Bruna Alcantara Perpetual

Bruna Alcântara Perpétuo is Vice President of People, Culture & Safety with 20 years of experience in human resources. She has a strong background in multicultural business, working with C-level leaders to build high-performance teams and foster global organizational culture. She is based in São Paulo.

For the magazine Manage HR Latin America, she shared invaluable insights on building a resilient workforce at Rumo, where safety, trust, inclusion, and leadership development drive both people well-being and long-term business growth.

1. Could you share your professional background and current responsibilities as CHRO of Rumo?

I have built my career over more than two decades leading Human Resources in large-scale industrial companies. Since joining Rumo, the largest rail logistics company in Latin America. I have been responsible for shaping a people strategy that supports our mission of transforming logistics in Brazil. As CHRO, I oversee the full HR agenda: talent acquisition and development, culture and leadership, diversity and inclusion, compensation and benefits, health and safety, and internal communications.

Currently, my priorities include strengthening Rumo’s safety culture as a core value across all operations, accelerating the leadership pipeline to prepare future executives for a rapidly transforming business, and launching Rumo Corporate University, integrated learning ecosystems designed to upskill our workforce and embed our DNA into every career journey.

2. What leadership values or practices guide you in managing complex HR priorities across a large and diverse organization?

I lead with three guiding principles: safety first, trust, and clarity of purpose. In a business as operationally complex as rail logistics, safety is non-negotiable, it informs every leadership decision. Trust allows us to build strong relationships with leaders and frontline employees, while clarity of purpose ensures that HR strategies are tied directly to business priorities.

I also emphasize data-driven decision-making combined with empathy, using analytics to understand workforce dynamics while staying close to the real experiences of our people. This approach has been fundamental to navigating cultural transformation and strengthening leadership at all levels.

3. Which trends or innovations in HR do you find most transformative for Latin America, and how are they influencing your approach at Rumo?

For Latin America, three trends stand out as transformative:

1. The digitalization of workforce learning, enabling scalable upskilling and leadership development.

2. The integration of ESG priorities, with safety, inclusion, and well-being at the center of people strategies.

3. AI-powered talent management, driving more accurate recruitment, succession planning, and engagement insights.

“At Rumo, we unite safety, trust, and purpose with innovation, building inclusive cultures, future-ready leaders, and resilient workforces to drive sustainable growth in Latin America’s logistics.”

At Rumo, we are bringing these trends to life by launching the Rumo Corporate University to accelerate technical and leadership development; embedding safety and ESG goals into every manager’s development journey; and piloting AI tools with a new platform to enhance recruitment and workforce planning. These initiatives are helping us build a resilient, future-ready workforce.

4. How do you ensure that Rumo’s HR strategies balance employee well-being, inclusion, and engagement while driving long-term business growth?

We believe that business growth and people well-being are inseparable. This philosophy guides us to: treat safety and wellbeing as business KPIs, ensuring physical and psychological health programs are deeply embedded in our daily operations, make inclusion a strategic pillar, with measurable targets across recruitment, leadership succession, and development, leverage the Rumo Corporate University to democratize access to learning, enabling employees at all levels to grow in line with the company’s transformation.

In addition to that, and a key enabler of the company’s sustainability, is executive succession. In a sector as complex as rail logistics, the availability of future-ready leaders directly impacts operational reliability, innovation, and business continuity. We are strengthening our leadership pipeline with structured succession planning and development programs for critical executive roles, combining rigorous assessment with individualized development plans. This approach ensures that we have a diverse, skilled, and purpose-driven pipeline of leaders prepared to guide Rumo through future market and technological transformations.

By combining well-being, inclusion, and robust succession strategies into the core of our HR agenda, we can sustain engagement while safeguarding the long-term growth and resilience of the business.

5. What advice would you offer to emerging HR leaders who aspire to make a lasting impact on people and organizations in the region?

Lead with curiosity, courage, and an unwavering commitment to people. To create meaningful impact in Latin America’s evolving landscape, HR leaders must understand the business deeply to connect people strategies to results, place safety, culture, and inclusion at the heart of transformation, especially in operationally intense sectors, embrace technology as a lever for scale and insight, develop leaders early, because leadership pipelines define how organizations sustain progress.

Above all, never lose sight of the human element: innovation and growth begin when people feel safe, included, and inspired.