Brazilian Trade Mission, April 2011
By: Scott Miller, CEO
Day 1.
Tuesday April 26. Our delegation left Indianapolis on Monday evening for our overnight trip to Brazil. We have an outstanding delegation focusing on the IT sector. Our delegates include Mark and Karen Hill of Collina Ventures. They did a remarkable job of naming their company. Collina means Hill in Italian. It also means Hill in Portuguese and the Brazilian companies loved the play on the company name and the Hill family name. Mark and Karen have successfully started and sold an IT business in the Indianapolis region and now are involved in the IT community in Indianapolis where Mark chairs the board for Techpoint. Also joining us is Joe Staples. Joe is the Chief Marketing Officer for Interactive Intelligence and speaks Portuguese as well. He spent almost 2 years immediately after college in Sao Paulo and has been a great addition to our delegation. We are extremely thankful to Collina Ventures and to Interactive Intelligence for their investments of time, energy and financial resources into our mission to Brazil.
Our overnight flight of about 10 hours arrived around 9 am. After clearing customs, retrieving our luggage and finding our transportation, we arrived at the Hotel around 11 am. Sao Paulo is just entering their winter months. For this part of the country, that means rain and temps from 65-75 degrees.
Our first meeting came just after a quick shower at the hotel, a change of clothes, a brief lunch and then a trip to the American Chamber of Commerce in Sao Paulo. The American Chamber welcomed us and then gave our delegation a presentation highlighting Brazil. That was followed by another presentation by Invest Sao Paulo where they shared about business opportunities in Sao Paulo.
We had a brief networking break and then had a Brazilian law firm talk to us about investing in Brazil and a second presentation by another law firm about protecting intellectual property in Brazil.
Our evening wrapped up with a dinner for our delegation at a Brazilian restaurant.
Very good first day although it was a long day after a long overnight flight.
