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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.

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

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

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche

Anything not worth doing well is not worth doing.”

– Warren Buffett

He who knows he has enough is rich.”

– Tao Te Ching

If people like you they’ll listen to you; if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”

– Zig Ziglar

Why am I whispering when I have something to say?”

– Eve Ensler

You must learn to be still in the midst of activity 
and to be vibrantly alive in repose.”

– Indira Ghandi

You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it.”

– Goldie Hawn

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.”

– Robert Fritz

Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask, and that’s what separates the people who do things from the people who just dream about them.”

– Steve Jobs

It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.”

– J. Kristnhamurti, The First and Last Freedom

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

– Napoleon

You’ve got to be willing to crash and burn. If you’re afraid of failing, you won’t get very far.”

– Steve Jobs

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

– Winston Churchill

If you do not tell the truth about yourself
, you cannot tell it about other people.”

– Virginia Woolf

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

– James Madison

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

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

– William Butler Yeats

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

– Leo Jozef Suenens

Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”

– Basil King

Almost anyone can start a community, but it takes real talent and commitment to get people to show up and keep coming back.”

– Andy Sernovitz

There is little success where there is little laughter.”

– Andrew Carnegie

Things don’t change. You change your way of looking, that’s all.”

– Carlos Castaneda

The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.”

– Bruce Lee

The journey is the reward.”

– Greg Norman

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

I have spent a good part of my life convincing people that a blank sheet of paper is the greatest opportunity in the world, and not frightening at all.”

– Marty Skler, executive vp, Walt Disney Imagineering

You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing.”

– Maya Angelou

Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.”

– Benjamin Disraeli

You take your life in your own hands, and what happens?
 A terrible thing: no one to blame.”

– Erica Jong

Look at everything as though you were
seeing it either for the first or last time.
Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.”

– Betty Smith

The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. The greatest failure is to not try.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.”

– Audre Lorde

Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail. There’s only make.”

– Corita Kent

Don’t wait for someone else to lead you to your right life; that privilege—and responsibility—is yours alone.”

– Martha Beck

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

– Winston Churchill

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

– Aristotle

Change is a math formula. Change happens when the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change.”

– Alan Webber, author, "Rules of Thumb"

Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now.”

– Jack Kerouac

Friendship is the only cement that will hold the world together.”

– Woodrow Wilson

When a dog runs at you, whistle for him.”

– Henry David Thoreau

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

– William James

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.”

– Albert Schweitzer

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it”

– Andrew Carnegie

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

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.”

– Joseph Addison

Some things are destined to be—it just takes us a couple of tries
to get there.”

– J.R. Ward, Lover Mine

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

– A wisdomism

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

– Dalai Lama

Remember that it’s okay to ask for help when you’re stumped, because sometimes you really can’t be expected to handle everything alone.”

– Martha Beck

    Articles by Ana Dutra