Rubens Menin: "The strength of everyone united is unbeatable."

You are one of the founders of the Bem Maior movement, which has the mission of promoting philanthropy in Brazil. In addition to raising awareness, engaging, and mobilizing resources, this movement and you have supported various initiatives throughout the pandemic. How have you viewed and experienced this period we are going through today?

I'll answer in two ways. First, I'll talk a little about the Bem Maior movement. The Bem Maior movement emerged as an instrument to convince people to donate more, and for this to be the great revolution in philanthropy in Brazil. Brazil is a country… Brazilian society is very good, very supportive, but it still has little habit of giving. Philanthropy in Brazil, unfortunately, still has very low numbers. It's only 0.2% of our GDP. Very little. In more developed countries like the United States, it's 2% of GDP, in England 1.7%. So we want to increase this GDP percentage. For that, obviously people have to make donations, but it's important that the entire population gets involved in this movement. Second, when we created Bem Maior, we knew that there are urgent things in Brazil, problems, unfortunately, and that these numbers are large. And we won't be able to solve everything; we will try, we can, in the first instance, try to improve things. When we founded Bem Maior, I thought the most important thing would be monetary donations. Bem Maior is divided into two pillars. One is donations and projects: I give you the money and you create projects. They are doing wonderful projects, there are a series of projects that really make a difference in people's lives, they change them for the better. But today I am convinced that perhaps the second pillar, which is convincing society to donate, is the most important pillar for society. That's why I see this type of discussion we are having now as very fruitful, and we do it with great pleasure, because each step we take is a victory we achieve, a battle we win. And a war is won with many battles. So let's convince society of the importance of philanthropy. That will make all the difference.

Are Brazilians a generous people, or do you believe that the pandemic has revealed people to be more individualistic and selfish?

I find Brazilians very generous, and they've proven it many times. Brazilians are a friendly, warm, and supportive people. When I talk about philanthropy, it's because we need to bring philanthropy into the lives of Brazilians. It's simply a matter of culture. But I have no doubt that Brazilians are a very generous people.

Besides philanthropy, you stand out as one of the biggest businessmen in Brazil, with businesses in various areas. In the real estate market, for example, you were one of the founders of MRV, which became the largest real estate developer in Latin America. How do you assess the real estate market in Brazil today?

Brazil is a country that offers many opportunities. It's a continental country, with over 200 million inhabitants, with much to be done in this country. We're talking about housing. Housing is one of the pillars of the Brazilian economy. But there's much more. I saw the case of Banco Inter, the digital bank. We opened 700,000 accounts here in one day. That would wipe out the entire population of Portugal in 10 days. In Brazil, there's a lot of ground to cover, so I say that Brazil is a country of opportunities. And that's why I also think that, in the same way that it provides opportunities, we have to give back to society a little of what Brazil gives us. To be fair, it's what's very fashionable today: ESG, the three pillars: "environment," "social," and "governance." So I think that as part of this ESG set, companies should take advantage of the opportunity they have in a country like Brazil, a country that will certainly become a rich nation, hopefully as quickly as possible, but that we can also somehow give back a little to society.

Check out the full interview on the A Tarde newspaper website.

Image Credit: Press Release/MBM