Camila Scaranelo

IMD Business School

“I’m a warm and courageous person who never gives up on dreams.”

Hometown: Aracatuba, Brazil

Fun fact about yourself: I have the worst sense of direction, which led me to incredible places in the world, such as a cliff with butterflies on a desert in the USA or the backstage of a Parisian opera.

Undergraduate School and Degree: Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering – UNICAMP – Brazil

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? I worked for Philip Morris International, setting up their Logistics Strategy for the new product line (IQOS).

Where did you intern during the summer of 2019? I had two projects, one with Nestle researching Affordable Protein for Africa and the other one with a company called ProcSim defining a strategy for their scale-up in Digital Process Optimization.

Where will you be working after graduation? Hach as a Product Manager for Strategic Services in Europe (based in the Geneva office) as part of the Danaher General Management Development Program.

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School:

• Class of 2019 representative (ombudswoman)
• Yearbook Committee member and member of Manufacturing and Industrial Clusters
• Recipient of Welshe Women Award (given to the best all-round female of the class)

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school?  I’m most proud of going through an MBA while being a mother. My son had a liver transplant one year before I started the program, we found out he was in the spectrum of autism during the year and he had his tonsils removed before the summer break. I will never forget being at the hospital watching the New Year’s fireworks while he had pneumonia that required special attention and wondering if I could follow up the tight schedule of IMD and take care of my family at the same time. Fortunately, everything went well, and with the support of my husband and my mother I was able to go through it with a solid academic performance, participating in extracurricular activities and achieving my goals in terms of my future career role.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? In my professional career, there is one stand out moment that is related to the global launch of a new tier of products for Procter & Gamble’s Pampers line. I was the line manager responsible for the commissioning of the new product in new technology. The complexity to deliver the project made even the high-level management skeptical of its feasibility. With a lot of effort from the team and my leadership, we delivered all the objectives of the project. And if seeing a direct contribution to a billion-dollar brand on the shelves was not reason enough to be proud, I am incredibly proud of how my team of about 19 people came together to make it happen. I am even more proud of how I was able to develop and promote many of them to leadership positions in the company.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? My favorite MBA professor at IMD is our Professor of Finance: Arturo Bris. His dedication to the class and sense of humor is unparalleled. I was incredibly engaged in subjects such as valuation, and that’s saying a lot given my non-finance background. Other than that, as class representative, we often had subjects to discuss with the faculty in the name of the class, and he was always very open and willing to help, which made me appreciate him even more.

What was your favorite MBA event or tradition at your business school? My favorite MBA event, traditional to IMD, was the Discovery Expedition. I believe that it is a great emblem of the program. It is about an international experience: we went to San Francisco, Shenzhen, and Dublin. It is about how tight the schedule always was: we did everything in only two weeks. It is about world class experiences: we talked to CEOs, VCs, and startup founders, of incredible companies. And it is about bonding: the moment in which we all came together as a unified class.

Why did you choose this business school? I chose IMD because I had been exposed to great programs with them before (the High-Performance Leadership training and the Luxury Discovery Week), with world-class professors and professionals who impressed me. Their combination of excellence in hard skills like finance and marketing, as well as their focus on developing leaders in a profound personal level, was what drove me to have them as my top choice.

What is your best advice to an applicant hoping to get into your school’s MBA program? Be yourself, be prepared. You will have fun, but this is not the type of program you choose if you only want a break from work. You will have to put in the effort and what you get in return is proportional to what you give. Keep your family and friends in mind and include them on what is going on in your life. Most importantly – you can do it!

What is the biggest myth about your school? One big myth we have about IMD is related to our famous study rooms called “The Dungeons”. A few facts from the dungeons: they are below ground (probably in the oldest part of the building), they are where you will spend most of your time, and there is always someone there.

Looking back over your MBA experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently and why? I would spend more time connecting with my classmates. It seemed to me that one year should have been enough to do that. However, getting to the end I realized there was so much going on that I had missed opportunities to better know some amazing people who ended up moving to the other side of the world.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? In a class of only 90, that is a real challenge. So my choice would be someone I believe represents so many different aspects that potentially most of my class could see themselves in her, as I’m thinking of all of them. That person would be Kristina Mityaeva. She is a mother – to all parents in the class, my greatest admiration, including, and especially, our new parents. She has a unique background, as she is a lawyer – this is to everyone who struggled in any subject that was out of their area of expertise. She is a great social person – this is to those who made the effort to have some fun and connect with people. She is Russian – this is to my classmates who left their families and their homes for this adventure. And I’m honored to call her, and the other 88, my friend.\

Who most influenced your decision to pursue business in college? The person who influenced me the most was my aunt and role model, Anabel Scaranelo. I come from a family of brave and determined women, with amazing life stories that go from crossing the Atlantic on boats to writing encyclopedias. Being a Ph.D. in radiology and working at the University of Toronto, she always believed in the importance of education. She encouraged me to pursue my dream and gave me the push I needed to make the decision.

What are the top two items on your professional bucket list? Own a P&L and lead a business that will have a positive impact in the world in terms of sustainability.

In one sentence, how would you like your peers to remember you? A kind and courageous person who is also fun to be around.

Hobbies? Dancing tango, reading classics, studying philosophy and beginner golfer

What made Camilla such an invaluable addition to the Class of 2020?

“With 10 years’ experience in supply chain management, Camilla is a strategic thinker with strong team leadership skills. A proud mother, her consistent ability to multitask, and her positive attitude made her stand out from the start. Selected as the Ombudswoman to represent her class, she was also chosen as the recipient of the Welshe award, granted annually to the best all-round female participant in the IMD MBA Program.”

We wish her all the best in her new position in Geneva and in her long-term career goals.

The MBA Office Team

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