The Rio Leadership Institute was founded in 2009 by a group of Brazilians dedicated to the mission of cultivating leadership potential in Brazil by leading and supporting innovative initiatives, principally in the area of education.
Álvaro is a partner at Álvaro Pessôa, Gama e Silva
Attorneys at Law. He is a Professor of Civil Law and at the
Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro - PUC
- Rio. He received his bachelor degree in Law and a post graduate
degree in Business Law from Cândido Mendes University. He holds
an LL.M. from University of Pennsylvania Law School and has completed
various courses at Wharton Business School of University of
Pennsylvannia. Álvaro is a Director of the Association of
Friends of the Modern Art Museum of Rio de Janeiro. He is fluent in
English and Portuguese.
Samuel serves as managing director for his family office in Brazil,
where he emphasizes long-term views and a commitment to excellence. His
family businesses in banking, retail and real estate have been complemented
with a solid commitment to philanthropy for several generations. Prior
to joining the family office, Samuel worked in investment management at
HSBC in New York and equity research at Opportunity in Rio de Janeiro.
Samuel is a member of the international board of directors of the ISEF
Foundation. He holds a bachelor of arts in Economics from Harvard
University and is co-president of the Harvard University Club of
Brazil. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Instituto
de Tecnologia ORT. Samuel is fluent in English, Portuguese, and French.
Thiago is the financial director of Technos Relógios S/A, the
largest watch business in Latin America. Previously, he worked at BW2,
Submarina, GP Investimentos and Morgan Stanley. He graduated from
Harvard College with a degree in Economics in 2001.
Wolff is a partner of Jardim Botânico Investments, a Rio-based
asset management firm. He is a member of the board of directors at
Klabin S.A., a leading company in the forestry industry. Prior to this
position, Wolff founded and served as CEO of a Brazil-based healthcare
and IT services company. He started his professional career at JP
Morgan. Wolff serves on the advisory board of the Harvard University
David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and on the advisory
board of ORT Brazil. He holds a bachelor of arts from Harvard
University and is co-president of the Harvard University Club of
Brazil. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Instituto
de Tecnologia ORT. Wolff is fluent in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Adam graduated in 2009 from Harvard College, where he majored in Linguistics and Latin American languages. He was the Prep
Program Fellow at the Rio Leadership Institute (ILRIO) from June 2009 until July 2010. From August 2010 through the end of 2011 he served ILRIO as a volunteer Leadership Fellow, and as of February 2012 he has returned to the Institute as the
Institutional Development Coordinator. Between October 2010 and June 2011 he taught English at the School of Letters, University of Lisbon,
on a scholarship from the Fulbright Commission of Portugal. In fall 2011 he was a Teaching Assistant for beginning and intermediate
Portuguese at Harvard College and he also taught Portuguese through Harvard's Mentoring and Language Acquisition Program (MLAB) in
São Paulo in January of 2012. He speaks English, Spanish, Portuguese and Hungarian.
Fabiano received his bachelor's degree in Political Science from Rocky
Mountain College, in Billings, Montana. He concluded his undergraduate
studies with a semester abroad at the University of Jordan, in Amman,
where he continued his studies of the Arabic language and of political
science. In Amman he interned at the United Nations Relief and Works
Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). A mineiro
from Ouro branco, he joined ILRIO in 2010 to work on the Prep Program.
He was a Youth Ambassador during the program's first year, in 2003. He
is fluent in English, Spanish, Italian and French.