Glass Half-Broken

 

LEADING WITH PURPOSE

Ana Paula Pessoa

When Ana Paula Pessoa was growing up in Brazil in the 1970s and early 1980s, the country’s press was censored by a military regime that would ultimately fall around the time Pessoa moved to the United States to attend Stanford University. So perhaps it’s fitting that years later she became an executive at the largest media company in South America. “I ended up working in the field that I felt was really important for democracy: a strong and free media,” she reflects, looking back on eighteen years at Rio de Janeiro–based Grupo Globo. But even before launching her media career, Pessoa was motivated by an aspiration to better society, looking for ways to combine her love of math and economics with her ...