In March 2021, Mel Girão , a founding partner of a fintech and a PhD holder from the Professional Doctorate in Administration (DPA) at the São Paulo School of Business Administration (FGV EAESP), realized that women in the program faced additional challenges, in addition to the already intense double journey between career and family life. To ease this burden, Mel helped form the WDBA (Women in Doctor of Business Administration) group, creating a support network that initially focused on exchanging study materials and helping with article publications, but quickly evolved into a powerful networking and mentoring network.

“DPA demands a lot from all students, but for women, it becomes a three-pronged journey. Our group started as an academic support group, but has evolved into a professional support space where we share experiences and seek ways to make our journey easier,” explains Mel.

Today, the WDBA has 19 active women, leading executives in the market and in the public sector , covering practically all the doctoral classes. The group has stood out not only for its mutual assistance within the course, but also as a fertile environment for building professional relationships, business partnerships and exchanging recommendations.

The group also actively promotes diversity and inclusion within the course. In 2022, women represented 19% of students, a number that fell to 14% in 2023, but grew again in 2024, reaching 30% of the class. Even so, Mel believes that there is still a need to reach many women and provide this opportunity.

Lilian Melo Barreto , General Manager of the Capital Projects Portfolio at Petrobras and a PhD student at DPA, highlights the importance of the group in the fight for greater female representation. “The number of women in the course is still low, and part of this is due to the three-day workload. We have also started working to attract more women to DPA and to ensure that there are more female professors, speakers and authors in our classes,” explains Lilian.

The group, which still maintains an organic process, has also promoted mentoring programs and worked with the course coordinators to strengthen the diversity, equity and inclusion agenda. Among the actions, the prioritization of places for women with children and the creation of solutions for the challenges that lead many to drop out of the course stand out.

“The initiative has become strategic. The group goes beyond academic support, providing professional and personal support, being the first point of reference for exchanging ideas, doing business and seeking references,” adds Mel.

Mel and Lilian see the WDBA group as a strategic tool to strengthen diversity and inclusion in the Professional Doctorate in Administration (DPA). "We need to come together to collect more data and diagnose the causes of dropouts and the challenges faced by female students. With this information, we can propose effective solutions, attract more women to the program and increase its diversity," says Lilian.

Mel reinforces the importance of this mutual support for women. "If we don't organize ourselves to help each other, who will? It always bothered me to hear that 'boys support each other and girls compete with each other'. We are conditioned to do this from an early age, and it is something I have always questioned. We are in a privileged position to change this reality, and the group is a powerful tool to make sisterhood a concrete practice, and not just a concept", concludes Mel.

To learn more about the DPA, click here.