today considered a true king of telecommunications, as he runs companies in several countries on the American continent, such as Guatemala, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and more! According to Forbes, he is the richest man in Mexico and his fortune is valued at 53.1 billion dollars.

After living 16 years in Portugal and another period in Switzerland, Dione Vasconcellos decided to return to Brazil in 2002. At that time, she was over 40, had a 10-year-old daughter and had little money in her wallet. The businesswoman found herself in a “terrifying” world when she decided to invest 20 reais to take a course on handmade soaps. After an intense struggle, she managed to set up a kiosk of handmade soaps in a renowned mall in Rio de Janeiro.

Two years later, Dione bought an indebted cosmetics factory, called her sister and brother-in-law to be partners and, little by little, Lola Cosmetics emerged. It seems like the world turns to those who have purpose and determination, doesn’t it?

Currently, Colcci belongs to the AMC Têxtil group and the creative director of the brand is Adriana Zucco. For this reason, perhaps few remember that the brand was founded in 1986 by the couple Jorge Colzani and Lila Colzani (the one who appears next to Gisele Bündchen in the photo above).

After the sale of Colcci, which took place in 2000, Lila continued as the brand’s director of style until 2006 – the year in which she resigned because she felt she had lost her creative freedom within the company. Since then, she has continued to work in the fashion area. She currently runs Pistol Star, a brand of streetwear aimed at children and is one of the specialists in reality born to fashionfrom the E! Channel.

Flávio Augusto da Silva was born and raised in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro. To earn his own income, it took him more than two hours on crowded buses and trains to get from his home to work, located in central Rio. At 19, he worked as a course salesman for a network of English schools and became excellent at the profession.

Despite the good commissions he received, he found himself full of installment plans to pay at the age of 23. So he decided to start his own business. With 10 thousand reais in overdraft and another 10 thousand reais from his wife, he started an empire: the Wise Up network. His eye for business is so good that today he is the president of Wiser Educação, the holding company that owns the brands Wise Up, Number One, meuSucesso.com and Buzz Editora.

Luiza Helena Trajano is one of the most powerful women in Brazil, as she is the soul behind the Magazine Luiza network. When the businesswoman took over the family business in 1972, the company was just a chain of stores in the interior of São Paulo. But with Luiza’s effort, dedication and talent, the company grew a lot, to the point of competing directly with other giants in the retail world.

Luiza has become so influential that she has been the leader, since 2013, of Grupo Mulheres do Brasil, a non-partisan organization that seeks to improve the country by engaging society and proposing actions related to education, entrepreneurship and social projects for women.

Born in 1950 in Bolivia and graduated in Pharmacy and Biochemistry from the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), Miguel Gellert Krigsner built a real fortune in Brazil after creating the O Boticário chain. Currently, his net worth is estimated at 3.2 billion dollars and his cosmetics company is the second largest in the country, after Natura.

Nelson Alvarenga Filho, a Minas Gerais based in São Paulo, founded Ellus in 1972. Since then, the businessman has become one of the leaders in the fashion segment in Brazil between 1980 and 2000. Today, he owns the Inbrands conglomerate, which brings together such as Richards, Salinas and Bobstore.

Are you recognizing this face from somewhere? You may have seen Alexandre Tadeu da Costa — better known as Alê Costa — at the MasterChef Brazilbecause the chocolatier already was present in some episodes of the reality gastronomic.

Alê Costa’s successful trajectory began in 1988, when the 18-year-old started selling truffles and chocolate bonbons in the back seat of a white 78 Volkswagen Beetle. currently.

Did you know that Marisa was the first Brazilian fashion chain to have a virtual store? But the brand had a lot of history before making its launch into the digital world in 1999.

Bernardo Goldfarb learned the art of making accessories from his father and acquired the company Marisa Bolsas in 1948. Two years later he came to Marisa Malhas. And it didn’t take long for the network to conquer more and more space in Brazilian territory.

In this photo, you can see one of Brazil’s biggest billionaires, Alexandre Grendene Bartelle, alongside his wife Nora Teixeira. The businessman and his twin brother, Pedro Grendene Bartelle, founded Grendene in 1971. Today, the company is one of the largest footwear producers in the world and Alexandre has a net worth valued at 2 billion dollars.

Sadia’s founder, Atílio Fontana, was born in 1900 in Santa Maria and had nine children. In addition to his career as a businessman, he ventured into the world of politics and served as councilor, municipal mayor of Concórdia (SC), senator, secretary of state and, finally, vice-governor of Santa Catarina.

Sadia, initially named S. A. Indústria e Comércio Concórdia, was born in 1944, after Atílio acquired a struggling meatpacking company. The company even grew from the 1960s onwards, when it entered the semi-ready and frozen food segment.

In 1989, Oskar Metsavaht created the brand Osklen, which today is internationally recognized for its actions in pursuit of sustainability. It was to be expected that the founder of the brand would have a degree in Fashion Design, but his academic background is in the field of medicine.

It was the knowledge in anatomy and biomechanics that enabled the self-taught stylist to create winter sports coats, which valued mobility and functionality. As the models were super cool, he ended up conquering admirers and, thus, kick-started the fashion world.

The founder of the beauty company Embelleze, Itamar Serpa, is a sensation on social media. The businessman has more than 182 thousand followers on Instagram and the affection is so much that his fans informally call him “Seu Embelleze”.

Contrary to what many might think, Itamar was not born into a wealthy family. So he always worked hard. Before becoming the owner of this beauty empire — which is present in more than 30 countries — the entrepreneur worked as office boybus conductor and professor of chemistry and physics.

Samuel Klein left Poland in 1952, in the post-war period, to build a true retail empire in Brazil: Casas Bahia. According to the company’s own website, Samuel was a born salesman and loved to tell stories from the business world. For him, the millions of customers who frequented his stores were “customers”. The figure of the businessman was marked by good conversation and the use of polo shirts and Franciscan flip-flops.

Finally, here is another foreign entrepreneur who ended up taking root in Brazil: the North American Robert Falkenburg, who founded Bob’s in 1952. The concept of fast food it didn’t even exist in the country at that time, so the businessman saw a great business opportunity — which remains firm and strong to this day.

A very cool curiosity about Robert is that he was also a tennis player and was champion at the Wimbledon tournament in 1948.

Did you already know the face of any of these entrepreneurs? Which success story surprised you the most? tell the awesome.club in the comments.