Monkey projects in Brazil
- Written by Valtteri Melkko
- Published in Archive, English
- Permalink
Hello!
My name is Valtteri, and I’m new in Monkey Business. I’m currently being a prospect member since January. But I have followed the monkeys develop more or less closely since 2009. I will soon be a recent graduate from Tiimiakatemia.
I’m 27 years old, and in free time I’m passionate about watching good movies, about good wine, and sports. An old passion I’m trying to enliven is Capoeira, an afro-Brazilian martial art. A new passion I’m discovering is scoba diving. My Tiimiakatemia team went to trip around the world now in January-February, and I joined them partly, traveling in Fiji and New Zealand. It was Fiji where I got so excited about scoba diving, it was amazing!
I wanted to introduce myself through my superhero profile, which tells even more about me that I could write here. Here it comes:
Superhero Name: Valtteri Monkey
Superpower: Famous for his strategic thinking. A trusting, experimenting mind. Streching to new heights forever.
Achilles’ Heel: Communication to different types of people and to people thinking differently.
Secret Weapon: PBank card in the boxers. He surprises with his social intelligence.
Other info: Wines and movies as a passion. Dear John. Has done as a hobby and built his life on Capoeira for a long time. Can be a geek when he wants to. Specialist on lighting and sound engineering. Deals his communication in Finnish, English, Portuguese and Spanish.
Since 2009 with Henna monkey we have been doing projects in Brazil & South America. Earlier I had been in South America, mainly in Brazil and in Ecuador, in 2007-2008. So, I had the background, the basic cultural and lingual knowledge for doing something ”more serious” in South America.
For me projects in South America started with going with Henna to Ecuador & Brazil in the summer 2009. That time I was a first year penguin in Tiimiakatemia, and the work in both countries was very much based on TA methods. In Ecuador we were coaching in a entrepreneurship course for youth in Salinas village, in the Andes, in the altitude of 3600 meters. Being in Ecuador was actually the first time I was acting as a coach, and deepened me very much lingually, professionally and personally.
During the same trip we went to São Paulo, Brazil for two weeks, with Henna, and Sanna Tossavainen, a TA graduate. Two organizations were interested of TA methods – Senac São Paulo, a half public, half private educational institute with degrees grading from vocational to more academic, including bachelor and masters, programs – and Grupo Santander Brasil, which most of us know as Santander bank. What I was left with after Brazil was really rich cultural work experiences in one of my favorite countries, plus, perhaps as half invisible for us by then, a basis for the future, every time bigger projects in Brazil.
I did not have vision as a salesman towards Brazil after that, and I continued my TA experience, but fortunately Henna had, a pretty big vision, as it was revealed later on. Henna started keeping up the connection especially with Senac. After a while Senac started putting out as words more bravely the vision of creating a TA in Brazil, and Henna was inspiring them the best she could. The project with Senac took big leaps in 2011 when first there was a delegation from TA network in Europe in Brazil. This was when the vision was written down and officially published. Me, Henna and Ana from TA Mondragon spent 3 months in Brazil, working with Senac, in the European fall of 2011. That trip, I think, gave us a lot of language skills, network and courage to dream and picture Brazil as a bigger part of our lives. It changed a lot how we are oriented as entrepreneurs and as human beings.
Recently, by my own hoping of it, I was named as the leader of the operations in Brazil of Monkey Business. The dream has been shouted out: We want to establish an MB office in Brazil in the turn of the year 2012-2013! Practically this means that with Henna, we’d be working premanently in Brazil for at least a couple of years with goal to establish a permanent Yellow Office in Brazil.
Currently we have two offers going in considering projects in Brazil. The other one is for Senac, the other for Santander bank. The plan is to spend 1,5 months there, starting 31st of March. The aim is of course to deepen our customer relationship with these two organizations, make new customerships, perhaps returning another time before the end of the year, in order to make it sustainable to make the step of moving to Brazil, to be able to sustain ourselves there, to perhaps start looking for future Brazilian Monkeys(!), to create value to, and use the value that we receive from the Yellow Offices in Finland. This is of course connected to MB’s vision to be a global co-operative of 200 people by 2017.
Who wants to work with us in Brazil? Who shares the same yellow passion with us? Who are we aiming to work with? Which networks and people we don’t even know yet in São Paulo & Rio areas? What does the sentence ’sustainably live in Brazil’ mean? What will the our presence and the Yellow Office look like in Brazil? Who will be our most important customers? There are a lot of questions we want to seek answers for during the coming year of time, and after that.
One thing I know: it will happen as long as we really believe in it and work for it!
With very Brazilian yellow greetings, or in the Brazilian way, beijos e abraços,
Valtteri
