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| Ruben Delfini of NexisLexis addressing our team |
Thanks to one of our adjunct professors, Dr. Henry Balani, we were able to visit the RELX Group of companies in Sao Paulo today. Per their website, “RELX Group is a global provider of information and analytics for professional and business customers across industries.” RELX is made up of Elsevier, Accuity & Fircosoft, LexisNexis, and Reed Exhibitions. Elsevier focuses on scientific, medical, and technical global analytics through their journals and databases. Accuity & Fircosoft and part of LexisNexis provide risk, compliance, and business analytics to government, corporate, and banking entities around the world. The other part of LexisNexis is a purveyor of legal analytics. Finally, Reed Exhibition is the world’s leading event management business.
Henry is the Global Head of Strategic Affairs, Accuity & Fircosoft. He graciously arranged a visit with his colleague Gilberto Pecheco who leads Accuity and Fircosoft’s business development for all of Latin America out of the Sao Paulo office. Gilberto arranged for Ruben Delfini, Business Development Manager, LexisNexis Risk Solutions and Michelle Zreik, Reed Exhibitions Alcantara Machado, Procurement Manager to join us and provide overviews of their business sectors. We learned about how Accuity, Fircosoft, and NexisLexis work to provide intelligence on insights to help minimize expose to and thus control corruption, money laundering, and other illegal monetary activities around the world. It was like an addendum to the Global Macroeconomics for Managers course that all of our MBA students take. We certainly appreciated the excellent presentations in general and the specific insights into the recent corruption scandals that have rocked Brazil.
In the afternoon, we spent time with our newest and bestest friends in Brazil: Ader e Lang. Thiago Masagardi and Flavia Lang hosted us for a wonderful afternoon in their offices. Thiago took us through their business development and client engagement model.
We learned that the issues in both Brazil and the US can be very much alike in the nonprofit consulting world. Actually, based on my consulting experience in the for-profit world, I had no problem relating as well. First, potential clients take a long time to decide before bringing on a consultant. Seond, they prefer free services. Lastly, if a for pay consulting engagement is agreed to, the clients will often try to expand the scope during the consulting process with the intention of keeping the price the same.
We learned Ader e Lang is perhaps the only nonprofit consulting company in Brazil that offers the full breadth of consulting services. That being said, a lot of their presentation and our discussion focused around fundraising. There seemed to have been a long-standing belief in the nonprofit world in Brazil that their problems were all in execution. In Ader e Lang’s experience, they have found that the problems are more rooted in the lack of proper planning. They have focused a lot of their activities in the planning phase and have achieved some great success with their clients.
In the evening, we split our group with our two alums. Eight of us went with Felipe to a rodizio which is a Brazilian barbecue similar to but, in our case tonight, not Fago de Chao. The remainder of the group returned to Symphony Hall to hear Deborah and the
rest of the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra perform Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 in E-minor.
Another fabulous day in Sao Paulo!
In the afternoon, we spent time with our newest and bestest friends in Brazil: Ader e Lang. Thiago Masagardi and Flavia Lang hosted us for a wonderful afternoon in their offices. Thiago took us through their business development and client engagement model.
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| Thiago Masagardi |
We learned Ader e Lang is perhaps the only nonprofit consulting company in Brazil that offers the full breadth of consulting services. That being said, a lot of their presentation and our discussion focused around fundraising. There seemed to have been a long-standing belief in the nonprofit world in Brazil that their problems were all in execution. In Ader e Lang’s experience, they have found that the problems are more rooted in the lack of proper planning. They have focused a lot of their activities in the planning phase and have achieved some great success with their clients.
In the evening, we split our group with our two alums. Eight of us went with Felipe to a rodizio which is a Brazilian barbecue similar to but, in our case tonight, not Fago de Chao. The remainder of the group returned to Symphony Hall to hear Deborah and the
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| On the Ader e Lang Terrace |
Another fabulous day in Sao Paulo!
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