Professional Ethics panel brings undergraduates and Alumni to EBAPE

The coordination of the Alumni EBAPE Network promoted at the EBAPE headquarters, on 14 September, the panel ‘Ethics, professional reality and governance of organizations’. The event highlighted the reality experienced by professionals about how to conduct their careers in the face of a scenario where “Ethics” is a much debated yet little lived theme.

The lecture was moderated by the FGV EBAPE Professor of Culture and Management, Carmen Migueles, and the alumni Sérgio Borges and Nadine Fonseca (both attended the Executive Master in Business Management) and the alumna Sayuri Ojima, graduated at EBAPE.

EBAPE professor Alvaro Cyrino and the coordinator of the Alumni EBAPE Network, Darliny Amorim, opened the event by highlighting the commitment of the network in bringing to the community actions and projects that add knowledge and strengthen the School’s ties with its current and future graduates. He stressed the importance of working ethical issues in the professional and personal life of each individual on a regular basis.

During the event, Professor Carmen Migueles, addressing the issue of civilizational challenge, asked “What is our commitment to law and ethics? What is our commitment to what is right? What is our ability to exercise self-sacrifice in the name of what is right?” Professor Migueles added that there are many questions, but in facing all of them, we can actually build a society with less corruption. 

The graduate Sayuri Ojima emphasized her life philosophy of always fighting for what is right, which is evidenced in her professional experience. Addressing the undergraduate students who attended the panel, she said “do not lose your critical sense! If before society accepted deviant conduct, today there are laws that ensure the wrong be punished. So prepare yourself, because by joining large organizations you will have to reflect deeply on ethical and moral values within the company.”

Sergio Borges talked about Ethical issues in the economic sector he is working. He emphasized that the new scenario presents doubts and uncertainties, but these uncertainties contributed to establish new rules, new communication channels for denouncements, resulting in the creation of new processes. Borges adds that, however, changes still have to be made and we are a long way to go in terms of improving decision-making processes.

Siemens business control manager Nadine Fonseca, EBAPE Alumna, who, prior to working for the German company had worked in the area of compliance, said that upon joining the company that had gone through a case of corruption in 2006, she observed a huge effort to change reality within the organization. The company invested billions of dollars in a process that investigated and analyzed evidence, punished those responsible, created standards, and deploying, in a structured manner, instruments to prevent, detect, and respond to any suspect case. All these factors contributed to her decision to complete her master’s dissertation on the success story of an organization that reinvented itself and implanted a new culture where organizational values are disseminated and shared.

The panel on ethics counted on the participation of undergraduate, masters and doctoral students from EBAPE who enriched the debate, presenting their opinions and raising questions on the topic.