Marcos Fava Neves is an international expert on global agribusiness issues and a part-time professor of planning and strategy in the University of São Paulo School of Business and FGV Business School in Brazil. He graduated as an agronomic engineer from ESALQ/USP and earned his master’s degree and doctorate in management from the FEA/USP School of Economics and Business. Marcos completed postgraduate studies in European agribusiness at ESSEC-IGIA in France and in chains/networks at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. In 2013, he came to Purdue University as a visiting international professor where he maintains linkage as a permanent international adjunct professor. Since 2006, Marcos has also served as an international professor at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Marcos has specialized in strategic-planning processes for companies and food chains and serves as a board member for both public and private organizations, including more than 10 international boards over the past 15 years. In 2004, he created the “Markestrat Think Tank” with his business partners, which now employs over 60 people working on international projects, studies and research in strategic planning and management for more than 250 agri-food business organizations. Some of these projects were important in suggesting public policies for food chains that were implemented in Brazil with economic and social impacts.
In 2008, Marcos became CEO of Brazil’s second-largest biofuel holding company, a position he occupied until returning to the University of São Paulo and Markestrat in 2009. He has also advised over 30 doctorate dissertations and master’s theses. Marcos has helped to provide around 1,200 undergraduate degrees in business administration by teaching approximately 120 courses to undergraduate students at the University of São Paulo.
Strongly focused on supplying simple and effective methods for business, Marcos has published more than 100 articles in international journals and has been an author and editor of 63 books by 10 different publishers in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, South Africa, Singapore, Netherlands, China, the United Kingdom and the United States. He is also a regular contributor for China Daily Newspaper and has written two case studies for Harvard Business School, one for Purdue and five for Pensa/University of São Paulo. Marcos is recognized as the Brazilian academic with the largest number of international publications about orange juice and sugar cane chains and one of the top three most cited Brazilian authors in the area of food and agribusiness. He has reached more than 5,000 citations in the Google Scholar index.
Marcos is an active speaker and has received 150 recognitions from Brazilian and international organizations. He is considered a “Fellow” of the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association.
Coming from a family of farmers, Marcos is a worldwide defender of agriculture and farmer’s roles in the development of society. Together with his parents, Marcos is one of the creators and maintainers of Mucapp, a non-governmental organization that has built more than 450 houses for families in Brazil facing unfavorable conditions over the last two decades. He and his wife, Camilla, have three children: Beatriz, Julia and Cecilia. Marcos also enjoys sports and classic cars.