In this Business Blast podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews Renato Sant Anna, a digital transformation and insights consultant from Brazil. Renato recounts his career journey, beginning with a background in infrastructure and IT before a 2010 pivot to marketing and finance while studying English in the United States. He earned an MBA in marketing, worked at Universal Music on ringtone sales and the launch of iTunes in Brazil, then moved to Nextel where he set up the company’s e‑commerce platform. Throughout these roles he deepened his data expertise via MOOCs (edX, Coursera, MIT) and a Kaggle competition for the New York Times, describing himself as a “polymath” who blends quantitative and qualitative analysis. Renato explains his consulting approach: diagnosing C‑level pain, aggregating open‑source, social, and proprietary data, and crafting business‑focused insights. When asked about happiness, he emphasizes curiosity, solitude, inspiration, and the importance of being comfortable with oneself before helping others. He mentions his favorite reading material—Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and a biography of Benjamin Franklin. Finally, Renato shares how listeners can connect with him online, highlighting an active LinkedIn presence, Portuguese‑to‑English article translations, contributions to Data Science Central, and a Medium profile, noting his large network and openness to messages.
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Here. Awesome. All right. So everyone, welcome to the Business Blast podcast. Tyler Wagner here, your host, and today I have Mr. Renato with us. And before we dive in, I'll give you a little introduction about Mr. Renato. He is a digital transformation an insights consultant who worked during many years for different international companies and digital agencies in Brazil, uh, with a focus on generating actionable insights about consumer behavior on digital channels. So welcome to the show, man.
Thank you, Tyler Wagner Wagner. I'm very glad to be in your, in your podcast.
Absolutely, man. We're glad to have you on. So, um, the first question, man, that we ask on this show, and I'm excited for your answer on this one because you have a lot of experience So the first one is, is, is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
I think it's my career path. I, during many years, I worked in infrastructure, computing, routers, servers, and the IT departments, but In 2010, I decided to change my career. So I changed to— when I finished my graduation in computer engineering, I went to United States to LA, Miami, and Boston to study English. During this time, I started studying finance, marketing, and come back to Brazil in June The middle of 2010, I started studying an MBA in marketing here in Brazil. Long after, I worked for Universal Music. So for almost 2 years, I had the experience to work with ringtones, you know, the— some years ago, you had the— when you call someone, you have the ringtones. Yeah. I used to study the sales data and generate market intelligence reports. After that, I happened with the introduction of iTunes in Brazil because I was kind of responsible in the project to set up all the portfolio for the Universal Music for the iTunes in Brazil. I stayed there for almost 2 years and after This time I thought the digital marketing is becoming bigger and bigger and bigger, and I started studying analytics. So Google Analytics, uh, uh, automated with ads, uh, Facebook. After that, I started working for, uh, Nextel here in Brazil. It's a telecom company, uh, so I was responsible at the time for, say, set up the e-commerce of them here. I had a little experience also in LinkedIn, obviously in Brazil, was a contractor. So it was kind of a market research project at the time.
Gotcha.
During this period, I become in contact with big data. So I started doing many courses, edX, Coursera, I did one course at the time at MIT. And I was my first Kaggle competition, you know, Kaggle. So about 3,000 people in the world with R, I was kind of 2,000 something in the place. So we had a New York Times competition. So you had to predict what article was the type, what kind of the category of the article of New York Times. So it is using analytics. It's a very interesting thing. But just to make a context, I like to work with data analysis, but I'm a very qualitative and quantitative person. So I try to do, we call this a polymath. A person that kind of can deal with many different things, and I try to put all in context. So I work with business scenarios when here in Brazil, when I do my consulting, I try to understand what, what's the, the, the C-level, the, the pain, what the customer pain, what's, what's the problem that the company the challenge the company is facing. So I try to contextualize, I do some research, many different data, open data, social media data. I try to understand all the things related with the business problem. And I try to make scenarios in order to generate business insights to my clients.
Got it. So you're the data man.
That's right.
You're the data man.
Yeah. I like— I'm not the kind of the data engineering. I would be more the business project, the project, the big data project person.
Gotcha. Yeah. So, um, you kind of answered a lot of the questions that I was going to ask next, so I'm going to skip a few. You told us a lot about you, about your industry. So my next one for you, because I'm going to skip some of the business-related ones because you kind of covered it, is in your opinion, and it kind of feels like a curveball now because it's so different, in your opinion, what's the key to happiness? So give us some life advice now that you've given us.
I'm a very curious person. So in my— you can see many books here behind me.
Yes.
I like to understand what happens in the world. I like to understand the customer. I like to study what is related with decision-making. In my case, I'm happy when I am helping someone. But in order to help someone, I need to be It's very important for me to be inspired. I like to inspire others, but I need to be in a state of mind. It's very important. I don't know, it's a kind of mindset. For me, I'm a very espiritual person. So— Me too. I like a lot to write articles. I like to share knowledge. I become a machine of writing articles. I do it sometimes. But in order to do that, I need to be in a peaceful place. I need to be alone sometimes. I like to think just myself. Today, one of the big challenges of humanity is to be— is loneliness. But I think you have to be okay to yourself. You have to— one of the secrets of happiness, I think, is you'll be okay with yourself. Okay, it's okay to be alone. Okay, but when you are good with you, you can share with others and others can connect with you. So the people say, what? So this is 'Cool, I want to know about this person, what did this person do? I can identify myself.' So many people get to me about my articles. They Google about transformation, they Google something about what I write about innovation, and the people get to me, 'Hey, we can go to the next Starbucks here in São Paulo, Paulista Avenue.' I think it is one of the points Yeah, I know a lot of Miami. Collins Avenue, Lincoln Avenue, the Sotheby's.
You gotta come visit, man.
Yeah, yeah, I have a closing also near Fort Lauderdale. So I stay at two homes in Miami, Miami Beach.
Yeah, dude, I love Miami.
What happens in Miami stays in Miami.
Absolutely. So my whole life stays.
I know.
So I have my next question for you. What's your favorite book that you've read? Do you have one favorite?
The audio is kind of— the audio was good. What's my favorite? What? Sorry?
Yeah, no, is that— Oscar Wilde, did you say?
I didn't understand the question, sorry.
Oh, what's your favorite book that you've read?
My brands? I think I like a lot Apple, Microsoft.
Oh no, favorite book.
Ah, book, book.
Yeah, your favorite book, the best book.
I would say "Sottislu: The Art of War," maybe. It's very difficult. I like to study very everything related with consumer behavior, branding. But I think— I like a lot of Benjamin Franklin biography.
Got it, okay. So yeah, really man, the next one I got for you is where can our audience best find and connect with you online? I'm assuming it's LinkedIn, so where can they connect with you?
Yeah, I'm very active at LinkedIn. Each month I post something. I also have a page, a part of myself where I put my Portuguese articles. I'm starting translating my, my, my Portuguese articles to English.
Okay.
Recently I put an article about this AI strategy in Data Science Central. Also in Medium, I have my, some articles in English at Medium. Got you. But I'm very open, I'm very reachable. Anyone can send me a message. I already have 30,000 connections, but nice, that's amazing. I'm at 5,000, so when a person sends me a message, usually I, I, uh, I try to be the more responsible, the less time possible.
Absolutely, man. Well, so you all heard it. Um, if you want to, uh, connect with Mr. Renato, do it through LinkedIn. And I appreciate you coming on again, man.
Thank you very much, Tyler. Thank you. Thank you again.
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