Luiza Helena Trajano, the chairwoman of Brazilian retailer Magazine Luiza SA, had just finished a speech last year when she got the call from her firm’s security detail: A 37-year-old store manager in Campinas, Denise Neves dos Anjos, had been stabbed to death in her bedroom. Neves’s husband, the main suspect, was found dead in his car.
The violent murder -- Neves’s body was bound and her neck had been slashed -- shocked Trajano, an only child who grew up in Brazil’s wealthiest state. She had never encountered acts of brutality up close.
“I felt terrible,” Trajano said in an interview at Magazine Luiza’s headquarters in Sao Paulo. “I knew for a long time that one woman is killed in Brazil every two hours, but I confess I thought it was an issue far removed from us.”
Shock turned to determination. After the murder, Trajano created a telephone line where employees could report violence or suspicious activity. The company has already fielded 180 calls, including from men, Trajano said. Victims receive legal and psychological aid, and advice on how to report crimes to the authorities.
Magazine Luiza also set quotas: Abused women now must represent at least 2 percent of outsourced employees at the retailer, on the theory that having a job brings independence and can be a first step toward having the wherewithal to leave an abusive husband, Trajano said. The firm also created sales campaigns to raise funds for non-governmental organizations that support women.
Billionaire Ranks
Trajano transformed Magazine Luiza from a small firm created in 1957 by her aunt and uncle, Luiza Trajano Donato and Pelegrino Jose Donato, into a company with a market value of 28.8 billion reais ($7.8 billion). The retailer’s shares have jumped 88 percent this year, compared with 13 percent for the benchmark Ibovespa. The surge pushed Trajano into the rarefied ranks of Brazilian billionaires. Her stake of nearly 19 percent, mostly through holding companies with controlling interests, is worth 5.47 billion reais.
Trajano attributes some of that success to the fact that she’s a woman, bringing a perspective that’s been lacking at the top of some Brazilian companies.
“There are meetings where I am the only woman, and I rely a lot on my intuition, on my wit -- I always had a feminine way of managing,” she said. “I have nothing against men. I believe in joining male and female forces.”
One example: She’s been known to cry at work meetings. While that kind of emotion is frowned upon in a male-dominated management environment, Trajano said it humanizes the corporate culture.
“When I had to cry, I cried,” she said.