Aberje Trends 2022: Partnership with FGV, the metaverse, roundtables, and panels – Check out what happened on the first day

With more than 400 people gathered at the Tomie Ohtake Theater in Sao Paulo, the first day of the Aberje Trends 2022 event was quite busy. It started announcing the partnership between Aberje Communication School and Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in offering an MBA in Business Communication Management. Then, it was followed by talks on communication trends, the metaverse, a roundtable table with CEOs, and communication case panels.

At the opening session, Hamilton dos Santos, Executive Director of Aberje, sought to clarify the importance of this type of event. “It is an event that wants to look to the future, but understand that we do not have gurus or futurologists in the programming, but rather an incredible group of communicators who are in this room; they are at the forefront of the communication of the best Brazilian and global companies to tell us what is coming.”

In announcing the partnership with FGV, Paulo Nassar, CEO of Aberje and Full Professor at ECA-USP, highlighted the importance of the union between the two institutions for the MBA in Business Communication Management. “The partnership with FGV represents an important milestone in the Corporate Communication journey. The course brings expertise to look at the transformation from the perspective of organizations,” he said.

“It is a partnership that is good for us. Today, Communication is undergoing a profound transformation, with the main highlights for ongoing technological and cultural changes, motivated by the diversity of audiences, which interact more and more with brands, companies, and organizations,” said Marcela Canavarro, coordinator of FGV’s graduate program.

Trends and roundtable with CEOs

The special opening talk “Megatrends (and not obvious) of Communication” was presented by journalist and writer Pedro Doria, who also meditated at the CEO’s roundtable: “Business Management Trends and the Impact on Corporate Communication.” It welcomed Daniela Ota, Dior Country General Manager; Gustavo Werneck, Gerdau’s CEO; Jerome Cadier, CEO of LATAM Brazil; and Ana Karina Bortoni, CEO of Banco BMG.

Following the central theme, “The Great Trends of Corporate Communication in the Metaverse Era,” Thammy Marcato, an expert in digital transformation and decoder at KPMG, talked about the metaverse and the future of Communication.

According to the expert, the metaverse has not yet happened, but it is essential to understand it. “You need to understand what is happening because although digital is not new, we are experiencing a new experience,” she said.

Then, Gustavo Ramos, Director of Employer Branding and experience at iFood, talked about “Attraction and Communicators Training: Will Talent Demand Flexibility?”. According to Ramos, companies must increasingly be aware of the demands of their employees. “Sometimes we must look inside and de-construct the existing purposes for new solutions to surface.”

The last morning conference was held by Aline Almeida Magalhaes, Head of Institutional Communication of Enerisa, and Bruna de Frias Rodriguez, Manager of the Brand Experience and Performance area of the Energisa Group. They spoke about measurement in Communication.

Internal Communication, Diversity, Institutional Relations, Megacrises

The second part of the event began with the panel “The Internal Communication and the Generational Conflict: New Communicators for New Platforms.” The panelists were Larissa Santos Battistini, Institutional Communication Manager of Bayer Brazil; Helena Alonso, Corporate Communication Leader for Dow in Brazil and Viviane Duarte, CEO of Plano Feminino. Elizeo Karkoski, partner-director at P3K Communication, acted as the mediator.

Participants discussed two main topics: strategies adopted in the post-pandemic by companies and the new diversified generation of young people using different resources and communication platforms.

The last panel of Aberje Trends’ first day, entitled” Institutional Relations in the Megacrises Era,” brought an overview of how crises influence the communication work of any given company.

The debate was attended by Bianca Minguci, Account Manager at Nexis Solutions and Media Monitoring Solutions Specialist at LexisNexis, who has shown how metrics aid decision making in crises; Raquel Ogando, BRF’s Global Director of Communication and Reputation, who presented the case of the company’s Communication during the pandemic, a case awarded by 2021 Aberje Award Case; and Ricardo Castellani, Communication Manager at Novo Nordisk, who also spoke about pandemic crisis management, with Communication focused on diabetes and obesity care. The mediation was carried out by Adriana Fernandes, a special reporter and economic columnist of the daily O Estado de S.Paulo.

This year’s edition was sponsored by Bayer, Energisa Group, Engie, Gerdau, Itau, LATAM Airlines, LexisNexis, and P3K Communicação; supported by the Portuguese Association of Business Communication (APCE); Apsen Pharmaceutical, Sabesp, and TRY, with daily Estadão as media partner.