Brazil cannot be a bubble discussed only by the elite, says creator of program for young leaders

More engaged in the discussion of the country’s basic problems than past generations, young people are an important cog in the construction of a developed country and, therefore, it would be up to them to take the lead in decisions, says Wellington Vitorino, executive director of the Four Institute. The non-profit organization supports and trains young people who have a leadership profile.

“I don’t know of any nation considered structured in the world that has developed without using this base of the pyramid to solve basic problems. My generation, and now the younger generation, was born with a spirit of wanting to do something. lack is to offer training and development for that”.

Supporting the development of innovative ideas is the objective of Vitorino, creator of ProLíder, one of the largest training programs for young leaders in the country. Since it was launched in 2016, the initiative has already reached 4,000 young people across the country.

From a low-income family, he started his business at the age of 12 selling popsicles at the Military Police battalion in the capital of Rio de Janeiro.

The idea of ​​creating an initiative to inspire young people arose in the administration course at Ibmec, where Wellington studied with a scholarship from Prouni. Today, Instituto Four has the support of big names, such as businessman Jorge Paulo Lemann.

Among other initiatives, the institute developed the Four Summit –a forum for economic discussions inspired by the Davos conference– held in 2019.

The second edition of the event took place on the 7th and 8th of September, in São Paulo, and was attended by around one hundred speakers and a thousand guests with a very diverse audience. The objective was to discuss ways of thinking about Brazil from the perspectives of ethics, leadership and education, business and innovation and technology.

At the age of 28, Wellington is studying for a master’s degree at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), in Cambridge, United States, being one of the first black Brazilians to be accepted in the selection process.

For him, investing in youth is not just looking ahead. It is a way of recovering historical damage caused by racism and social inequality while discussing relevant issues for the future of Brazil.

What is the social gain for these people when people from different economic classes come together in the same environment, providing connections between audiences that, perhaps, would not live together? The increasing integration between people, regardless of social class, is not just an individual gain. All Brazil wins.

In this way, we can build bridges between different classes, which work as a form of exchange.

When we talk about building society, we need to have people from different realities thinking together to solve problems of groups that are less favored.

Leadership, innovation and technology are topics traditionally discussed by elites. But Four Summit’s audience is quite diverse. Do you think that the fact of not charging for admission helped this diversity or, more than that, is it already a reflection of a cultural change? Diversity is a very strong value for my institution. It was not after the death of George Floyd that we started to discuss diversity.

In the first edition of the forum, we sold tickets, but we had a commitment to reserve 10% for people in leadership who are in more peripheral regions or who are from indigenous communities. But that audience reached almost 20% at the time.

We went to great lengths to invite people we believe could contribute to the debate. Brazil cannot be a bubble that will be discussed only by entrepreneurs, or only by the third sector, or else only by the public sector. Brazil is much more than that.

Four Summit was born with that spirit. Our intention is to form the new World Economic Forum. We are only in our second edition, but you can be sure that in five or ten years we will be in the top three of the main forums in the world in this sense.

Why does diversity play an important role when discussing the country’s future? Brazil is a very diverse country. Other nations that managed to organize more quickly are more homogeneous. What is best about Brazil, it also has to challenge. Which is to put different people in the same tune.

Brazil was discovered, in quotation marks, in 1500. The abolition of slavery in 1888 and the proclamation of the Republic in 1889. In other words, we had more time of slavery than we have of independence or Republic.

Obviously, other nations managed to advance a little better than we did. In less time, these countries managed to organize themselves in a more inclusive way and build a fairer, more prosperous, more egalitarian country with greater access to the labor market through education.

Brazil has not yet achieved this, although it has made many advances in the last 30 years, especially after the 1988 Constitution.

We need to recover the historic loss. We stopped at some tolls.

Would you say that one of the institute’s main goals is to try to make up for all that lost time? More than just recovering time [perdido], we need to make us look to the future. While Brazil has challenges from the past to be resolved, it cannot fail to pay attention to what will happen in the future.

We will, yes, solve problems such as structural racism, the lack of a decent education for all and be able to give more access to good working conditions so that people have more dignity and can break the cycle of poverty.

But, on the other hand, we have to keep up with the world with innovation, with technology and everything else. The more we push the problem, it tends to increase the snowball.

How do you think this debate can contribute to changing the situation in the country? People will leave here, return to their companies and their organizations, understanding that it is necessary to invest in youth.

The demographic bonus is falling in Brazil and, particularly, I don’t know of any nation considered structured in the world that has developed without using this base of the pyramid to solve basic problems.

My generation now and the younger generation were born with a spirit of helping to improve the situation, more so than previous generations.

Today, topics such as diversity, equity and inclusion, ESG, sustainability and topics related to business that generate transformation for the country are very latent among young people. They are wanting to do something. Sometimes something is lacking is training and development for this.

I am an entrepreneur who is currently in the third sector. After MIT my plans are to continue with a for-profit, transformative entrepreneurship. I will remain on the institute’s board and, in the long term, work in Brazilian politics.

First city hall, state government and dreaming of one day with the Presidency of the Republic. But I’m talking about 15 or 20 years from now. In the next 15 years we have some complex problems to solve.

Prefecture and government in which state? I lived in São Paulo for five years before going to the United States to study, but I’m from Rio de Janeiro and the situation there is a bit complicated. Today, if I had to contribute, I would contribute more in Rio de Janeiro.