• Columnists

Ana Dutra, Leadership Expert

COLUMN = LEADERSHIP

Ana Dutra is the CEO of Mandala Global Advisors, a company she recently founded, and a senior global advisor for Humantelligence, a technology solutions company. She has 28 years of experience as a global executive, consultant, and business leader in industries such as technology, manufacturing, and professional services. In the last six years as the CEO of Korn/Ferry Leadership and Talent Consulting, Dutra created a $300 million new global business through a combination of organic growth, multiple acquisitions, innovative go-to-market approaches, and incorporation of technology and digitalization of products and services.

A Brazilian native with more than 20 years of experience in P&L management, business growth, and C-Level business consulting in more than 30 countries, Dutra is also a director on the boards of the Executives Club of Chicago, the International Women Forum, Children’s Memorial Hospital of Chicago, Governor State University, and Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL).

Dutra holds an MBA from Kellogg, a Master in Economics from Pontificia Universidade do Rio de Janeiro, and a Juris Doctor from Universidade do Rio de Janeiro, all summa cum laude. Fluent in four languages—Portuguese, English, Spanish, and French—she lives in Northfield, IL, with her husband, their three daughters, and their German Shepherd.

For more information, click here to contact Ana Dutra.

Confidence is the most important thing you can teach someone… if you can teach them confidence, you don’t have to teach them anything else.”

– Vin Diesel

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are perfectionists. We are hungry to work all the time. We are entertained by every aspect of business and we never want to stop working.”

– Suzy Welch

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try going to sleep with a mosquito in your room.”

– A wisdomism

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

– Charles Darwin

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

– William Butler Yeats

The music is all around us. All you have to do is listen.”

– August Rush

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. 
Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.”

– Mary Jean Irion

We never know how high we are
 till we are called to rise;
 And then, if we are true to plan,
 Our statures touch the skies.”

– Emily Dickinson

Women once had the goal of being Superwoman; I think most of us now simply strive to have a super day.”

– Author, Activist Lee Woodruff

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.“


– Roy Ash, co-founder of Litton Industries

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”

– JFK

Speaking more than one language is no longer just an asset in today’s job market; it is a requirement.”

– Tom Adams, CEO, Rosetta Stone

I’m not afraid of storms,
for I’m learning to sail my ship.”

– Louisa May Alcott

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”

– Henry Miller

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”

– Jimi Hendrix

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche

My task is really not to change myself but to become familiar with who I am.”

– Maureen Cook

You may ask me for anything you like except time.”

– Napoleon

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

– Carl Rogers

We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”

– Winston Churchill

A people who mean to be their Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

– James Madison

Never never never never give up.”

– Winston Churchill

Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what nurtures creative thinking.”

– Anita Roddick, founder, The Body Shop

The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Chuck E. Cheese's

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

The great use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.”

– William James

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. 
Now put foundations under them.”

– Henry David Thoreau

Don’t follow, lead. Don’t copy, create. Don’t start, finish. Don’t sit still, move. Don’t fit in, stand out. Don’t sit quietly, speak up. (Not all the time, sure, but more often.)”

– Seth Godin

But all the while I was alone, the past was close behind, I seen a lot of women, but she never escaped my mind, and I just grew, tangled up in blue.”

– Bob Dylan

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.”

– Steve Jobs, Apple, Inc.

A lot of people have ideas, but few decide to do something about them now. Not next week. But today.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Atari

Our deepest wishes are whispers of our authentic selves. We must learn to respect them. We must learn to listen.”

– Sarah Ban Breathnach

Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences.”

– J.K. Rowling

The person who makes a success of living is the one who see his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.”

– Cecil B. DeMille

A man without a smiling face
 should not open a shop.”

– Chinese Proverb

You only live once. But if you do it right, once is enough.”

– Mae West

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”

– Leo Jozef Suenens

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

– Anais Nin

There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.”

– Christopher Morley

Do you believe it is important to give back some portion of your wealth to support charitable causes?”

– Steven Schussler

If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more.
 If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.”

– Oprah Winfrey

Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.”

– Thomas Dunn

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.”

– Bob Dylan

I will pay more for the ability to deal with people than any other ability under the sun.”

– John D. Rockefeller

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity.”

– Ray Bradbury

Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.”

– Albert Einstein

It is possible to fail in many ways…while to succeed is possible only in one way.”

– Aristotle

    Articles by Ana Dutra