More than most, Sérgio Maria’s career has been about transition and transformation. In a doing work existence assisting standard businesses navigate the upheavals of new technology, he has also rethought his individual path alongside the way.
For much more than a ten years, the 48-12 months-aged senior digital government, who lives in São Paulo, has worked with organisations adapting to digital disruption and innovation, 1st at Google and now with Brazilian media and amusement team Rede Globo. All the even though, developing the competencies to set himself in others’ footwear, divine their small business wants and communicate how he can enable has been at the centre of his career.
Throughout 12 years at Google, Maria’s main do the job was developing associations with publishers, which include newspapers, broadcasters and suppliers. “In 2011 in Brazil, the information industry was really averse to Google,” he recollects. “I could not have a conversation with a newspaper CEO — they would not even answer to my calls.”
The icy reception was understandable. At the time, digital was decimating the standard information industry. Audience have been locating their information on-line, advertisers have been next them and the print revenue model was struggling.
Against this backdrop, the Brazilian was tasked with locating areas where by the competitor could become a collaborator. He joined Google as a strategic associate supervisor and finally rose to become director of world-wide partnerships for Latin The us and Brazil across broadcast, information and commerce.
“Google has the advertising gross sales job that competes with all the other groups for advertising budgets . . . and that is how it is likely to do the job endlessly,” Maria acknowledges. “But I was in a team that was wanting at the other side — which is, how can we enable these companions produce on their own, be much more efficient in the way they do their small business and also create revenue?”
He also worked with journalists, describing how to mine Google information for investigative do the job he taught publishers how technology could enable them realize users’ conduct and he assisted optimise cell products. The world-wide accumulation of this sort of do the job grew into the Google News Initiative, which supports journalism in the kind of a coaching centre and an innovation fund, for case in point.
After 12 years at Google, Maria was at a crossroads. If he stayed, the next stage would be a shift abroad, in a new job and tradition. That did not fit with his particular options, so he resolved to take a career break, spend time with his household — he has 3 sons — and reflect on his next shift.
CV
2004-2005 Products and solutions director, Oi Web
2006-2007 Products supervisor, Brasil Telecom Web
2007-2011 Strategic associate supervisor, Google
2011-2016 Head of strategic partnerships, Latin The us, Google
2016-2017 Director of world-wide partnerships, Latin The us, Google
2017-2019 Director of world-wide partnerships: broadcast, information and commerce, Google
2019-current Director of new small business progress, Rede Globo
Occupations, he states, are a 3-phase journey. At the beginning, professionals’ competencies tend to be much more complex. Then they may possibly become people managers, offering up considerably of the useful do the job and developing competencies in foremost groups and developing a vision. The 3rd is the government level, wanting at firms strategically in the long expression.
Maria was ready to transition to the 3rd phase. So in 2018, even though at Google, he enrolled for the counsellors progress programme, a company governance system, at Fundação Dom Cabral small business school in Brazil.
“It was appropriate for that moment in my career,” he states. “It let me make investments some time to realize the strategic job of boards improved and how to then influence the management crew of the organisation.”
The programme, which he finished at FDC’s Belo Horizonte campus, prepares long run board customers. Along with training the rules of management and governance, it explores how to implement this — for case in point, contributors put together for and guide mock conferences of administrators.
The return to official learning was “amazing”, Maria states. His career break intended he was spared balancing household, do the job and analyze all through the system, which was taught in two week-long blocks a few months aside. This authorized him to engage totally, he adds, something that those people wondering about government classes should really be ready to do.
“People should really be geared up to stay offline and connect to the people on the system and connect to the system itself,” he states. “It is expected that you take part a large amount and there is authentic worth in bringing your encounter. It enriches the conversation and the useful physical exercises.”
This also usually means pupils should really share any troubles or areas for enhancement with classmates. “Be current, be trustworthy and be fearless,” Maria states. “The much more you are open, the much more people will be equipped to enable you and you will be equipped to enable [other] people.”
A person of the rewards was developing a solid community of like-minded friends, and Maria carries on to enable people stay in touch as a course ambassador.
The programme has assisted in his job as director of new small business progress at Globo, which he started final June. “It’s not the precise complex issues that I use,” he states, “It is considerably much more of a frame of mind improve on how to glimpse at and solution issues in the long run, wanting at what is in the minds of executives and the board.”
Globo may possibly be Maria’s greatest problem nonetheless. As component of its digital transformation, the company announced final 12 months that it was bringing some of its businesses with each other in a person team, which include broadcast and cable television firms, its internet site and video on-need company.
Along with the inner improve, Maria is doing work on developing this new media technology small business for advertisers. “The chance is how to integrate all these mediums,” he states, so that advertisers can communicate their messages seamlessly across all of Globo’s channels. For case in point, he adds: “Can we glimpse at the journey when people shift out of Tv set and go to an application to continue consuming the content?”
This solution and facts would enable advertisers realize what message performs best where by and when. It also rewards shoppers, he states, in that adverts should really experience considerably less jarring if selected in this sort of a way.
“We continue to serve interruption,” he states. “But we need to have to make interruption considerably improved in a way that is linked to the content and to what is relevant to people.”
It was the scale of the problem that persuaded Maria to take the job at Globo. When the main government introduced his vision for the small business, 3 elements clicked into location: the level of transformation a realisation that Maria could use his coaching in digital and fast-shifting environments and locating something that he was excellent at and fired up about.
“I reported, ‘OK, 3 or 5 years afterwards, if I glimpse again and we have been equipped to employ the level of transformation that the vision states, I’m likely to be really happy of that.’ And that is a legacy I’m likely to leave. Talking about a media team, it is truly a legacy that my youngsters are likely to know about.”
