Ademicon CEO rejects leadership behind closed doors
Tatiana Schuchovksy
Gabriel Reis/Valor
Before taking charge of one of Brazil’s largest consortium administrators, Tatiana Schuchovsky taught tap dancing. Her career changed in 1996, when she visited Ademilar, a pioneer in real estate consortium plans in which her father held a 7% stake, and became fascinated with the business. That same year, he acquired control of the company. Three decades later, she heads Ademicon, a holding company created in 2020 through a merger with Conseg, which specialized in vehicle consortium plans. The group now has 334 units across 24 states.
“I have always enjoyed being an entrepreneur,” Schuchovsky told Stela Campos, Valor’s careers editor, and Thiago Barbosa, CBN’s digital products manager, on the “CBN Professional” podcast. As a child during a period of hyperinflation, she sold Japanese gummy candies around the neighborhood from a supply her mother had stockpiled. At 17, she persuaded her father to turn a family-owned lot into a parking area and distributed flyers throughout the neighborhood until a resident rented the entire property as additional parking for an apartment building. She also danced and, at age 13, a Curitiba school invited her to teach tap dancing to children.
During her visit to Ademilar, which had four employees, the company’s director gave her a list of members newly selected to receive consortium credit that month and asked her to notify them by phone, when telegrams took 48 hours to arrive. The emotion she heard on the other end of the line convinced her that the business genuinely helped people.
While studying business administration, she brought what she learned in class into the office. For example, she asked where the company’s after-sales department was. It did not exist, so she took on the role. She did the same with marketing and, over time, worked in collections and finance. Today, the company has approximately 500 corporate employees and 18,000 sales professionals in a network structured through brand licensing.
Schuchovsky attributes part of her trajectory to the trust she received at age 18. “He helped guide me and was always a mentor throughout my journey,” she said of her father. Schuchovsky recalled tracking what the family owed and how much money came in each day. Her motivation, she said, “was to provide my parents with a comfortable life.”
At her first industry conference in São Paulo, she opened the door and counted three women in the audience. She believes she was well received because she offered a product almost no one else handled. “I always faced more challenges because I was young than because I was a woman,” she said. Age became an obstacle when hiring, as professionals in their 30s or 40s hesitated to report to a younger boss. Initially, she built a team of women. Women now make up 64% of the workforce, and she said hiring is based on competence. The experience left her with respect for younger professionals and a phrase she once heard from a company executive. “Tati, gray hair and brightly colored hair are what produce results,” she recalled with amusement.
Staying close to people became a defining feature of her leadership style. “I cannot lead while sitting in my chair behind a closed office door,” she said.
Schuchovsky said she needs to spend time with the sales team and visit stores because each region of Brazil operates differently. Without that contact, she argued, it is impossible to define the company’s next steps or provide the support teams need. “My business is based on people,” she said. Because she cannot visit every store, the company invests in regional events and larger gatherings, including a 35th-anniversary celebration that brought 8,500 people to Curitiba, where the company is headquartered. Online communication, a legacy of the pandemic, complements those efforts, and the executive team meets every Thursday from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. to coordinate the week’s priorities.
The most difficult moment of her career came in 2015, she said. Dissatisfied with the sales representative model, which failed to create a connection with the brand, she spent a year developing a franchise system. Once it was ready, she presented the project to the Brazilian Franchising Association (ABF) and was told that a financial institution could not franchise its brand. A lawyer proposed converting the project into a licensing system without royalty payments, which she described as “the best decision.” The network expanded at a time when many branches were closing, and the company aims to end the year with 350 units, according to the CEO.
The merger with Conseg was signed on March 9, 2020, one week before the country shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Schuchovsky said the merger created a culture that belonged to neither company. She compared the process to motherhood. When her first child was born, she was advised to fit the baby into her existing routine, but on the first day she realized that she would need to create new practices. “That is how it has to be with Ademicon now,” she said.
The habit of serving fruit in the afternoon came from Conseg, while Ademilar contributed the longer workday—the other, smaller company ended its business day an hour earlier. Working with the team, Schuchovsky established four pillars: thinking big, keeping an open mind, embracing an entrepreneurial mindset, and creating a chain of good. The combined group became Brazil’s largest independent consortium administrator, with no ties to banks.
Asked what advice she wished she had received at the beginning of her career, Schuchovsky pointed to partnerships. “We cannot do everything alone,” she said. Looking at a problem from several perspectives accelerates progress, she noted—a lesson that took her time to absorb. Her recommendation for new leaders is direct: “Bring in people who are better than you.”
In the full podcast episode, available on CBN’s website, Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and the Valor and CBN YouTube channels, Schuchovsky also discusses how artificial intelligence has supported the company’s growth.
Translation: Todd Harkin
