Andrea Pinheiro is the new president of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, elected by the Fundação’s Governing Board on Tuesday 12 December. The term is for two years, with a possibility of re-election for a further two. Andrea Pinheiro begins her term on January 2, 2024 and is assuming office with the proposal to create a collegiate committee to select the curators for the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, to be held in 2025, as well as further intensifying the institution’s educational role.
An experienced manager, Andrea Pinheiro has worked in the financial market for over thirty years and has a wealth of experience in governance roles, senior management positions, and team leadership. She has served as second vice-president for the last two terms of the Board of Directors (2019–2023), leading fundraising efforts especially. During this period, the Fundação Bienal’s number of sponsors rose from 18, in December 2018, to 48 in December 2023, as well as adding a further 13 international supporters and 16 partners.
She begins her mandate with a partially renewed Board of Directors, made up of both members of the previous administration and new names. Ana Paula Martinez, Francisco Pinheiro Guimarães, Luiz Lara, and Rita Drummond remain, while Ricardo Diniz, Roberto Otero, and Solange Sobral become board members. The first vice-president will be Maguy Etlin, a member of the Fundação Bienal’s Governing Board since 2019, where she has served as coordinator of the International Committee and president of the International Advisory Board.
In line with the team that began revitalizing the institution over ten years ago, Andrea Pinheiro succeeds José Olympio da Veiga Pereira (2019–2023), João Carlos de Figueiredo Ferraz (2017–2018), Luis Terepins (2013–2016), and Heitor Martins (2009–2012). Pinheiro takes over the presidency of a healthy and sustainable institution, which operates with financial autonomy, transparency, and a specialized permanent team, the result of a process of institutional strengthening that began almost fifteen years ago.
For the 2024–2025 biennium, there are plans for projects such as the traveling exhibitions of the 35th Bienal de São Paulo, which will reach a record number of eleven Brazilian cities and four foreign cities; Brazil’s official participation in the 60th Venice Biennale and the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale; the continued cataloging and conservation of the Wanda Svevo Historical Archive; and, of course, the 36th Bienal de São Paulo.
According to Andrea Pinheiro, “the Bienal de São Paulo is a window that not only opens up new horizons, but also encourages us to reflect on that which constitutes us. By sharing the diversity of global and Brazilian art, it opens up to both a national and international audience. In contrast to other biennials, which are more aimed at specialists, the Bienal de São Paulo warmly welcomes appreciators of cultural events, as well as those who are taking their first steps into the vast universe of the arts. It is notable that a significant proportion of visitors are people familiarizing themselves with the art scene for the first time, thus strengthening our educational role and making it increasingly active within the institution. More than just an event, the Bienal de São Paulo represents an opportunity for transformation, renewing itself every two years and exerting a unique influence on the perception of those who approach it. Our purpose goes beyond bringing art closer; it is to educate and inspire our new visitors.”
About Andrea Pinheiro
With over thirty years’ experience in the financial market, Andrea Pinheiro has worked in governance, senior management, and team leadership positions. She was a founding partner of BR Partners, one of Brazil’s leading independent investment banks, where she was in charge of all operational management, as well as sitting on the Administrative Board and executive committees. Previously, she was director of Banco BMC, where she led its transformation into a niche institution, specializing in payroll loans, a segment in which she stood out amongst leaders. Still at BMC, she led its sale to Bradesco in 2007. With a degree and an MBA in Business Administration, the latter from New York University, and a specialization in Corporate Governance from Wharton School, Andrea Pinheiro was director of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo between 2019 and 2022, and is an ambassador for Endeavor and a board member of MASP, Vivo, and the Fundo Garantidor de Crédito (FGC).
About the Executive Board
Maguy Etlin (first vice-president)
Marguerite Etlin (Maguy) has been coordinator of the International Committee and president of the International Advisory Board of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo since 2019, contributing significantly to the organization’s global reach and strategic initiatives. She is also a board member of MASP and Instituto Inhotim, as well as the Friends of the Beaubourg Museum Association, and is involved with numerous cultural initiatives, such as Casa do Povo and Grupo Corpo, and NGOs such as Orientavida and ACTC. Prior to her activity in the art world, she was COO of Bianchini Ferrier between 1992 and 1999, Europe’s largest silk weave manufacturer for the fashion industry. In 2003, she founded Maguy Did It, a creative design brand for women’s handbags and accessories. She is also the co-founder of BlastU, an online conference and platform on innovation and technology, created in 2017. Maguy has Brazilian and French citizenship. She has a degree in business administration from the Ecole des Cadres in Paris. She is fluent in Portuguese, English, French, and Spanish.
Luiz Lara (second vice-president)
Luiz Lara is an advertising executive and founder of Lew’Lara\TBWA. A service and planning professional, he has worked on the building and positioning of many brands and has won several awards throughout his career, including Caboré, Colunistas, and Effie. He is currently chairman of the TBWA Group in Brazil and a partner at TO BE GOOD, working in advocacy and communications. He was president of Abap and organized the 4th and 5th Congress of the Communication Industry. He is pro bono chairman of the Cenp Board and a member of the ESPM General Assembly. He is active in various third sector organizations and is a board member of Childhood, the Instituto de Cidadania Empresarial, and Fundação OSESP. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo since 2019, where he is now second vice-president.
Ana Paula Martinez
Ana Paula Martinez is a partner at Levy & Salomão Advogados. She was Director of the Department of Economic Protection and Defence at the SDE/Ministry of Justice (2007–2010) and an associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP in Brussels (2006–2007). She is an arbitrator for the BM&FBOVESPA/B3 Market Arbitration Chamber and a member of the Board of Insper, the David Rockefeller Centre for Latin American Studies at Harvard, the Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies at Loyola University Chicago, and MASP, as well as being director of the Fundação Bienal. She is head of the Fundação Estudar, Instituto Ling, and a founder and board member of the Sempre SanFran endowment fund. She has been a consultant for the World Bank, UNCTAD, and the Government of Colombia on competition issues. She holds a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, and a doctorate from USP and a master’s degree in Law from Harvard University. She is licensed to practice law in Brazil and in New York. She is the author of several books and articles on competition and anti-corruption issues and has won awards in these areas.
Francisco Pinheiro Guimarães
He is a partner at Pinheiro Guimarães Advogados, holds a master’s degree in Law from Columbia University School of Law (LLM, 1996), and is a member of the Brazilian Bar Association (1994) and the New York Bar Association (1996). He co-authored the book Direito das companhias, which was edited by Alfredo Lamy Filho and José Luiz Bulhões Pedreira, and which won the 52nd Jabuti Prize. He is a lawyer.
Ricardo Diniz
Ricardo Diniz is vice-president at Bank of America, with over 25 years’ experience in management positions. From 1996 to 2012, he was CEO of Thomson Reuters for Brazil and Latin America, where he led over 500 people, achieving significant results such as double-digit growth and profitability. Before that, he was general director at Agência O Estado, Agência O Globo, and Meca Teleinformática S/A, being a founding partner of the latter. Since 1997, Diniz has conducted various seminars, courses, and conferences at institutions such as Harvard Business School, Michigan University, and MIT Boston. He was a member of the Young Presidents Organisation (YPO), INSEAD, and FDC (Fundação Dom Cabral), served as chairman of the board of Athie & Wohnrath in 2019 and chairman of the board of Instituto Millenium. He holds an MBA from the Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) in São Paulo. Diniz has published three books: Pois las pela vida quando, O alfabeto das Arábias and Como chegar ao topo das empresas, and is co-author of Histórias de um time campeão.
Rita Drummond
A law graduate from PUC-RJ, she took a lato sensu postgraduate course at UERJ in Civil Law, an LLM at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), did several courses at Harvard Business School related to Governance, and is a Board Member of WILL – Women in Leadership Latin America (an international non-profit organization that works to support and promote the career development of women in Latin America). She worked for almost ten years in law firms in the areas of corporate law and arbitration. In 2008 she began working for Cosan, where she has been legal vice-president since 2020. She is director of the Fundação Bienal and writes about art for Brazil Journal.
Roberto Otero
Roberto Otero is CFO and a member of the executive committee of Arco Educação, a Brazilian company that provides educational and financial platforms for public schools, and which is listed on Nasdaq. In addition to his position as the company’s statutory CFO, he is also a member of the Audit and People Committees, and the Administrative Council, where he represents management. Otero has held the position since 2021, when he joined Arco after a 14-year period working at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which he joined in 2007 as an intern, and where he worked his way up through the ranks until being promoted to executive director in 2020. During this time he worked as a sell side analyst covering the Education, Health, Transport, and Technology sectors, was ranked as the TOP 3 best analyst in Latin America for several years by Institutional Investor and participated in more than 30 IPO operations, totalling more than US$4 billion. Otero has a degree in Public Administration from FGV-EAESP with a focus on Economics from Universidad Carlos III in Madrid, Spain.
Solange Sobral
She has been a businesswoman at CI&T for 27 years, where she started as a software programmer and was the company’s fifth employee. She is currently a partner, EVP, and leads the brand’s expansion into Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. She was a board member of Unidas between 2021 and 2022. Since 2022, she has been an independent member of the Board of Vivo Telefónica, as well as a member of its Quality and Sustainability Committee. She is a member of the Advisory Board of WCD (Women Corporate Directors) and of the Campinas region of Conscious Capitalism Brazil. She is also a member of Itaú’s Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee and co-leader of CI&T’s ESG Advisory Board Committee. She is a columnist for Meio&Mensagem, covering digital transformation. She has a degree in Computer Science from UFSCar and a master’s degree in the same field from UNICAMP.