biamendes
Oct 5, 2024
Scholarship / Career Development and Coaching Studies MA - Leadership and Influence Chevening [2]
I have always loved leading and influencing others. To me, leadership means guiding people in the same direction, inspiring and empowering them to perform their best.
Growing up in an underprivileged area in Brazil, I came from a low-income family and attended a public school with poor educational quality. Despite this, I achieved many dreams, including learning English and French, graduating from university, and achieving a high position at work. Sharing my achievements online inspired former classmates and family members to ask me for career and studies advice.
I was 22 years old when I got my first global marketing management position. I quickly noticed I was the only black, non-binary, LGBT+ person in leadership meetings. Understanding the need for representation, I decided to bring it for others by joining D&I groups and started sharing career growth learnings with other diverse workers on internal talks. These people started to ask me for 1:1 mentorships.
During my professional path, helping people on career development was my biggest passion. I led 56 employees and mentored 12 diverse individuals. In our monthly sessions they asked me how to position themselves, how to plan their career development, and so on. At first, I did not realize the sessions' impact, until I saw them having salary increases, promotions, improved self-confidence or simply better feedbacks from their leaders.
My professional goal was to become a CEO one day, to inspire people like me to dream big. However the CEO position was a far possibility, then in February 2024 I began creating career-related content on social media to expand my impact. As a result, I grew my followers base from 1.5k to 13k on Instagram and 2k to 3.2k on Linkedin, reaching 100k monthly impressions on both networks. The most watched contents are about the shame I had about my identity, what I learned when I was fired, and how to apply for a job.
This experience showed me the power of information. I left my executive role to start my mentoring business, Fluxo de Carreira, focusing on programs for women, black individuals, and LGBTQ+ communities who look for career, leadership and entrepreneurship guidance. Also, I kept producing valuable content such as the "Accelerating Leadership Playbook", which is a guide with a leadership model created by me. It teaches step by step to define roles, priorities, feedback loops and team processes, empowering leaders to create a positive environment amongst their teams.
I currently have 20 mentees in my programs, and aim to impact hundreds of thousands of lives through online content production, group mentoring initiatives, a book launch and partnerships with diversity engaged companies in Brazil.
I am applying for a Career Development and Coaching Studies MA at Derby University to research the challenges of professional growth for minorities in Brazil. The Chevening Scholarship will enable me to do so, enhancing my programs' quality and expanding my career development knowledge, ultimately allowing me to increase the effectiveness of my programs in improving my mentees' lives.
I have always loved leading and influencing others. To me, leadership means guiding people in the same direction, inspiring and empowering them to perform their best.
Growing up in an underprivileged area in Brazil, I came from a low-income family and attended a public school with poor educational quality. Despite this, I achieved many dreams, including learning English and French, graduating from university, and achieving a high position at work. Sharing my achievements online inspired former classmates and family members to ask me for career and studies advice.
I was 22 years old when I got my first global marketing management position. I quickly noticed I was the only black, non-binary, LGBT+ person in leadership meetings. Understanding the need for representation, I decided to bring it for others by joining D&I groups and started sharing career growth learnings with other diverse workers on internal talks. These people started to ask me for 1:1 mentorships.
During my professional path, helping people on career development was my biggest passion. I led 56 employees and mentored 12 diverse individuals. In our monthly sessions they asked me how to position themselves, how to plan their career development, and so on. At first, I did not realize the sessions' impact, until I saw them having salary increases, promotions, improved self-confidence or simply better feedbacks from their leaders.
My professional goal was to become a CEO one day, to inspire people like me to dream big. However the CEO position was a far possibility, then in February 2024 I began creating career-related content on social media to expand my impact. As a result, I grew my followers base from 1.5k to 13k on Instagram and 2k to 3.2k on Linkedin, reaching 100k monthly impressions on both networks. The most watched contents are about the shame I had about my identity, what I learned when I was fired, and how to apply for a job.
This experience showed me the power of information. I left my executive role to start my mentoring business, Fluxo de Carreira, focusing on programs for women, black individuals, and LGBTQ+ communities who look for career, leadership and entrepreneurship guidance. Also, I kept producing valuable content such as the "Accelerating Leadership Playbook", which is a guide with a leadership model created by me. It teaches step by step to define roles, priorities, feedback loops and team processes, empowering leaders to create a positive environment amongst their teams.
I currently have 20 mentees in my programs, and aim to impact hundreds of thousands of lives through online content production, group mentoring initiatives, a book launch and partnerships with diversity engaged companies in Brazil.
I am applying for a Career Development and Coaching Studies MA at Derby University to research the challenges of professional growth for minorities in Brazil. The Chevening Scholarship will enable me to do so, enhancing my programs' quality and expanding my career development knowledge, ultimately allowing me to increase the effectiveness of my programs in improving my mentees' lives.