This is Escute as Mais Velhas, the podcast of the Fundação Tide Setúbal, produced by Rádio Novelo.
Here we visit the trajectories of emblematic women and understand what made them symbols of the fight for rights in Brazil.
And our conversation today is with the businesswoman Luiza Trajano.
Luiza Trajano was a pioneering woman in defending women in Brazilian companies. Luiza was a pioneer in implementing affirmative action policies within the private sector.
First, I'm a person who is very much about doing. I'm not much of a person who stops to intellectualize. I'm sorry, I'm a person who intuits, who is fully engaged in things, and suddenly I'm doing it, and often people don't even understand what I'm doing. Then I stop after a while to explain what I'm doing. I'm very active, I'm a person who doesn't have much pity for myself. I was raised in a family of strong women. That helped me many years ago. So, I didn't have to fight to have a voice in the family, which wasn't natural for our time. And I was also an only child, my aunt didn't have children, so I also had good self-esteem while also feeling a lack. That helped me a lot to be a very questioning person, but in the sense of seeking alternatives. So, I learned that confrontation was important from an early age, and I'm very restless, you know? I'm always wanting to change cycles, doing things, and I'm a person who has great physical health, I feel little pain. My daughter said: 'I don't know if that's good or bad, because you just keep going, you keep going.' So, nature helped me in many ways too. That helped me feel younger, even though age is catching up. I started working very early by choice, I was encouraged to do so. That also helped me mature a bit more. And I'm a person who is passionate about Brazil. But it's not that kind of passion that doesn't see what's wrong. It's a passion for having liked being born here, for having liked being Brazilian, for having liked being born in Franca, for having embraced it. My family came from a simple background, speaking 'porta' and 'portão', and from a very young age entering this competitive market of mine without trying to be masculine. I don't wear long pants to this day to work because I wanted to be feminine at a time when women had to take on a certain role. So, I like being me, even with all the difficulties I've had, I managed to get this far without putting on armor or anything to get where I got. I think that helped a lot, and I also have a lot of faith. I'm a very faithful person.
You say in other interviews that you've been a feminist since you were 10 years old. How was the constitution of that child, that little girl so young?
I don't even know how to answer. Libertarian. I don't know if I was a feminist, because I didn't have to fight much for women to have a position, but I was indignant about injustice, about discrimination, from a very young age. I was 12 years old, I remember, my mother had a lot of emotional intelligence and I went to study at nuns' schools and I already questioned why there weren't different people, why there weren't scholarships, I didn't even use the word 'scholarship'. My mother used to say: 'Too much transparency is a lack of manners, be careful.' So, I was already questioning this injustice. I don't know if it was a family with many strong women that the values were different. It gave me the freedom to do things. And one thing that helped me after 12 years, I worked a lot with the public, and a public of all possible levels, because I was a salesperson in the store for many years, I learned a lot about empathy.
Tell us a little about your trajectory at Magazine Luiza so people can understand.
Well, first of all, Magazine Luiza is called Luiza not because of me. My aunt had been a salesperson for many years and it's called Luiza because of her, and she managed to stand out a lot and also didn't blame the bosses, quite the opposite. She was always grateful for having had an opportunity, right? But she had little emotional intelligence in one aspect. She was always the top salesperson, she always achieved everything, and she thought everyone had to be like her. So I fought a lot for her to understand that people weren't all like her, that training was needed, that teaching was needed, because she was always a very intelligent, very hardworking, very dedicated woman. But I had a mother who had a lot of emotional intelligence. So, I think I had that balance from a young age that helped me a lot, a person who didn't have crises, who worked and was grateful, but who could see far and had a lot of emotional intelligence.
You also say that you were raised not to be perfect. So, what is it like to make mistakes? How was that in your upbringing?
I was raised to have a lot of responsibility, but I wasn't raised like, 'You have to be the top student, you have to be the first in swimming, you have to be the first in everything.' That helps a lot, especially for us as women, because we challenge ourselves a lot, 'Oh, I can't make a mistake.' So, I think that helped me a lot too, because when you're not perfect, you're a being under construction. That helped me a lot in my professional life and in my personal life.
Magazine Luiza is a company that is considered one of the companies that best welcomes women, right? It's a paradigm of comfort for a worker, right? How was that built?
First, it's about women, but I'm more of a feminist than my aunt, I think. I've always had a very focused eye on this. And I'm also very intuitive. I think it was more by intuition than anything else. But suddenly, I realized that we had some difficulties in having more women in power. For example, where more leadership comes from to grow is when you enter as a salesperson or cashier and then you become a trainee manager and then you become a store manager. Then you go to supervisor. And I started to notice that when we gathered the company's trainee managers, we had only 20%, 30% of women. So what was happening? This pyramid was becoming more and more skewed. So I started asking, why is this happening? What can be done? And so I fight for every block in this country to have a full-time public school, because that has to exist. So, while I fight for that, which I think is the right thing, we have a 'mother's check' that we've been giving for over 20 years. No one gives anything to anyone because it has to deliver results, but it's not tied to results. Because I realized that for me it was easy to go to work, because I could have a structure at home. So I said, let's create a 'mother's check' so that, depending on the city, it can help with children up to 10 years and 11 months old. That was our first big leap, simpler, not talking about leadership, so that women could work. That helped women free themselves a little, because regardless of everything, at the end of the month they had that salary that was enough to pay the neighbor, the mother, even the mother-in-law. That's why we didn't require receipts, there was nothing. So, I think it was the great opening and it represented very little of the payroll. Then I noticed that few were becoming trainee managers, so I would automatically... Then I started to realize why? Because they have to spend six months rotating stores, rotating locations to do the practical training.
To advance in their careers.
Yes, to advance and take a bigger leap in their careers. So we said: 'Well, what can we do? Let's leave a 100 km radius and make it easier for them to come back every weekend and double the mother's check.' So when they go out for training, they get the mother's check doubled. That's been for many years now. To the point that the last class had 65% women. It's possible I'll have to create a 'daddy's check' now. There's real gender inequality now, but it's against men. Wow, I was even surprised. It was very interesting. It's small actions that don't represent a cost that you pay to have more women, which is very good for the business, it's not bad, and it makes a big difference for women.
And I learned that, Neca, because you, like me, I believe Sueli too, were always invited to be the only woman on the board because we are women. For example, I was the only woman at the Olympic Committee, everywhere. I don't want to be the only one. I saw how much my presence, with my way, I'm sure you did too, balanced the board. We brought to light things that they often talked about behind the scenes, there was no need to do it. Because of the very mechanical way men were raised. You can't say you don't know, you can't say you're sick, the families were raised in a very mechanical management. So I started to observe how important the role of a woman was. That's where, for over 18 years, I've been in favor of quotas. It's a transitional process to correct an inequality. People, the beatings I've taken because of this.
So, speaking of other beatings you've taken, tell us, right, that you were a pioneer in creating affirmative action in Magalu's selection process for Black trainees and that you took a lot of beatings. Tell us how that process was, the idea, and a little later.
It's like this, I'm talking about trainee manager going to store manager, but it takes longer to reach a high-level director. And we started to notice that we had many Black people, but few Black men and women in high-level positions. And the way in retail to reach higher is through the training program. So during the years 2016, 2017, 2018, I told 99, which was a specialized company, that we couldn't get any Black people. And they would say things like, 'Out of 20, Luiza, they arrived, they didn't stay, they didn't pass.' Every time it was an excuse. Then I had the idea to say, let's make a training program just for Black people, since they haven't been able to bring Black people here for 3 years. We called Lázaro Ramos. We have an internal channel that talks to 40,000 people. Lázaro Ramos was going to come in and we were going to tell the team that we were going to do our training this time. And he spoke to the team, we made the book available, and when it was nighttime, he called his press office and sent a note to the newspaper, so natural for us. It was like that. And from that Friday night, for about 15 days, we were attacked in all possible ways, including a prosecutor calling me to give explanations. But I already know that when you change paradigms and limiting beliefs, you pay a very high price. And I decided to pay, even if it hurt the company, they call me left-wing because I'm in favor of Bolsa Família and I go to the sertão. It's my spirit from an early age. But I took it very well. But Frederico was very scared by our response because it was very, it was like, we were, it was very aggressive, it was very aggressive. And on Sunday night, I thought his position was great. He didn't even call me, he sent a letter politely to the press saying that people could understand that he wanted to change Magazine Luiza and that no one was obligated to do that in their company and that he was going to continue doing it. And 21,001 people showed up, because we opened it to the whole of Brazil. Wow, we facilitated their move to live in São Paulo, where our headquarters is. And the most important thing I have to tell is that when it was down to 30 to select 20, all the executive directors, not even me, about five or six, interviewed them one by one to eliminate the last 10. And one day he came to my office and said: 'You know, sometimes I have to turn off the video?' He said, and he's a more rational, more technical guy, right? Not like me. What did he say? Because I'm impressed with their level. We won't need to make any exceptions, except that we already did, which is from 24, we went to 26 years old to give more opportunity, and we thought we'd have to give English, extra classes, and most of them are unemployed or earning 30% less. And so the other directors interviewed. We didn't make any openings for them to enter. It was the same test that was given by 99. And it's surprising the level of people we brought from all over Brazil, women, men, and so on. But I think our movement shook the whole world, because what we receive, 'explain to me how you did it.' So we receive awards for ESG and for the vaccine all over the world. So, you had a lot of frustration, there were people who said: 'I will never set foot in your company again.' But there were people who said: 'I'm going there because of this.' These are prices you pay. I say that when the purpose is the backbone, you can't give up your purpose for anything in this life. And the company has its purpose very clear. Now, it was very heavy for us.
But what is the balance you make of these initiatives?
We did another one and no one ever messed with us again. So we did it to have 10 more. And this year we're just not repeating it because we have to give it some time. And the balance we have is that you see many more Black people inside the company, and it's beautiful. Today I had a lunch with outstanding people, that's why I was with 50 people who stood out. There were many Black people.
