Brazil

Leonardo Lahud leads the trade and investment portfolio of the Productivity, Trade and Innovation Sector at IDB in Brazil. Previously, he served in the Brazilian government, where he was deputy secretary of foreign trade, deputy executive secretary of the Foreign Trade Chamber, and deputy secretary of international affairs and development of the Ministry of Planning and Budget. He holds a master's in international trade and investment law from the World Trade Institute, linked to the University of Bern (Switzerland), a postgraduate degree in international relations from the University of Brasilia, and a law degree from the Federal Fluminense University.

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Pedro Giocondo Guerra holds multiple degrees in law and public administration and has specialised training in administrative law, public-private partnerships and international investments. Experienced in legal consulting, academic research and public management, he has worked in law firms; as a researcher on government control, public policies and decisions of Brazil’s Supreme Court; and in the São Paulo public sector. Pedro has extensive experience on the fiscal councils of state-owned and environmental companies. Since 2023, he has held positions of high trust in the Federal Government and is also Chairman of the Fiscal Council of Brazil’s National Development Bank (BNDES).

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Bruno Pelli is a mining executive with international experience. He is a mining engineer (University of São Paulo), risk management specialist (University of Queensland), management excellence specialist (University of Pretoria), MBA Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV-UCI) and holds a sustainability certificate from the University of Cambridge. At Vale, Bruno is responsible for brownfield exploration, geoscience, mine planning and closure, mining rights, mineral resources and processing for iron ore assets around the world. He also leads transformational projects such as Vale's circular mining programme and manages four R&D facilities. Bruno is a board member of Circlua and the Minas-Rio iron ore joint venture.

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Gustavo Porpino has worked for Embrapa since 2006. He holds a PhD in business administration from Fundação Getulio Vargas's São Paulo School of Business Administration (FGV-EAESP) and was a visiting scholar at Cornell University, where he carried out research on food consumption behaviour. Gustavo is a member of the Brazilian food banks’ network steering committee and he collaborates with Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and UN Environment Programme (UNEP) initiatives on food security and circularity. He is a co-founder of the Pact Against Hunger, a multi-sectoral movement that combats hunger and reduces food waste in Brazil.

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With over 14 years’ experience in corporate sustainability, Alice is strategically integrating Arcadis’ ESG practices into organisations in Brazil. An environmental engineer and specialist in sustainable infrastructure and ESG, she works on driving cultural transformation within companies and implementing solutions aligned with national and international ESG protocols. Alice has extensive experience in preparing sustainability reports, assessing and measuring socio-environmental impacts, and developing strategies to enhance ESG maturity across businesses . Her work spans sectors such as mining, energy, sanitation and transportation, fostering more responsible and sustainable management within organisations.

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Luiz is a geologist with a master’s in environmental analysis and a PhD in geography. He was a researcher and teacher of resource economics for more than 10 years in southern Brazil. Luiz has 12 years’ experience in Brazilian public environmental management, from local to national level. He was coordinator of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for Brazil and senior adviser in climate change and biodiversity of the Stockholm Resilience Centre in Sweden. At the UN since 2016, he has been coordinating international cooperation activities in many countries on a circular and low carbon economy and nature-based solutions.

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In addition to his position at FIESP, Josué Gomes is also the president of Coteminas, a leading bed and bath company with industrial units in several countries through the American continents. In addition, he is the 1st vice-president of the Center of Industries of the State of São Paulo (CIESP) and chairman emeritus of the Brazilian Textile Industries Association (ABIT). Beyond his industrial activities he is a member of the Owen School Corporate Council of Vanderbilt University and of the board of the Child Cancer Treatment Institute of São Paulo (ITACI).

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Rafael Cervone is a textile engineer and 1st vice president of the Federation of the Industries of the State of São Paulo (FIESP). Working with the textile sector since 1990, he is a board member of the International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF), President Emeritus of Sinditêxtil-SP and ABIT (Brazilian Association of Textile and Apparel Industry). He was a member of the Global Business Forum for the G20, B20, and contributed to “Industrial Transformation & Innovation”, “Future of Work” and “Future of Industry and Digital Transformation”, and the ILO Group – “Dialogues on the Future of Work and Combating Slave Labor”.

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André Aranha Corrêa do Lago has been working with the sustainable development agenda since 2001. As a career diplomat, he was the director of the Energy Department (2008-2011) and of the Environment Department (2011-2013) at the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the latter period, he was Brazil´s chief negotiator for climate change and for the Rio+20 Conference. He was the Brazilian ambassador to Japan (2013-2018) and to India (2018-2023). Since March 2023, he has been the Secretary for Climate, Energy and Environment at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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Gabriel Azevedo has led international projects in more than 40 countries in infrastructure, natural resource management, agribusiness, manufacturing and environmental management. He has worked at the World Bank, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Construtora Norberto Odebrecht, and was a board member for the Brazilian Biodiversity Fund (FUNBIO) and the Brazilian Association of Water Resources (ABRHIdro). He is a board observer at the International Hydropower Association (IHA) and is IDB Invest representative at the Sustainability Committee to the Board of Hospital Einstein in Brazil. Azevedo has degrees in civil engineering, including an MSc and a PhD from Colorado State University.

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