Why technology leadership remains so far removed from Brazil's diversity

Black and mixed-race individuals make up 35% of the IT workforce in Brazil but hold less than 17% of director-level positions.

*Bruno Bolivar

For a long time, I didn't realize how unlikely my trajectory was.

As a Black man, the son of a seamstress and a welder, both with incomplete elementary education, I grew up in a reality very different from the one I now find in boardrooms, international events, and executive technology forums I participate in. My parents never had the opportunity to complete their studies. Life demanded other priorities from them, such as working and supporting the household, hoping that their children would have opportunities they themselves did not have.

Even without diplomas or prominent positions, they taught me something that would completely change the course of my life, and from a very young age, I learned that education was the way to transform our reality.

I studied in public schools and grew up in the periphery. There were no shortcuts, influential surnames, or open doors. What existed was the conviction that studying could take me further than the previous generations of my family. It was this belief that accompanied me throughout my life.

Through my studies, I entered the technology sector, an industry that completely transformed my career and, along with it, my family's prospects. Certifications, continuous specialization, and over fifteen years of professional experience followed, moving through different roles until reaching executive positions.

Today, when I participate in strategic meetings or lead teams responsible for millions of reais in business, I often realize that I continue to be an exception. And the numbers show that this perception is still far from being just a personal impression.

A survey by the consulting firm Diversitera, released in 2024, revealed that only 1% of senior leadership positions in Brazil are held by Black individuals, while white professionals hold 84.1% of these positions.

In the technology sector, which is always associated with innovation and the ability to anticipate changes, the reality is not much different. The Brasscom Diversity Census shows that Black and Brown individuals represent 35% of the workforce in ICT companies, but hold only 16.8% of director and managerial positions. Therefore, there is a significant difference between the composition of the sector's base and who reaches decision-making spaces.

This gap cannot be explained solely by the lack of representation in companies. It begins much earlier. The Brasscom survey itself indicates that there is a higher concentration of Black professionals in the North, Northeast, and Central-West regions, while we know that a large part of the opportunities and the headquarters of technology companies remain concentrated in the Southeast region of the country. In this context, for many professionals, social mobility almost always also requires geographical mobility.

At the same time, the sector faces another recurring challenge: the talent shortage. Technology companies often report numerous difficulties in hiring and training qualified professionals, but still concentrate a large part of recruitment in the same urban centers, the same universities, and the same networking circles. This reduces the ability to find talents that already exist but remain distant from the environments where opportunities usually circulate.

My trajectory is the result of the value placed on education within my family, the work of public school teachers who believed in their students' potential, and the possibility of accessing a career that, decades ago, wasn't even part of my parents' reality. But it also shows that stories like this are still seen as exceptions when they should be much more common.

Technology has profoundly changed the way companies operate, how people communicate, and how society produces knowledge. The sector has always found ways to overcome technical limitations and create business models. The challenge now may be to ensure that this capacity for transformation is also reflected in the people who occupy leadership positions.

To be fair, it is worth noting that signs of progress already exist. According to Brasscom, between December 2023 and June 2024, the presence of Black women in ICT companies grew by 7.3%, while the presence of Black men increased by 6%. But statistical growth does not mean that the problem is solved.

When I look back, I see the distance traveled and I am very proud of it. But I also wonder how many talents remain outside those boardrooms because they never had access to the same opportunities. If technology intends to build the future, perhaps it is time to ensure that this future resembles more the Brazil that exists outside the companies.