The rest of the 100 (in alphabetical order): Thais Perico Sousa, BASF Venture Capital

Thais Perico Sousa works as a mergers and acquisitions manager at BASF Venture Capital, the Germany-based chemicals company’s €175m ($200m) corporate venturing unit. In this role, she looks to invest in growth and innovation opportunities for BASF in South America through M&A deals and partnerships with startups.

With six years of experience in financial and business development, Sousa is conversant with M&A, finance and strategy focused on business growth, valuation of companies using several methodologies, such as discounted cashflow, comparable company analysis, precedent transactions analysis and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation multiple.

Before joining BASF Venture Capital in June 2018, Sousa was a business development manager at Spain-headquartered casino operator Codere’s Brazil-based subsidiary. Proficient in English, Spanish and Portuguese, she oversaw the Madrid-listed gaming company’s greenfield investment project in Sao Paulo.

Before that, Sousa was a new business development analyst at Brazil-based conglomerate Votorantim Group’s energy unit Votorantim Energia. She collaborated with its accounting team to design the new business unit’s accounting, tax optimisation and financial area structuring. She started her career as an analyst at Brazil-based private equity firm Pátria Investimentos, executing financial advisory mandates, mainly buying and selling companies in the infrastructure, energy, engineering and information technology sectors.

Edison Fu

Edison Fu is a reporter and Asia liaison at Global Corporate Venturing.