Fernando Santo Andre

Born and raised in the countryside of Brazil, I was always interested in multiple subjects - sports, music, science… This broad array of interests helped me participate in several unrelated activities. The school soccer team and a rock band were maybe the main ones on the list.

I kept my options open when it came time for college, and studied business in my undergrad.

My first professional experience was at Monsanto, as a Market Intelligence analyst for sugarcane, and later I joined Whirlpool’s supply team still focusing on market intelligence for strategic sourcing.

However, the ambition to make things happen pushed me towards an entrepreneurial ride, and then I built an event-based social network that was launched at SxSW 2013.

After a little over thousand downloads, my partners and I decided to stop the project, and I moved to a fast-growing real estate family business to structure its supply, financial and sales/ post-sales areas.

Mission accomplished, three years later I went to Michigan Ross aiming to make a career shift, which at the time was not yet clear where to.

During the MBA I directed my efforts to making into a strategic planning career, and that was how I landed at Itau.

I was a strategic planning manager for Wealth Management and Services, and after two years I decided to accept the challenge of advisoring HNW clients on their investments at Itau Private Bank.