“I chose the professional master's course mainly because of the international exchange,” said MPA student Anna Carolina Campos.

Internationalization, networking, the course curriculum and the possibility of experiencing the academy linked to practice were the main points that made Anna Carolina Campos, financial market executive, choose to attend the Professional Master’s in Administration (MPA) at the School of Business Administration of Companies of São Paulo (FGV EAESP).

As she was already a student at the Foundation and had taken an MBA, her interest in pursuing her career through a master's degree was evident when she was faced with the possibility of a professional course, where the combination of practice and theory is quite intense. In search of it, he opted for the best-evaluated course, the MPA, at FGV EAESP.

FGV Notícias interviewed the executive to understand how the professional master's degree is a good choice for those in the market and what the program's international adherence process is like. Throughout the interview, Anna Carolina reported how she went to study abroad and take courses that are now part of the theme of her master's thesis.

Check out the full interview below.

What were the motivations for you to decide to attend the professional master's degree?

Studies  - I am an executive in the financial market and I understood that I was far from the theoretical world and had already completed an MBA at FGV, which is why I had to go back to study at the university. It was going to be important for me, in my corporate activity, for my development.

Practice  - I chose the professional master's degree because it would be a more practical course, although I am very interested in working in the academic area as well. I really like the executive education part, that's why I chose to do my MBA at FGV and the experience was very positive 10 years ago, being a differential in my career.

Course syllabus  - I chose to take this course in São Paulo, even though I live in Rio de Janeiro, because when I looked at the syllabus for the Professional Master's in Administration, I saw that it offered me more opportunities, especially in terms of international exchange.

Networking  - Another very positive point of the MPA is to include students from all over Brazil. In my class I have people who live in the Northeast, Midwest, South, it's a very diverse group, with a very interesting exchange. And that was another reason why I chose SP, as it is a course that takes place once a month, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, allowing people to schedule themselves and come from all over Brazil.

How was the preparation for this international program? Did you already have in mind participating in an exchange or was this desire more driven during the course?

I chose this course precisely because it had the issue of international exchange. All MPA students must complete two exchange programs by completing their master's degree. FGV EAESP participates in the Global Networking for Advanced Management, a program where the best universities in the world are located.

In this program we have the chance to choose universities such as Berkeley, Yale, Oxford, renowned colleges and the only college in Brazil that participates in this exchange program is FGV EAESP.

Having this possibility of exchange at colleges of this size, I think that is the great differential of the course and I chose it for that reason. I already knew that I would have this moment of the exchange, so for me this desire already came before I enrolled.

And why out of all those colleges you mentioned did you choose the University of California, Berkeley?

I chose Berkeley because of the course topics, they are very interesting, being a reference in Diversity, Inclusion and Female Leadership. As a market executive, I already address these issues, including working on these issues in my dissertation “Gender Difference and Investments”.

I even wrote a book that was released on this topic last year. A work for women talking about investments and career. It is a topic that caught my attention and I already wanted to take a course at this university, because I already knew it and knew that it is a reference in the subject.

There I was in a class with almost 40 people, from 15 different nationalities and I was the only Brazilian. So it was very interesting to see this point of view of women and men on the subject, in such different cultures.

Do you remember which subjects you studied there?

Negotiation; Diversity; Inclusion; Equity and Organizational Culture, all exhibitions aimed at women. We visited companies and understood how they were applying these themes studied in their programs. We visited Google and had the opportunity to learn from the HR team how they developed a culture to promote female executives. We also visited Salesforce in San Francisco to understand this same policy.

What is the main learning you had during this time studying in the USA?

The main learning is that teams have to be very diverse. When you have people with a different background, with different life experiences, multiple cultures, you can have much more creative, high-performance teams.

And a very interesting point that I saw and hadn't heard about in such depth is the inclusion market. We received a speaker Haben Girma, with visual and hearing impairment, a reference in the USA. Even with her limitations, she graduated from Harvard Law and has been with Barack Obama in the White House. She showed us more than a disabled person, the importance of preparing our companies to receive disabled people. In addition, she showed how nowadays there is a huge market for inclusion, a profitable business. It's not just about an inclusion policy, it's about how profitable it is for your business, for your company to work on including these people.

Could you talk about your master's topic?

My theme is about “Gender gap and investments”. I want to identify why women invest differently than men. What I want to understand is whether today, in fact, people invest differently than men. Is it a behavioral bias? Does it have to do with gender or not? Or does it have to do with the lack of security for not having the knowledge? Because we know that there is low financial literacy in Brazil, so would it be that today, this man and this woman, if they had a financial literacy condition, equal financial literacy, wouldn't they both be safe to invest? Could it be that the reason for this insecurity comes from the lack of knowledge, and not from the fact that she is a woman, in a gender perspective, but from lack of knowledge?

To learn more about the Professional Master's in Management (MPA),  visit the website.