On the evening of February 8, our CEO, Eduardo Bartolomeo, received the Brazilian Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the Entrepreneurial Executive category, bestowed by EY, a global leader in audit and consulting services. The awards ceremony, held at Casa Giardini in São Paulo, brought together business leaders from across the country. 

This annual awards scheme recognizes entrepreneurs in various sectors who, through their future vision, have helped transform Brazil’s circumstances, leaving a legacy and contributing to the construction of a better business world, with positive impacts for society.  

“Being an entrepreneur means seeking to do things very differently. I was appointed to run Vale at the worst moment in its history, because of the tragedy in Brumadinho. I set out to reinforce and establish what I believed was missing: purpose. I started to do this through three words: safety, people and remediation. I used all my background to transform the company and learn from our mistakes,” Bartolomeo said.  

Watch our CEO’s full speech in this video. (To watch it in your language, activate the subtitles on YouTube): 

In addition to the Entrepreneurial Executive category, aimed at CEOs of Brazilian companies whose work has helped boost the growth and transformation of market leading companies, the awards scheme has four other categories: Master, Emerging, Social and Environmental Impacts, and Family Enterprise.  

EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year Awards 

EY operates in more than 150 countries and it is a global leader in audit, taxes, transactions and consulting. The Entrepreneur of the Year Program was created in the United States in 1986. The idea was to identify and recognize business leaders in different sectors who stand out for their creativity in running their businesses. In Brazil, the Entrepreneur of the Year Awards have been taking place since 1998. To date, more than 300 Brazilian executives have received these awards from EY, including Sérgio Rial (Santander), José Galló (Renner) and Ivan Zurita (Nestlé).