Vivi Quiessi: Redefining Success Through Humanized Leadership and Purpose-Driven Empowerment

Redefining Success Through Humanized Leadership and Purpose-Driven Empowerment

In a business world often weighed down by metrics, efficiency and bottom-line imperatives, Viviane Quiessi stands out for a different reason: she is transforming what it means to lead. Known widely as “Vivi Quiessi,” she is an executive, mentor and advocate for what might be called humanized leadership and purpose-driven empowerment. At a time when the meaning of work is under scrutiny and leadership crises abound, her story offers a compelling model.

From Manager to Mentor: Her Story

Viviane entered a challenging environment: the construction industry in Brazil, a field still heavily male-dominated. According to a profile by CIESP Jundiaí, she joined Construtora Santa Angela in 2016 with a mission to perform strategic analysis and identify improvement opportunities.
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Over time she moved up the ranks, becoming Executive Administrative Manager—and along the way championing major cultural and organisational shifts, including the creation of a human-resources department, and securing the “Great Place to Work” certification in 2024 for the company.
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What marks her path is not that she simply rose in rank, but that she did so by transforming how leadership was practised: from command-and-control to empathy, from top-down to team-empowered. Her own personal story further underscores this: she openly addresses having experienced a panic syndrome, which became a catalyst for her deeper commitment to workplace wellbeing and human-centred leadership.
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Core Principles of Her Leadership Philosophy

1. Human-centred leadership
Viviane emphasises that leadership must attend to the whole person — not just their productivity or output. She highlights the recent rewriting of Brazil’s regulation NR‑1 (Norma Regulamentadora No.1) as a turning point: the new text underscores that psychosocial risks (stress, harassment, imbalance) are organisational risks, not just individual ones. In her article for JundiAqui, she clarifies:

“A liderança humanizada não é mais uma tendência, é uma necessidade estratégica e urgente.”
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2. Empowerment of teams – building self-managed units
At Construtora Santa Angela, she implemented a methodology of self-managed teams and prioritised the “autogestão” (self-management) of her people. This empowers individuals, flattens hierarchies and fosters intrinsic motivation rather than mere compliance.
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3. Purpose & equity over pure profit
While business metrics remained important, Viviane pushed for corporate culture to include equity (gender inclusion), well-being and safety. Notably, at her company 50 % of the deliberative board is composed of women—even without a formal gender-equity policy, the culture is designed to uplift women into leadership.
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4. Transparency about vulnerability
Her openness about her own mental-health journey (panic syndrome) is a rare trait among executives. It reinforces the idea that leaders are people too—and that acknowledging and managing one’s vulnerabilities can be a strength, not a liability.
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Major Impacts & Milestones

Under her leadership, the company achieved the Great Place to Work (GPTW) certification in 2024—demonstrating that her humanised leadership approach translated into measurable employee-experience outcomes.
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She currently oversees more than 50 direct reports and is one of only three women among the four top executives—further underlining her role in breaking barriers in a traditional industry.
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She has been featured publicly for her insights on leadership, workplace culture and the importance of taking responsibility for psychosocial and relational risks at work (as in her piece on NR-1).
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Why Her Approach Matters – Especially Now

Addressing mental health and workplace wellbeing: The pandemic era and beyond have made clear that organisational health is not just physical safety or productivity—it’s emotional, relational and cultural. Leaders like Viviane who make this visible and structural are increasingly critical.

Culture of inclusion in male-dominated fields: Construction and infrastructure sectors remain heavily male. Viviane’s leadership shows how female executives can reshape not just gender ratios but culture and norms of engagement.

From hierarchical command to self-management: Modern business is shifting: speed, innovation and adaptability require empowered teams rather than strictly top-down directives.

Purpose as driver, not decoration: Where many organisations pay lip service to “purpose”, Viviane’s work suggests that purpose must underpin policies, culture and systems—not just be a tagline.

Modeling vulnerability as leadership strength: By being candid about her own challenges (panic syndrome), she challenges the myth of the invulnerable leader and invites authenticity—something younger generations particularly value.

Challenges & Forward Outlook

While Viviane’s approach is compelling, it comes with real challenges:

Scaling culture: As organisations grow, maintaining the same level of humanised leadership becomes increasingly difficult. Scaling self-management, empowerment and culture requires systems, training and resilience.

Balancing business and wellbeing: Choosing wellbeing and empowerment doesn’t mean ignoring profitability—but balancing investment in people with the demands of the bottom line remains a dynamic tension.

Navigating traditional industries: Construction and infrastructure sectors have deep-rooted practices, safety protocols, hierarchical norms and regulatory frameworks—it takes significant effort to shift culture at the core.

Measuring impact: While certifications like GPTW are important, the harder metrics—long-term retention, innovation rates, mental-health outcomes, etc.—require more data and longitudinal tracking.

Going forward, Viviane might:

Expand her mentoring role or formalise programs for female leaders especially in similar sectors.

Publish more widely on her leadership methodology and perhaps scale offerings (workshops, speaking engagements) globally.

Drive research or partnership around psychosocial risk management in workplaces, leveraging her NR-1 advocacy.

Lead initiatives for systemic change—e.g., gender equity, mental-health standards, self-managed teams—in her industry and beyond.

Final Reflection

Viviane Quiessi exemplifies a new kind of leadership—one grounded in empathy, empowerment and purpose, yet unabashedly business-oriented. In her hands, success is not only about growth and profitability—but about creating workplaces where people thrive, where equity is real, where culture matters, not just strategy.

For anyone seeking to redefine what leadership means in the 21st century—especially in industries that have resisted change—her story offers both inspiration and a blueprint.