MARIANA MACHADO

Once upon a time, there was a young woman who wanted to make a difference.

In my home town in Brazil, we are born with the joy of life (perhaps it’s the sun and the beach? You never know…), but we have to work really hard to distinguish ourselves from others. So I did.

With an MBA in Marketing and a Postgraduate in Behavioral Neuroscience, my career can be defined by one sentence: what do people want? My professional path started long ago with different activities in the Tourism section, especially at Accor where I grew from a marketing analyst to a Global CRM Director, always searching for ways to answer customer needs: brand strategies, loyalty programs, and segmented customer communications were my things.

When life brought me and my family to Paris (bonjour!!), I discovered that my passion and curiosity towards customers were even more powerful when it came to colleagues. The shift to HR was natural (and obvious!) and as a VP of Cultural Transformation (still at Accor!) I dedicated myself to learning more about how I can impact people’s lives by improving their work experience.

In my most recent role as Head of People & Culture (ETAM Group now!) I implemented an HR strategy to increase the learning and talent development culture inside the company, by analyzing HR data, creating career programs, and implementing a human-first approach to our development plan. I truly believe that if we focus on people, the performance will follow. As you can probably guess by now, I love good stories. Books, movies, series, but most of all people. From Harry Potter to “How was your weekend?, I love to celebrate the nuances and surprises of life!”