Wednesday in Rio (6/18).

It’s early Wednesday morning, and today we travel to Sao Paolo. Before I go out for a final walk on the beach, here are a few of yesterday’s highlights.

Our morning appointment was at Vale, a dynamic international mining company. Our two presenters, Patricia Calazans from Investor Relations and Hanna Meirelles from Human Resources, outlined the story of a company that has grown dramatically in the past 10 years from a Brazilian mining company (98% revenue from its Brazilian operations) to a global, diversified, 200 billion dollar mining company with a significant presence on 5 continents. Vale’s commitment to and practice of sustainable development of the world’s resources and its respect for local communities and workers were especially impressive.

After small, informal group lunches, we went to the beautiful campus of the Pontifica Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro. It has a large business school, and after a tour of its campus we were treated to an excellent lecture given by the Dean of the school and esteemed economics and finance professor, Professor Luiz Felipe Jacques da Motta. His insightful comments and fantastic data on Brazil’s economic and political developments over the past 50 years were excellent additions to our growing understanding of the complexities of Brazil’s economy and its potential role in world economic development.

Dinner was on our own… reports will follow tomorrow.

Now off to the beach, then breakfast and to the airport for our morning flight to Sao Paolo.