Welcome to Perfil Poder, an interview program with personalities who take Brazil to the world. She is a businesswoman and visionary who transformed a family business into one of Brazil's largest retail groups. Her dynamic leadership has placed her company among the protagonists of the digital revolution in the country. At the helm of the Women of Brazil Group, which she founded and has led for over a decade, she mobilizes thousands of women inside and outside the country for education and social inclusion, actively contributing to the development of a more just Brazil with more opportunities. A trajectory that inspires generations and redefines the role of leadership in the 21st century. Perfil Poder welcomes the chairwoman of the board of Magazine Luiza, Luiza Trajano. Welcome, Luiza. It's an honor to have you.
The Perfil group is really happy to have you here with us. Are you from Franca?
Franca. Franca do Imperador. Franca. I usually say it's the last city of São Paulo, right? So it's 70% from Minas Gerais and 30%... So I'm Paulista geographically, but in Franca, 70% are from Minas and 30% are children of people from Minas.
Yes. Because, for example, our farms are in Minas. In 10, 15 minutes you're already at the border of Minas.
Yes, that's true. That's true. I was in Franca a long time ago, but it must have grown a lot.
A lot. It's a very entrepreneurial city. I think it was born from the shoe industry, right? Because that was the strength there.
And it's impressive. You have entrepreneurship everywhere, from 80-year-olds who are famous with the same family, to lingerie, shoes, which still continues, especially for women now, to gymnastics. It's a city where you find entrepreneurship everywhere. What is the size of the city today?
Today it has over 400,000 inhabitants. It has grown a lot.
São Paulo has that, right? The cities in Brazil have that. The cities are big.
And you're a lawyer? A law graduate?
Law. Yes, but I'm really a salesperson.
No, not a salesperson. You're a businesswoman.
Yes, you know? But from end to end.
Yes, I grew up in this environment, right?
Exactly. But you started very early in this field.
At 18, you were already working.
At 18, I was definitely working. At 12, I worked during vacations.
During vacations, I liked it because I'm an only child, my aunt also didn't have children. So I come from a small family. I'm Luiza because of her, and Magazine Luiza is because of her.
So we were very close. And I come from an interesting family, right? Magazine Luiza will be 70 years old next year, and I come from a family where women were already protagonists. At a time when women only stayed at home, right? So I had the privilege of working in a company, being born into an entrepreneurial family, and being born into a family where women already worked outside and did business. That was very difficult at the time.
At the time, it was very difficult.
And you lived there until what age?
Ah, I lived there until 15 years ago. I used to come to São Paulo a lot. We had a small office here, 15 or 18 years ago that we set up. 16 years ago that we moved here. And we moved the headquarters, not the entire headquarters. I spend the week there. We have a very beautiful headquarters there, where the old HB was, called HB for home, where more than 3,000 people work. All the operational part, all the operational part, the warehouse, all that part that doesn't require strategy, which is very important, the so-called back office, yes, it's all the back office, all the infrastructure part is there, including the family holding company too. So we have an office, I was there this Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and it's impressive, it's also a very pleasant, very beautiful place. So, we still have that, but all the strategic part, we moved to São Paulo 16 years ago, but keeping that part there.
And you have three children?
Three children. One has been working with you for a long time. Fred, Frederico.
Frederico, Frederico, interesting. He joined GV very early.
And then he worked very early in the job market. One day he called me and said: 'Everyone thinks it was me who trained him, who wanted him to go there, even because a child doesn't do everything you want.' That's not true, right? You know that, right? They will follow their own path. That's very good too. Everything I thought for my children turned out differently. I don't even know if that's why I didn't think much. I think they had to follow their own path, but he was always one of the first to train in retail. Then he followed a financial career, worked 8 years outside. One day he called and said: 'I was still in Franca, the headquarters was still totally in Franca.' He said: 'I'm coming there to set up the digital,' and he set up the first site and so on. And he always believed in this integration of physical and digital. He never thought the physical would be disconnected from the digital, but we bet on that when no one else was betting. It's true, true.
And we are one of the few large companies in the world that managed to take the physical together with the digital and modernize the physical.
You weren't born president of the company. You went through many departments, learned one by one.
Of course. At the time, Maluf, it wasn't like today where you do an internship program to learn. We had few stores, only two. I started in the store itself, and it was my biggest school. I stayed there for a long time, then I became a department manager, until I became a store manager. And in the store itself, there was a desk, we moved to a beautiful building, I followed all of that, and I could do purchasing and such. Then we had an office later, at the time the office was in the store itself, an office, and then we kept growing, growing, and I followed all this development.
And that growth was brilliant. I remember the launch of 50 stores in São Paulo. Do you remember that?
Not only do I remember, but she was the one who brought us here.
But before that, there's the whole story. In '91, we created an electronic store, which wasn't called digital back then, which today is a store that has over 200 stores.
So Magazine Luiza brings to your city the store of the year 2000. And we started in a tiny town, there were no products on display, there was no multimedia, at the time it was TV and video, we had to film. And we always had a lot of interaction with the community, that helped a lot too. So there were courses for the community because the person... and it was a small town, a town from Minas where people like to look and touch, as they say in Minas. And we brought a store that had no products on display.
Everyone bet it wouldn't work because the internet wasn't so famous, there was no Facebook, there was nothing.
So we did that, we entered Ribeirão Preto, which was the biggest city after ours, with three stores on the same day. Wow, it was an absurd thing.
Then 50 more. After a long time, we entered São Paulo, because we were entering Minas, in the regions there, and we didn't enter São Paulo because it was more competitive. So, either you entered for real here or you didn't enter. With one or two stores, you're not. So when we arrived, we came with 50 stores on the same day.
Right. It was that. The famous 'Faustão' commercial, which was the mascot, saying 'Magazine Luiza is arriving in São Paulo, 50 stores in one day.' By the way, let's send a hug to Faustão.
Wow, I have a lot of affection for Faustão.
Immense, a person who was very important in our growth, as our promoter, right? And he has a lot of affection for those he believes in, for those he likes.
He really is. He's a friend of friends. Friends, friends. And when he believes, he really is.
Another important leap was buying the Lojas do Baú stores. Was it or wasn't it?
Big, but there were many stores. Yes, but we bought more chains in that period. We bought one with 50 stores in the South, we bought one with 50 in the Northeast, we bought many large chains, and we only bought to complement, we didn't buy to eliminate. Baú has a whole... we went with Silvio Santos, he's a wonderful person, he had a whole nice promotion, but it wasn't the biggest company we bought, no. It wasn't the biggest deal. And we grew.
But it was the most famous, for sure.
Here, right? At the time. It was at the time. Very well. And then, when did you take over the company? In what year?
I was always more or less in charge, in fact. Because, I bought the first computer in the 80s, but I officially took over in '91.
Yes. But then Marcelo was our CEO. I passed it to Marcelo before Frederico. It was Marcelo Silva. Marcelo stayed. He's from Pernambuco.
He's from Pernambuco and a fanatic.
Fanatic, isn't it true? So we joke between Franca and Recife. He speaks well of Recife, I speak well of Franca. Although today I'm a citizen of Pernambuco.
