Carolina Brown has 20 years of experience in the international logistics sector working with shipping companies and logistics operators; the challenge is to strengthen commercial relations with customers and participation the participation of the terminal in the market
With nearly 20 years of experience in the logistics sector, the administrator Carolina Merkle Brown is the new acquisition of the TCP team – the company that manages the Paranaguá Container Terminal. The executive occupies the position of Commercial Manager of Shipowners, a strategic position and occupied in the vast majority of times by men.
As its main mission, it should contribute to the consolidation of image and positioning due to changes in the company’s culture and strategy – adjustments that came after the acquisition made by CMPort, in 2018.
Carolina points out that the company’s projects are ambitious and that there is no time to waste. “TCP is a differentiated terminal that has enormous potential to achieve its objectives quickly. We outlined several strategies and goals to further strengthen the relationship with shipowners, in order to develop logistical projects integrating all the services in our portfolio, and to bring new lines, increasing our market share ”, he says.
The manager, who has been on the other side of the table, working with shipowners, points out that she has always maintained a close relationship with the Terminal, developing business and projects together. “I witnessed a major cultural change and in TCP’s strategy, which was very positive and I always had an enormous identification and admiration for the work developed by Thomas Lima, Institutional and Commercial director of the Terminal. All of this, together with the desire that I always had to work at a port terminal, formed the ideal scenario that motivated my move ”, he explains.
Thomas Lima emphasizes that the manager’s experience, combined with the positive changes that the company had in its main orientations, should strengthen the Terminal’s relations with shipowners, in addition to generating new business. “We restructured our commercial area with the aim of looking more sensitively at shipowners. With a long-term vision, focus on customers and relationships that generate mutual benefits, Carolina had a natural alignment with our entire team and arrives at a more than opportune moment to add their knowledge. She has a lot of competence and will certainly contribute a lot in consolidating our strategy ”, she says.
TRAJECTORY
Carolina Brown arrived in Foreign Trade due to a “deviation from the route”, as she defines it. The initial plan was to go to law school, but the fierce competition in the entrance exam and a little push from her mother made her change the course option. “I ended up falling in love with the course and in the second year I started working in the Commercial area of ??a Maritime Agency that represented some shipowners, because at that time few had their own structure in Brazil. From then on, practically all my professional trajectory was followed in the commercial area of ??shipowners, directly or indirectly, with some passages by cargo agents and assuming management positions from a very early age ”, he reveals.
Among the challenges encountered, the executive points out that the first one was to assume team management positions at a very young age. “At the time, I had to reconcile academic life with the demands and responsibilities that the position imposed, with this my greatest learning happened in practice and in a very dynamic way, which required a very early professional maturation”, he says.
In a mostly male sector, being young and a woman made her fight for the same conditions as her male colleagues. “I realized the prejudice of some people, including other women, and understood the need to prove that I was there due to my competence. During that time, I learned that people make mistakes when they cancel or shut up, when they accept situations that they don’t agree with or when they don’t fight for what they believe in, and that the path to persevere has to be trodden daily with a lot of work, seriousness, preparation, dedication, but above all with positioning ”, he evaluates.
INCLUSION
Mother of two, Carolina says that one of her main achievements was to reconcile her professional and personal life. ”For a long time, maybe because of the preconceived idea that I had that the mother was the only one responsible for raising her children, she charged me a lot for dedicating so many hours of my day to my work and not to them, until I finally accepted that my professional fulfillment is as important to me as personal fulfillment and that the two things can and must go together ”.
In the executive’s assessment, despite the inclusion of women in the logistics sector being a reality, there is still room to be conquered – especially in leadership and entrepreneurship positions. “Sex should not be a determining or differential factor in any selection process, profile analysis or opportunity. Personally, I am not in favor of any kind of segregation or predilection for either side and I believe that men in women should be obtained for their skills and abilities and equally remunerated, however unfortunately we still find situations in which this differentiation is made. At TCP this does not happen, here the opportunity is the same for everyone ”, he says.
In this sense, the Commercial and Institutional director of TCP, Thomas Lima, reinforces that the company’s policy is for inclusion and diversity. “TCP is a pioneer in promoting diversity. In the last two decades, the female presence among employees has grown almost 20 times, with women occupying different types of positions and at all hierarchical levels of the company. It is worth saying that this inclusion occurs naturally ”, he concludes.
