Boardroom Governance with Evan Epstein

Marta Viegas: Focusing on Corporate Governance in Latin America and the Caribbean with IDB Invest.

Episode Summary

In this episode, I talk with Marta Viegas, the head of the corporate governance practice at IDB Invest, the Inter-American Development Bank’s private sector arm. IDB Invest has around $14 billion under management and over 350 clients across 26 countries of the Latin American and Caribbean Region. Marta is responsible for the oversight of corporate governance risk in relation to IDB Invest operations, working closely with companies, financial institutions, institutional investors, governments and other key governance stakeholders. Prior to joining IDB Invest, Marta was a partner at the Brazilian firm TozziniFreire and also worked as an associate at New York firm Weil Gotshal & Manges. Marta served in the board of the IBGC - Brazilian Institute of Corporate Governance, a think tank, and was a leading voice in the creation of the Brazilian Corporate Governance Code, adopted as regulation under the “comply or explain” methodology by the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission. Marta also served in the audit committee and in the fiscal council of Brasilprev, one of the largest Brazilian private pension companies with US$ 60 billion of assets under management. If you like this show, please consider subscribing, leaving a review or sharing this podcast with colleagues or friends. You can also subscribe to the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at evanepstein.substack.com

Episode Notes

1. Start of interview. [1:40]
2. Marta's "origin story" from Brazil to Washington DC [2:21]
3. Her involvement with corporate governance education in Brazil with IBGC [6:31]
4. The impact of Lava Jato (operation car wash) in Brazilian corporate governance (2014) [8:33]
5. Her role coordinating the "comply or explain" Brazilian Corporate Governance Code [11:07]
6. What made her transition from Tozzini Freire to IDB Invest in 2017? [16:31]
7. What is IDB Invest? [19:13]
8. Description of the Corporate Governance Development Framework adopted by 34 development finance institutions (DFIs) that manage ~$850B [23:13]
9. IDB Invest's corporate governance framework: "The art is always trying to separate the essential from the desirable, the must-have from the nice-to-have." [25:45]
10. How to coordinate the investment focus from the governance focus (time-management) [28:47]
11. The state of corporate governance and some common issues in Latin America: lack of diversity, smaller capital markets, predominance of controlling shareholders, SOEs, and reliance on bank financing [33:24]
12. The challenges for foreign investors in Latin American listed companies: protection of minority shareholder rights, transparency and related-party transactions [39:41]
13. Controlling shareholders in Latin America have an incentive to improve corporate governance to attract investment in order to compete in a globalized market: "those are the winners in the market." [44:24]
14. IDB Invest has a special focus on small countries and islands ("S&I countries") [47:12]
15. The impact of Covid-19 in Latin America and IDB Invest's role in helping the region [49:39]
16. IDB Invest article and guidance for the role of the Board during Covid-19 [51:43]
17. Her favorite books: [55:54]
    1. The Trusted Advisor (Meister, Green & Galford)
    2. Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky)
18. Her mentors: [58:01]
    1. Marcio Mello Silva Baptista (TozziniFreire)
    2. Maria Elisa Gualandi Verri (TozziniFreire)
    3. Luis Valdes (Principal - Brasilprev)
    4. Sandra Guerra (Better Governance)
    5. Rachel Robboy (IDB Invest)
19. Her favorite quotes: "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." Martin Luther King Jr. [1:00:01]

Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License