Carlos Brito: AB Inbev CEO

Carlos Alves de Brito was born in 1960 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  He earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He worked for Shell Oil and Daimler Benz.

Carlos was working for Shell Oil and had been accepted to Stanford Business School but couldn’t afford it. This was in 1987 and through a friend of a friend met Jorge Paulo Lemann who along with partners at Brazilian investment bank Banco Garantia ran a scholarship program for promising young people in their early careers.  Carlos got the scholarship.

After earning an MBA degree at Stanford, Carlos joined Brahma in 1989. This was a Rio de Janeiro-based brewer Lemann and his friends just bought. Carlos worked under Marcel Telles, a partner of Lemann and learned the art of cost cutting. Carlos would later be known for being extremely accomplished as a cost cutting executive who also had a knack for solving problems.

He rose through the ranks at Brahma. The firm merged with Sao Paulo-based competitor Antarctica in 1999 to for Cia de Bebidas das Americas, or Ambev. Carlos was appointed CEO of Ambev in 2004. Just a few months later Ambev announced a merger with Belgian beer giant Interbrew which had brands like Stella Artois and Beck’s.  Interbrew, the third-largest brewery, bought Ambev, the fifth-largest, for $11.5 billion to form InBev which instantly became the No. 1 beermaker in the world.

Carlos became zone president of North America and moved to Toronto.  He became CEO of Inbev at the end of 2005 at only 45 years of age. In 2008 Anheuser-Bush (AB) was successfully taken over forming AB Inbev. Later 1,400 employees lost their jobs. Carlos also promoted bright stars from lower ranks at AB. He was able to shave-off $2.25 billion in expenses.

Carlos and his team are fond of numbers measuring employee performance and promotion is always based on merit, laggards don’t stay long in the company. Some like his management approach others don’t but one thing for sure it has helped AB Inbev continue to grow and profit.